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Gospels and Acts Scripture

Sin, Faith, and Service (Luke 17:1-10)

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Luke 17:1-10

1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”

1.  Grateful that this was assigned as a complete section due to connection between them.

2.  Sin, Faith, and Service are the interconnected themes of this passage.

3.  DISCLAIMER:  This passage is for disciples.

a.  Do not confuse the root with the fruit.

b.  If one is not already a disciple of Christ, one does not become a disciple by practicing these things.

c.  You may listen in but do not confuse that Christ has different commands for different people.

4.  Verses 1-2:  1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin

a.  There is a very specific focus here.

b.  The type of sin in question is the type where one puts a stumbling block in front of another.

c.  A little one is caused to stumble in that he is prevented from coming to Christ.

d.  It doesn’t matter if this is a child, a new disciple, or one who would be a disciple.

e.  Christ is deadly serious about this.

f.  Rom 1:32 testifies to the nature of man in the Fall.

(1)  Men want to rebel in company.

(2)  If others are sinning like me then I feel like its normal.

(3)  The more people that do it, the more likely it is that it is right.

(4)  Men and women celebrate wickedness.

g.  Christ states it is better that a millstone be hung around a man’s neck and he be drowned than that he cause a man to stumble on his way to Christ.

h.  This is not just for the non-religious but the religious.

i.  This warning is for all.

j.  Christ is dead earnest that men and women come to Him for salvation.

(1)  The person who trips another on the way or inhibits that person faces a judgment worse than drowning.

k.  What if a child asks his father:  “Who is Jesus?  Why must people believe in Jesus?  Why is Jesus the only way?”

(1)  If that father says that the child need not worry about such things, he is stumbling his child.

5.  Verses 3-4:  .3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

6.  Paul turns His attention to life within the community of faith.

a.  Note He first states:  “If your brother sins”.

b.  Quiz:  What is your duty when your brother sins?

(1)  Ignore him.

(2)  Tell the Elders.

(3)  Gossip about him.

c.  Christ states that it is our duty to rebuke a brother who sins.

d.  You may say that this is more than I bargained for in the Christian life.

e.  I don’t like him.  He offended me.  This may cause me to have to repent of sins of my own.

f.  It’s easier if I just ignore him and focus on myself. He’s not worth my time.

g.  When we refuse to rebuke a brother, we are refusing to help him.

h.  When we refuse to rebuke a brother we are refusing to love him.

i.  This person names Christ and we say in our hearts:  “This person can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.  I have neither the energy or motivation to rebuke him.”

j.  How many times does Christ forgive you in a day?

(1) You who spat in unbelief in the face of God saw that same God hanging on a Cross for your sins.

(2)  You were an enemy of God.

(3)  By faith, Christ died from your sins and gave you life.

(4)  How can you fail to love who Christ loves?

(5)  How can you fail to rebuke another and display the riches of Christ’s mercy to them?

(6)  Imagine for yourself the joy of a brother who repents for your loving rebuke and is brought by your hand back to His savior’s arms.

6.  You may say:  This is hard.

a.  Simple answer:  Of course it’s hard!

b.  Where did you ever get the silly idea that being a Christian was easy?

c.  Nothing in the Christian life is accomplished according to our strength! Nothing!

7.  The apostles had the same response as evidenced by verses 5 and 6:  5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

a.  The Apostles do not say:  Give us faith.  They believe they possess faith.

b.  They ask for an increase in faith.

(1)  They believe there is something that they have to produce within themselves to have the power to do what Christ has commanded.

c.  There is no evidence from the Scipture or the historical record that mulberry trees around Jerusalem were being cast into the sea.

d.  The mulberry tree was a symbol for something immovable.  It had roots that could live for hundreds of years.

e.  In the Scriptures, the mustard seed is used in the parables as the smallest of seeds.

(1)  Christ is saying that the smallest of faiths can do this.

f.  We could talk for hours about how people misunderstand faith.

g.  The popular notion is that faith or sincerity is what empowers us for greatness.

h.  The apostles thought like many of us:  If I just had more power of faith then I could accomplish more.

i.  But faith is not a power.

j.  It is not the nature of our faith that is important.

k.  It is the Savior in Whom we have faith that makes all the difference in the world.

l.  People may say:  “I wish I had your faith” but the proper response is “Don’t desire my faith, desire my Savior!”

m.  Little faith gets the same Jesus that strong faith gets.

(1)  Christ is the powerful one.

(2)  Christ is our King Who subdues sin and temptation.

(3)  Christ is the fountainhead of all our blessings.

(4)  Faith is an act of trusting and clinging to the strong Savior.

n.  Christ is reminding His disciples that He has the power to grant what He commands.

o.  Looking within for power will always lead to failure but when we trust that Christ is powerful we can do all things through Him because He is powerful to do all things.

8.  Christ closes with this parable:   7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”

a.  Christ knows our hearts.

b.  We may find ourselves, in Christ, forgiving and being forgiven.

c.  We may find ourselves serving others.

d.  Our indwelling sin convinces us that our service merits a reward for our hard work.

(1)  Even in the military, there is an expectation that we’ll get a medal at the end of our service when pay is our due.

e.  In the parable

(1)  The man is not very rich, has one servant.

(2)  The servant works in the field all day and then must change his clothes to make dinner for his employer.

(3)  The employer does not thank the servant for working in the fields.

(4)  The master does not thank the servant for making him a meal.

(5)  That is what he hired the servant for.

f.  We’ve been bought with a price.  The blood of Christ.

g.  Christ stormed the dungeons of sin and death by defeating the enemy who had us in bondage to sin and death.

h.  He have us new clothes to wear, put a ring on our hand, and called us His brother.

i.  We, who were enemies of God, have been adopted as God’s children.  We are precious in God’s sight and Christ conquers every foe that comes our way to destroy us.

j.  We are held tight in the grip of the Savior and He powerfully showers us with gifts for service in His kingdom.

k.  How can we look within and say:  “Christ, look how wonderful I am, you really are lucky to have me as your brother.  I’ve earned more blessings from you hand.”

9.  The story doesn’t end here.

a.  Christ does say to His servants:  “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

b.  Here, however, He is reminding us to not fix our eyes within ourselves but to fix our eyes outward to amazing grace.

c.  By grace you have been saved and are being transformed daily by the renewing of your mind.

d.  Be thankful and grateful always and realize that we are only doing that which God has gifted us with.

10.  Are you on the outside looking in?

a.  Perhaps you don’t know the reality I’ve been speaking about.

b.  If Christ is not your Savior and Lord then these are not the first verses you need to hear from Christ.

c.  Perhaps you feel the burden of your sin.  It oppresses you and you feel yourself alienated from God.

d.  Christ commands that you look up on the Cross.

e.  Christ did not come into the world to condemn for the world has already been judged for its cosmic rebellion against God.

f.  Christ calls you to look up on the cross and believe that He has put the power of sin to death on the Cross.  Believe upon Christ and all your many sins have been put to death with Him.

g.  Christ calls that you look at the empty tomb.

h.  Christ has conquered death by His indestructible life and proved Himself to be the Son of God.  All authority in heaven and earth is His.

i.  Look at Christ and believe that He has risen from the dead by His power.

j.  Cling to His feet.  He is your only hope in this life and the next.  You will be united to His indestructible life that gives you life and safeguards you as His own for eternity.

k.  Christ will conquer sin and temptation in your heart as He makes you into a new creation.

l.  Look up and believe that Christ has ascended on high and sit as the right hand of the Father.

m.  There He ever lives to pray for those who believe upon Him and conquers all His enemies.

11.  Believe upon Christ that you may be freed from sin!

12.  Believe upon Christ that He might free you to love your neighbor and to tell other hungry beggars where the bread of life is to be found!

13.  Believe upon Christ not because you have a mighty faith but because Christ is a mighty Savior!

Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

The Living Bread from Heaven (John 6)

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John 6:1-15

1After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

  • Where we pick up the story, Christ has already been rejected in Judea.
  • He is now in Galillee and will be rejected here.
  • He has already performed many signs and wonders. Belief is unacceptable.
  • A crowd gathers and Christ commands Philip to get them something to eat.
  • Philip performs a calculation that it will take about a year’s salary to feed them.
  • Christ provides not according to human calculation but by His own power. A lesson that His Apostles ought to know by now.
  • He feeds the multitude and they are excited.
  • The people correctly perceive that Christ is the Prophet that Moses foretold in Deut 18.
  • They incorrectly perceive the mission of that Prophet and Messiah.
  • They desire to make Him their King.
  • They expect, by their understanding, that the Messiah will kick out the Romans and usher in a golden age.
  • They are ready to make Christ their King by force according to their expectation that Christ will be a political conqueror and usher in goodness and plenty for their physical lives.
  • Christ withdraws, as He does so often, because He refuses to be the kind of Messiah that men expect and will only be the kind of Messiah that they need.

John 6:16-21

16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

    • Much could be said here.
    • I want you to hear this portion so we don’t lose the flow of the account.
    • It’s enough to note that Christ and His disciples were now in Capernaum the next day.

John 6:22-27

22 On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

    • The people noticed Christ was no longer in the place where they had their bellies filled.
    • They went to Capernaum seeking Jesus.
    • Notice that Christ has thousands of followers Who are excited about them.
    • One might think He’s going to do everything in His power to keep them as followers.
    • Instead He rebukes them.
    • He identifies that their motivation for following Him is that He gave them bread to fill their stomachs.
    • He instructs them that they’re seeking the wrong thing from Him.
    • Christ is in their midst to give them eternal life and they only want enough food to make it through the day.
    • He’s calling them to faith and repentance.
    • Do they understand Him?
    • No.

 

John 6:28-34

28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” 32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

    • There appears to be eagerness to follow Christ and “do the works of God.”
    • Christ answers them that it is not their works that is critical.
    • It is the work of God that they need.
    • The work of God is that they would believe in Christ Whom the Father sent.
    • Do they understand?
    • No. They challenge him for a sign. They challenge Him to show more works.
    • The heart of idolatry is always more interested in the effects of a living God.
    • What the heart of idolatry does not desire is to truly worship the living God.
    • They call Christ’s attention to the provision of Manna in the desert.
    • Interestingly, they are on to something here because Christ’s provision here is John 6 is much like the provision of manna in the desert.
    • But the thing they miss is that they’re always interested in stopping at the sign.
    • They cannot perceive what the manna pointed to.
    • They cannot perceive what Christ’s provision of bread pointed to.
    • Christ is the true bread of heaven.
    • Everything important is standing in front of them.
    • Everything that manna and bread signified is fulfilled in their midst.
    • Do they understand?
    • No. They want the sign. They want bread.

 

John 6:35-42

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

    • Christ now tells them plainly what the bread has signified.
    • It has pointed to Him.
    • He has come in power and majesty.
    • He has plainly performed signs and wonders before their eyes to testify of His authority.
    • He has come down from heaven to give eternal life.
    • He has come to satisfy their hunger forever by His provision.
    • He has come to satisfy their thirst forever by His provision.
    • All who come to Him in faith will possess eternal life through His provision.
    • Yet it is not of man’s own doing that they will come to Him.
    • As we’ve already seen, the fleshly mind is in slavery to sin.
    • It can only perceive earthly things. It can only perceive concerns of itself and the world.
    • The Father must give people to Christ that they might come to Him.
    • Supernatural work is needed for the people to come to Christ.
    • And as surely as they come, the Son receives and holds on to all of them.
    • None shall be lost.
    • All who come to Him will be raised again with Him on the last day.
    • Do the Jews understand?
    • Do they perceive?
    • No.
    • Why?
    • Because the Father has not given them to the Son.
    • They are still stumbling in the blindness of sin in Adam.
    • So blind are they that they grumble before the living God as their forefathers grumbled in the desert.
    • They rebuke and ridicule Christ for saying that He is the bread come down from heaven.
    • Again, all their understanding is wrapped up in earthly things. This man is not bread.
    • This man is not from heaven.
    • We saw Him grow up in Nazareth.

 

John 6:43-52

43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

  • Notice Christ’s response.
  • He is pointing out the blindness I just underlined.
  • He knows very well they cannot perceive spiritual things.
  • He rebukes them for grumbling and again points out that the reason they are unable to perceive is that Father draws them to Christ.
  • Christ did not come to be understood according to the world’s understanding.
  • The world is captive to sin and its thinking is hostile to the mind of God.
  • God, by the power that created the world, needs to drag men into the Kingdom for they will never do so in their sinful state.
  • God, in His power, needs to conquer the sin that reigns men’s thinking that they may perceive Christ as the One sent by the Father.
  • And all who come by the Father’s power will be saved by the Son.
  • Christ reminds the people that they are just like their forefathers who could only perceive physical food in the desert.
  • The food fed them for the day but they all perished outside of the Promised land.
  • They perished because they never combined the food they received with the eyes of faith to look upon the Provider of that food.
  • Here, again, the true spiritual food that will give them eternal life is in their midst and they refuse to believe upon Him.
  • Christ tells them that He’s given His Body up for spiritual life.
  • His flesh will be that which provides the power for salvation.
  • All who look to His flesh, His sacrifice, for provision, will possess eternal life.
  • Do the Jews understand?
  • Do they perceive?
  • No.
  • They accuse Christ of cannibalism.
  • All they can understand is flesh.
  • All they can understand is bread.
  • How can a man give his flesh to eat?
  • He cannot according to the thinking of the world.

 

John 6:53-59

53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

    • Christ is not content to leave them unoffended.
    • He speaks again clearly of spiritual things they cannot perceive.
    • He does so in a way that confirms to the fleshly mind the worst possible thing.
    • All they can hear is flesh, blood, bread, drink.
    • Christ is offering Himself.
    • He is laying forth the mission of the Messiah to save by His body and blood.
    • All who look to Him will be saved.
    • The Passover is at hand and Christ is clearly alluding to the Passover flesh that signifies Him.
    • These same people will soon eat the flesh of a lamb that is a mere shadow of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
    • Yet, they will not perceive the sign as pointing to Him.
    • Every sign is a brute object to them and they cannot perceive when the glory which it signifies is standing in their very midst.
    • Very God of very God!
    • Veiled in human flesh.
    • Come down from heaven.
    • God in a Tabernacle among them.
    • The Bread of Life sent from heaven.
    • The true Manna.
    • The Serpent lifted on a pole.
    • The Lamb of God.
    • The True Prophet.
    • The True Priest.
    • The True King.
    • Completely lost on the mind of men in slavery to sin and death.
    • O, how much we need the Father to draw us!

John 6:60-71

60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.

  • Imagine Christ giving a Church growth seminar.
  • 5000 eager disciples and that’s only counting the men.
  • Give a powerful sermon about the nature of the Gospel.
  • Offend everyone so much that only a dozen are left.
  • But Christ is well aware of what He’s doing.
  • He’s said it before and He says again that only those that the Father draws can come to Him.
  • He wants disciples Who seek Him for the provision He has come to give.
  • He’s not a coach.
  • He’s not here for your best life now.
  • His words are exclusive and ugly to the sight of men.
  • He turns now to His inner circle.
  • It’s like He’s saying: “How do you like them apples?”
  • Do you want to leave too?
  • Imagine the gall?
  • These men have left their professions for Him.
  • He had called them to be fishers of men and now most of the followers are gone.
  • “Do you want to leave as well?”
  • Take the moment in for a second. It had to give the Apostles pause.
  • This is not success as the world measures it.
  • Peter doesn’t really say: “Of course we don’t want to leave.”
  • In his reply is the hint that this didn’t sit well with anyone.
  • The Holy God makes men uncomfortable.
  • But, Beloved, Peter’s reply is exactly what Christ was after!
  • “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
  • This is hard Jesus!
  • I don’t think I understand all of this stuff.
  • You’re a hard man to follow sometimes.
  • But to Whom shall we go?!
  • We believe!
  • We believe you are the Holy One sent from God!
  • We believe that you have words of eternal life.
  • Where else is there to go?!
  • Sure, the world is more comfortable.
  • It doesn’t challenge us.
  • It doesn’t require that we give up our ambitions.
  • It doesn’t require that we depend on anyone but ourselves.
  • It doesn’t require that we be ridiculed and mocked for following some stupid Carpenter who is barely educated and talks about men eating His flesh.
  • But if we think like that then we’ll have bread for today and hunger again.
  • Lord, YOU ALONE HAVE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE!
  • I don’t understand you Lord but I KNOW YOU.
  • I’ll trust you in what I don’t understand and follow you to the bitter end.
  • I’ll believe the promise of eternal life because I’ve come to believe that Your Word can be trusted.

 

  • This, beloved, is what it looks like when the Father draws a man to the Son.
  • It’s not the quality of the man’s understanding.
  • It’s not the quality of the man’s works.
  • It is the power of the Father to draw men unto the Son by the power of His Word.
  • The man wakes up and is convinced he understands the world and reality.
  • Men are men.
  • Bread is bread.
  • Blood is blood.
  • Then, suddenly, out of the blue, the Word of God comes like a mighty conqueror.
  • It pierces the heart of men.
  • It wakes them up.
  • The world that seemed rightside up is now upside down.
  • The Savior who seems a rejected and despised failure is seen for what He truly is.
  • O, may you know the power of the saving hand of the Father to draw you to the Son.
  • May you fall down at His feet and cry: “I don’t understand it all but I’ve come to believe you are the Holy One sent from God. You alone have the words of eternal life. Save me! May I feed on your flesh. May I drink your blood. Give me the spiritual nourishment I have been lacking as I have been stumbling blindly through this world.”
  • Such a request, the Son is delighted to grant.
  • He will lay hold of you with such a strong Hand that none can pluck you out.
  • He will save you today and, on that glorious day of His return in Judgment, will raise you again on the last day!
  • Let us pray.
Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

Luke 11:14-28

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Luke 11:14-28

14 Now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” 16 while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven. 17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls. 18 And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. 19 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; 22 but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil. 23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, “˜I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”

27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

As we continue in our series through the Book of Luke, Jesus has been travelling throughout the region of Galilee teaching the people and performing signs and wonders that testify to Himself.  His followers asked how to pray and, in Luke’s Gospel, the prayer ends at “”¦lead us not into temptation”¦” but Matthew’s Gospel reads:  “”¦lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.  For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”

On the heels of this teaching, Christ encounters a man who is under the power of the evil one.  Are we not commanded to confess Christ as Lord?  Yet this man is under the power of evil and cannot speak.  By Christ’s power, however, the man is freed and the people marvel.

But not all marvel.  There are those in the crowd who have continually hounded the Savior throughout His public ministry:  the religious leaders and skeptics.  Faced with the power of God in their midst, there were those whose religious understanding made it impossible for them to conceive that Christ was teaching the things of God because He taught contrary to the teaching of their Rabbis.  They reasoned that Christ truly had power but that power could not be from God because a man from God could not teach something contrary to their understanding of the Scriptures.  Instead of having their minds transformed by the power of God, their hearts were hardened and their foolish minds darkly reasoned that Jesus must be casting out demons by the power of the demonic realm.

The others who were blind to Christ’s power were the skeptics.  Notice, in verse 16, the text reads:  “others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven.”

Do any of you find that just laughable?  Christ casts out a demon and the skeptics complain that they need a sign from heaven.  This is proof positive that no signs from Christ are sufficient to convince a foolish mind hostile to the things of God.

Christ rebukes their unbelief by pointing out something obvious:  a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.  Why, Christ asks, would Satan fight against his own kingdom?  Why would a ruler dispatch forces to destroy or defeat his own army?  It makes no sense and exposes their folly.  Thus, if Christ is casting out the kingdom of demons by the power of God then this is a demonstration that the Kingdom of God is among them.

The problem with the religious leaders and skeptics is that their minds are in bondage.  They can think.  They can reason.  Yet that thinking about spiritual things is imprisoned.  They are slaves to the way they view the world and all the power of Christ is interpreted through a distorted lens.

Yet, in a profound sense, this passage of Scripture is all about the remedy to bondage.  The Kingdom of God is in the midst of the people but they are not aware of what that power has been intended, from the beginning, to accomplish.

Christ, knowing the thoughts of the crowd, tells two parables:  the first is the parable of the Stronger Man and the second is the parable of the clean house.

In verses 21-22, Christ tells a short parable about a stronger man.  Simply put, when a strong man guards a house, the goods inside that house are safe.  Until, that is, a stronger man is able to overcome that strong man and plunder the goods.

The fascinating thing about parables is how subversive they are.  They are understandable and agreeable to common men on a certain level while a deeper meaning eludes them.  We all understand the idea that it’s good to have a strong warrior defend your castle.  You hire the best.  Yet, if a stronger foe defeats that warrior then your castle is in trouble.  The power that defends that stronghold has been overcome.

Yet, the people of Christ’s day were like many of us who measure the strength of God according to the kinds of strength that we naturally relate to.  We only think of power in its raw form and often desire it.  In a sense, this story would leave many of us with a wrong understanding that the Kingdom of God is just like political or military strength.  We’d be just like the Jews of Christ’s day who were waiting for a conquering Messiah who would free the Jews from the unclean Romans.  He would rally the Jews or use raw power to overcome the Romans and then all the good Jews would once again be a pure people in a pure land undefiled by all the evil people who were interlopers in their land.

The spiritual reality, however, is that it is all of mankind who is under bondage.  It is all of the Jews of Christ’s day and all of us who were in bondage to a strong ruler.  Sin and death have literally enslaved men since the sin of our first parents.  We assume that our thinking is right.  We assume that we see things and have common sense.  We assume that we do well and even please God.  Yet Romans 3:9-18 testifies of our true condition:

9 What then? Are we Jews any better off?  No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written:  “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.  12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”  13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”  “The venom of asps is under their lips.”  14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”  15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

The Scriptures must be talking about evil people but not me.  My feet aren’t swift to shed blood.  I’m not a gossip.  My mouth isn’t full of curses and bitterness.

I can’t see that in myself.  I know there are others that are sinful and evil but I thank God that I’m not like those sinners.  I thank God that I’m in the Church and have been taught self-government.  I thank God that I’m not a Muslim and worship a false god.  I thank God that I’m not a Democrat and support big government.

Nicodemus came to Christ in John 3 in the middle of the night and knew that Christ had power from God but he just couldn’t grasp the things that Christ was teaching.  Christ responded: “”¦truly, truly, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God”¦.”

Do you know how Nicodemus responded?

He responded, in so many words:  “I just can’t make any sense out of what you’re saying.”  In other words, Nicodemus couldn’t see.

Blindness.  Slavery.  Darkness.  Futility.

This is our condition apart from Christ.  The Kingdom of God exists all around men and they cannot perceive it.

Why?

Because men are slaves to sin.  Men are in darkness.  Their mouths cannot testify of God but are mute to the things of God.  The strong man has them locked up and guarded.  The kingdom of this world consists of those born in Adam who are hostile to the things of God.  They are under the dominion of sin and death.

In 1 Sam 17, Israel under King Saul had gathered for battle against the Philistines and the Philistines sent out their champion.  His name was Goliath.  He was a giant.  His height and the weight of his armor and weapons were terrible.  Measured by any standard, the man was born to be a warrior and he stood and challenged anyone to fight him.  He cursed God and defied any idea that there was anyone who could defeat him in battle.  The whole of Saul’s army, including the king himself, cowered in terror for days because they saw strength according to common sense.  You don’t challenge the heavyweight champion of the world to a fight to the death.

Then, one day, a young shepherd boy named David walked up to bring food from his home to his brothers.  He saw this giant come out that day and curse the living God and his response was not one of fear but of anger that any man, however big, could challenge those with the Lord on their side.  All thought him a fool.  All thought him naïve.  Yet that young boy left armor behind and walked out of the ranks armed only with a sling and some stones.

Goliath scoffed at the tiny foe before him and promised David that he would be food for the birds.  David did not walk.  David did not weave back and forth.  David ran straight ahead and would meet certain death if that stone from his sling missed its mark.  David defeated the strong man and the Philistines fled in terror.

And so, when David’s greater Son came to this earth, many probably thought it would be another tangible victory and his success would be measured in strength and power they could see.

Yet, Christ’s power was to be manifested where nobody would have expected.  Christ’s power, manifest during His public ministry, pointed to His power over the kingdom of this world.  Christ’s power testified of His humanity and that He was God come in flesh.  Yet nobody could see it.

Christ, seemingly powerless, submitted Himself to the power of death on a cross.  He died the life of a scoundrel.  He died the life of the accursed.  He died the life of a failure in the eyes of the world.

His disciples walked away disappointed because, no matter how many times He testified that the Messiah had come to die on a Cross, they could not understand.  The Romans were still in power.  The Man they thought would deliver them with power they could see lie dead and broken and in a tomb.  Jesus was not the Messiah.  So much for salvation from the Romans.

Oh, but Beloved, there was unimaginable power on display!

As Christ writhed in agony on the Cross, it was not the physical pain that was most intense but it was Christ bearing in His flesh the sins of all of His people.  Christ died and when He died, the sins of His people died with Him.  Not only so but in a way we could never expect, the power of sin was put to death on the Cross.  He did not merely pay for the sins of many but He defeated the power of sin on the Cross.

And then He was laid in a tomb.  And on the third day He rose from the dead.  Death tried to hold Him down.  Death held with all its might but behold the Man! Do you ever just think about Christ taking that first step out of the Tomb?  One small step for Man, one giant leap for all of mankind!  Death was defeated by an indestructible life.  Try as it may, Death fought with the Savior but the Stronger man overcame and plundered!

When you think of Christ’s work for you do you only reflect on his payment for your sins?  Do you struggle, thinking it’s all up to you, against the power of sin in your life?  Hear, Christian, reality as it truly is in Romans 6:  “3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

You were not looking for it because you could not see it.  You were not aware of your bondage because it was natural for you.  Yet Christ died and we who believe are baptized into that death and we who believe have risen again.  Believe upon Christ and see.  Believe, also, with your new eyes that Christ has put the power of sin to death and that your life is bound up in Him.  The mute man did not ask to speak for he could not speak.  Christ broke the power of Satan that muted his voice so that he could confess, believe, and obey.

Thus, it is that Christ says in verse  23:  “23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

There is no neutral ground with Christ.  You are either in the kingdom of sin and death and cannot see the Kingdom of God or you have been set free from its power by the Stronger Man.

Some say this is a false dilemma:  only unimaginative minds set up either-or scenarios.  “I’m neither for Christ nor against Christ.”  Some believe they speak well of Christ, affirming Him a good man and moral teacher, but there are many paths to God.  Some say that it is closed-minded to claim truth for one way and completely reject another.  Beloved, this is the philosophy of those under sin’s dominion.  If we are not for Christ it is because we are still in the clutches of sin and very much against Him.  If you take offense and reply “I don’t see it that way”, my simple response is:  “I’m quite aware that you don’t see.”

Christ then followed with a parable about the clean house in verses 24-26.  The main point here is not the nature of demons.  Christ’s point is that a man can come to taste the things of God but distorts that knowledge and limits its purpose to house cleaning.

Some of us may be that man.  We hear about the things of God and the only thing that strikes us about the Scriptures is our need to live a pure life.  We hear the preaching week in and week out and see it primarily as a recipe for clean living and self-government.  We see the good in Scripture and imitate the externals and reckon we are good men.  We read of sin in the Scriptures and see wickedness in everyone except ourselves.  We want prayer in schools, we want moral government, we want lower taxes, we want good neighbors, we want obedient children, and we want God to bless us for all the ways we’ve demonstrated our commitment.  We want power to subdue all the evil people and throw the bums out!  We want everything except a Crucified Savior who can deliver us from our bondage to sin.

And the power of sin deceives and appears, on the outside, to have left us.  We are a swept house.  Yet, all the time, the truth of the Word about our sin and bondage is bouncing off of us like rain on packed earth.  Nothing sinks in.  Notice in verse 24 that the demon says:  “I will return to my house from which I came.”

“I will return to my house.”  And when the power of sin comes back to manifest itself in the life of the “swept house”, it comes back more terrible than before.  The Pharisees were good men on the outside but when they continually rejected Christ, their swept houses were filled with the demonic power of sin and they became wicked beyond measure.  They despised the Savior and the things of God and plotted to kill Him whenever they got the chance.  We who would justify ourselves with our lives will trample the Son of God underfoot with the same vengeance.

The passage closes with an expression of excitement from the crowd.  A woman is so overcome by the excitement of the moment and the teaching of Christ that she yells out of the crowd:  Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!”

I imagine Christ paused for a moment before He gently replied that those who are truly blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.

It’s not as if He hadn’t said the same thing to His mother when she and the rest of the family summoned Him while He was teaching and He reminded the crowd that His mother and brothers are those who hear and obey.  He wasn’t denying the blessedness of His mother here but her blessedness, by her own confession, was that God looked upon her.  She heard the things of God and submitted.

Just like this woman who cried out, the things of God have a way of exciting us.  There are things that we see and experience that may cause us to yell “Praise God!”  All sorts of religious experience are sought to inflame our hearts with excitement.

Yet, notice that it is those who hear the Word of God, and because they can hear, obey.  Obedience and hearing go hand in hand.  If we cannot hear, we will not truly obey and will merely be swept houses.

I can leave worship this evening excited about the things of God and then, at the crack of dawn, rise to shave my face and go off to work.  The ecstasy of the moment of religious worship will fade as life has a way of bogging us down in its drudgery and day-to-day burdens.

Yet, we have to consider that, if we have truly heard the Word of God, it is because we have been given ears to hear.  If we have truly seen the Kingdom of God it is because we have been given eyes to see.  If that transformation has occurred it was not because of our obedience or enthusiasm for God but because there is a Stronger Man Who has overcome sin and death on the Cross.

Our excitement needs to be born out of a life that has been set free from the power of sin.  It is the recognition that God justifies sinners.  It is the realization that Christ came to plunder the House of the Strong Man and found us cowering under its dominion and dragged us out of its dungeon.  He washed us in our baptism and calls us His friends.  He clothed us in His righteousness and calls us His beloved bride.

Sinclair Ferguson tells of a physician who is a medical missionary in Thailand.  The physician sent him a picture of a man with a huge grin from ear to ear.  Both his arms were amputated by this physician due to complications from the leprosy that oppresses his body.  But do you know what this man said to the physician one day?  He said:  “I’m so thankful for my leprosy because I would have never met Jesus Christ without it.”

That’s true experience.

Are we thankful for the Christ who conquers sin and death or are we excited about the power that surrounds the Savior’s work?

Once, we could not see the horror of our sin and its bondage.  Once, we could not speak of the things of God but uttered only curses.  Unexpectedly, we saw our sin and, in our terror, wondered how we could escape the wrath it deserved.

But then we looked up and saw our Champion hanging on a Cross.  We saw Him die and lay in a Tomb.  We witnessed the Son of Man rise from the dead.  The Stronger Man emerged, wounded from the battle, but He was utterly victorious!

A muted mouth is unstopped.  We cry out with new voices:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?”  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ““ 1 Cor 15:54-57

Categories
Scripture Wisdom and Psalms

Psalm 51

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Psalm 51

To the choirmaster.  A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.

I have to admit to you that, as I prepared this exhortation, I became a bit fearful in how I would treat it.  On the one hand it is probably one of the most famous Psalms and we’ve all heard it so many times that we think we know how it applies to our lives.  The challenge I face is to get us to open our eyes to spiritual truths that may have been clouded by our familiarity with this Psalm.

Next, I think it is challenging for us to look beyond the fact that this is David’s sin being confessed before the world and to see ourselves and the nature of sin and sinfulness in this passage.

Lastly, the Truths in this Psalm are likely to be very offensive to our ears.  We don’t like to consider the nature of sin and what it deserves before a holy God.  We must confront this.  We must allow the Word to say things to us that we don’t want to hear.  It is in this Psalm that the stench of the Gospel becomes clear to people who don’t want to be confronted with the nature of their sin and their need for a righteousness that is not their own.

As we begin to unpack this Psalm, the subtitle of the Psalm notes the occasion that caused David to write it.  It is written because Nathan the Prophet came in to David and confronted David’s sin when he went in to Bathsheba.

David was on his roof in the cool of the evening and saw Bathsheba, another man’s wife, bathing.  He sent for her and sinned against Bathsheba and her husband.  She became pregnant and David sent for her husband, Uriah, to trick him into going to his wife so that Uriah might believe the child was really his.  When Uriah proved to be a more righteous man than David, David sent a letter, in the hands of Uriah, to have him conveniently killed in battle.  After this, David took Bathsheba to be his wife and nobody in Israel was aware of this great sin.

But God knew.

What kind of satanic influence could have overcome David to make him completely despise the light of divine judgment and think he could get away with this even if nobody else knew?

It was a tremendous mercy of God that He sent Nathan into David to confront him with this sin and wake him up to this horror.  In 2 Sam 12:13, after he’s been utterly exposed, David’s simple reply was:  “I have sinned against the Lord.”  His heart had been freed from a year-long captivity to his sin and clouded vision and he responded in brokenness to the inviting anger of the Lord.

In verses 1-2 of the Psalm, David does not open up with an appeal to God’s justice in his case.  He knows that justice would only leave him condemned.

He prays for mercy.  He prays earnestly not with one request but with several.  He prays for mercy.  He prays that God would provide mercy according to His steadfast love.  He prays for mercy in abundance.

David understands that his only chance is through the countless multitude of the compassions of God.  He understands that his sin is atrocious and that God, according to His holiness, should punish Him.  He understands that only God can blot out his sin as he can do nothing to take away the offenses he has committed.

He prays for washing.  He knows he is filthy.  He understands the stench of his sin and is not satisfied to ask to be washed once but pleads with God to wash him thoroughly, to cleanse him from his sin.

The stain of his sin is deep.  He can not flee from the terror of his own conscience and has nowhere to take his conscience and implores God to take away the filth that he bears.

There is no therapy here.  There is nothing of David trying to learn to integrate his mistakes and learn to love himself anyway.  He understands that soothing words of encouragement from his friends telling him that he’s OK will not do.  He needs a thorough cleansing from the very God who has every right to judge David for the filth of his sin.

Verse 3 is the refrain of a man who knows his sin:  For I know my transgressions.

David is not merely saying that he remembers everything he did.  What he’s wrestling with in Verses 3 through 6 is how horrible sin is and the gulf that exists between a sinner and a holy God.  I want you to remember one thing as we move along through this Psalm:  We will never seriously beg God for pardon until we have understood sin in such a way that it inspires fear in us.  If sin has never evoked terror to our souls then we cannot understand the sweetness of pardon that is in the Gospel.

Beloved, many of us don’t know what the true issue with sin is and so Verse 4 adds something that is foreign to us.  David says:  “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”

Most of us want to stop David right here.  What are you talking about David?  It wasn’t God who you looked at while bathing.  It wasn’t God who you got pregnant.  You didn’t send God with a letter to be killed in battle.  You didn’t get God involved in any of these sins.  How can you claim that you only sinned against God?  Have you forgotten about Bathsheba, Uriah, Joab, and the entire nation that could have been brought down by your selfish sins?!

The issue here is that David understands something profound about sin.  He understands that the whole world could pardon him of any trouble for his sin but it will provide no relief before the bar of God’s justice.

In James 2:10-11, James notes something very important about sin that David underscores here.  First, James says something strange to our ears in verse 10:  10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

Do you see what James is saying?  We could be so perfect as to keep every part of the Law of God and fail at one point and be guilty before the whole Law.  That doesn’t seem to make any sense until James explains what he means in verse 11:   11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

I don’t know if you can see what has just been said but James testifies with the rest of the Word of God that the real issue with sinning against the Law is that, when we sin, we sin against a holy, eternal God.  If it’s even at the seemingly smallest point, our sin amounts to raising our hand in rebellion against the God of the universe.  We commit treason with every small sin and every sin is just cause for God to condemn us.

David understands the weight of this rebellion and so he reminds God in the second part of verse 4 that God is justified and blameless in His judgment against sin.  He’s not coming to God arrogantly and telling God that He must forgive him but He understands that God would be perfectly just to condemn sin for what it is.

Paul, in fact, quotes this in Romans 3:3-4 when he is building a case against sinful men before a holy God.  He builds an airtight case that all men are guilty before the bar of justice and that God can and should justly condemn all men.

David knows he would be toast if God judges according to what he deserves.

Verse 5 continues:  “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

David isn’t trying to make excuses here.  David isn’t saying that his conception was sinful.  He’s testifying that he was a sinner from the moment he was conceived.  He’s testifying that he has been a sinner all his life.  He’s testifying that this latest sin is just another aspect of his sinfulness that he has borne before a holy God all the days of his life.

In other words, David is building up the prosecutor’s case against his sin and sinfulness by admitting to God that he not only sinned in this case but has been a sinner since his conception.  David admits that his sole contribution to righteousness has been sin upon sin upon sin.

Have you ever stopped to consider that you’ve been a sinner from birth?  Have you ever repented simply for being a sinner before a holy God?  Have you ever thought about the gulf that exists between you and a holy God even before you do anything more that adds to your guilt?

I know these are hard words, Beloved.  It’s hard to hear as we’re accustomed to self-affirming words.  I’m not talking about you as if I don’t bear the same problem.  We have a problem of sin and sinfulness before a holy God and self-affirmation may help us feel better about ourselves but that only hides the real problem.  David is confronting sin and sinfulness and taking it to the Judge and pleading for the Judge to do something about it because he knows he doesn’t have the power to take away the mountain of guilt.

As verse 6 testifies, God has desired truth in the inward being, and we have even had wisdom taught to us by the Word, and yet we know we have not achieved the level of truth or love or obedience in our inward being that the Law demands.

It ought to overwhelm.  It ought to cause us to despair if we were left alone with this thought.

Are you beginning to feel the anguish of soul?

Are you beginning to feel the weight that this would bring if there was no remedy?

Where would we be if this was the end of the Psalm?  We would only have Paul’s tortured cry at the end of Romans 7:  Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?!

God Himself will deliver.

David calls upon the mercy of God.

Verse 7:  Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean!  Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Nothing in my hand I bring.  Judge of all the earth please be my Savior!

We tend to forget that God had made provisions in His Law that were pictures of Christ to come.  These outward signs were meant to cause the worshipper in the Old Testament to be reminded of the Seed of Abraham who would fulfill the demands of the Covenant for Covenant breakers.

Hyssop was a branch used to sprinkle water to cleanse the worshipper of God as he came to the Temple.  The outward cleansing act was to be joined with a heart clinging to the feet of God in repentance begging for mercy and trusting that God provides what He promises.

Hyssop had no magical qualities.  You couldn’t just get sprinkled and make a sign out of mere ceremony but it was to point to something outside of itself.

David wants his conscience washed whiter than snow.  He wants the reality that the sign points to.  He wants the Judge to be the Covenant keeper on His behalf and knows that, only by this grace, will his conscience be cleansed.

You may recall that David was told by Nathan in 2 Sam 12 that God had forgiven him of his many sins.  Why is David asking for more here?  Some might accuse David of adding to his sin by not trusting in the declaration of forgiveness that Nathan had already brought him on his first confession.

I think we can understand though.  Can’t we?  Have you ever asked God for forgiveness for sins so great that you wonder how He can ever forgive them?  Does the guilt of those sins that you brought before the throne of grace ever come back to your mind and assail you?

If you’re anything like me then this happens regularly.  I have many sins.  I have many heinous sins.  I stop to consider them at times and wonder how a filthy person like me can enter into the presence of a Holy God and I take great comfort that God is patient with me.  He understands my weakness.  He understands that I need to come to Him again in my weakness and say:  “Yes Lord, I know you have promised forgiveness and cleansing but right now I’m weak.  Right now I’m lacking trust that you could possibly have forgiven these things in Christ.  Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief!”

God condescends.  The Holy Spirit comes alongside me as my advocate and reminds me that I am His child.

And so the Psalm begins to move to deliverance from guilt.

Verse 8:  Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Remind us of your mercy Lord.  These sins have caused our entire being to feel fractured.  The pain of our guilt is as if our bones are broken within us.  Straighten them.  Heal them.  Restore us from mourning to the joy of our cleansing.

Verse 9:  Hide your face from my sins, and blot out my iniquities.

Lord, even as you promised David through Old Covenant signs, you have promised to take away our sin by what these signs testify to.  You have blotted out iniquity by placing that sin and guilt away from us and onto another.  Remind us of this as we place our trust in you.

Verse 10:  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Lord, this depends completely on you.  I cannot create.  I only have the heart that I was born with.  I need the power that spoke light out of nothing.  I need the creative power that only You have.  Give me a clean heart.  I rely completely upon you for a transformed spirit.

Verse 11:  Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Father, you have every right to cut me off.  I plead your mercy that you would keep me in your presence and that your indwelling Spirit would testify peace and not wrath unto my weary soul.

Verses 13-15 testify to what our hope in deliverance from sin and the testimony of a cleansed spirit might provide.  David desires, as we all should desire, that we might teach others of God’s goodness to sinners who come broken unto Him.

When we’re in the mire of our sin, our mouths are closed and we don’t know how to open them up except to cry out and wonder how God can cleanse us but when He delivers us, when He frees us from the bondage of sin and guilt, our mouths are looses.  Our lips open up in praise to a merciful Savior!  We proclaim boldly and gladly to a lost and dying world because we are as needy as they.

Open my lips Lord.  Open my mouth to sing all of your praise!

Verses 16-19 close with the nature of sacrifice and God’s good intentions toward us.  David reminds us that we can never come to God and go through the motions.  We cannot come with hearts that are cold to the offense of our sin.  We cannot come to God expecting magic simply by going to Church or going through the externals of religion.  David knows that the sacrifices of God always pointed beyond themselves.  He knew that he couldn’t just bring a bull to the altar and walk away unchanged in heart and mind.

David saw something from afar that has been revealed up close to us.  These sacrifices merely caused God’s wrath for sin to pass over for a season until what they signified came in the fullness of time.

A people were called to be holy and they proved over and over to be unholy.  Weary from sin they came time after time, year after year, and brought sacrifices.  Blood flowed as a river and the stench of human sin filled the nostrils and the souls of men who looked forward to a sacrifice that would deal with this once for all.

And, in the fullness of time, it came.  We could not bridge the gulf and so God put a veil of flesh around Himself and came and dwelt among us.  He came near to us with our heavy burden of sins and invited us to trust in Christ and place the heavy yoke of sin and guilt on His strong shoulders.

Christ carried our heavy burden of sin to Calvary, was nailed on a cross and bore the full weight of wrath from a Holy God so that we, in Him, would die to sin.

Christ conquered death and sin.  Once for all!  He rose again, and we who cling to His feet in trust, rose with Him.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.  The judgment has occurred.  Our lips are opened to praise God.

I’ve been meditating on how profound Romans 1:16-17 is as it introduces the Gospel to be unpacked in the rest of the book:

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Doesn’t it seem odd that God calls the Gospel:  “The righteousness of God revealed…”?

In other words, we wonder how that can be because we all understand that God’s righteousness only condemns if we’re trying to attain that righteousness ourselves.

Martin Luther struggled with this for years.  He admitted he often hated God thinking of this righteousness as he saw no way to achieve that righteousness no matter how much he devoted himself to the monastic life.

And then, one day, he happened upon a commentary by Augustine on Romans 1:17.  Augustine wrote:  “This is called the righteousness of God, not with which he is righteous, but because with it he makes us righteous.”

And at this glorious truth, Martin Luther said that it was as if his chains had fallen off and a doorway to heaven opened and he walked through.

Beloved, the power of the Gospel is that God provides the righteousness we lack.  He placed our unrighteousness upon the Son, punished the Son in our place, and granted us His righteousness freely.  We believe and receive with empty hand.  That’s the glory of the Good News.  That’s the confidence that David expressed from looking from afar.

Furthermore, when we fall into heinous sin, as David did, God does not abandon us but comes near us afresh to take away the pain of our guilt and remind us of His favor toward those who cling to Christ by His sustaining power.

I want to close with a story that is found in Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.

Kids, please listen to this story as this is meant for you too.

Once upon a time, there was a man named Graceless who lived in the City of Destruction.  He felt himself to be carrying a heavy burden that nobody could see until one day a man named Evangelist told him where he could have his burden taken from him.

Graceless set out on a difficult journey until he came to the foot of the Cross.  There his heavy burden fell from him and he felt himself to be a new man.  He also had a new name:  he was no longer Graceless.  His name was Christian.

From that point, Christian went through many trials and came upon the House Beautiful where he was refreshed for many days and given armor:  a breastplate of righteousness, a helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.

As he continued on his journey, he came into the Valley of Humiliation and this is where our story gets interesting:

Then I saw in my dream that Christian was entered into the Valley of Humiliation; and here he had no easy time of it.  For he had gone but a little way when he saw a dreadful fiend coming across the plain to meet him.  The name of this fiend was Apollyon, and he was too hideous to behold.

His body was covered with scales, like a fish; he had wings like a dragon, and feet like a bear; his mouth was like the mouth of a lion, and fire and smoke came out of his nostrils.

Christian was much afraid.  As the monster came flying toward him he knew not what to do.  He had half a mind to run back; but he knew that Apollyon would soon overtake him.

“I will stand my ground and do what I can,” he said to himself; and he went boldly forward to meet the dreadful fiend.

Apollyon came swiftly on, and gruffly saluted Christian:  ” Ho, there, you fellow! Who are you, and whence have you come?”

“I have come from the City of Destruction, and my name is Christian,” answered the pilgrim. ”  I am on my way to the Celestial Land.”

“Huh!” growled the fiend. “Don’t you know that I am the king of the City of Destruction?  You are my subject, and you are trying to run away from me.”

“True, I was born in your country,” said Christian, “but I am not your subject.  I have promised myself to the King of the Celestial Land.”

Then was Apollyon very angry, and he would have struck down the pilgrim at once, had he not hoped to gain him over.  He roared terribly, and cried, “You are a rebel and a traitor, and deserve nothing but death at my hands.  Yet I will forgive you if you will turn now and go back to my city and my service.”

But Christian stood his ground bravely and defied the fiend.

“Beware, Apollyon!” he cried.  “I am in the King’s highway. Therefore, take heed to thyself.”

“Ha!” answered Apollyon.  “What care I for the King’s highway?” And with one foot on one side of the road and one on the other, he stood directly in front of the pilgrim.

“Now I have you!” he said; and he drew flaming darts from his breast and threw them so that they fell like hail all around Christian’s head.

But Christian held up his shield to protect himself, and drawing his sword, rushed boldly upon his foe.

Then there was a fight such as neither you nor I have ever seen.  The giant fiend and the valiant man wrestled and strove, they struck and parried, they pressed this way and that; and neither seemed to get the better of the other.

Christian was wounded in two or three places; and yet for a whole hour he stood up against his foe.  At length, however, his foot slipped and he fell; and his sword flew out of his hand.

“Now I have thee!” shouted Apollyon.

But as the fiend raised his arm to fetch the last blow, Christian quickly stretched out his hand and recovered his sword.  He leaped to his feet, crying, “Rejoice not against me, mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise!”

With that, he gave the fiend a deadly thrust which made him pause and start back.  Then Christian gave him another stroke and another.

Apollyon saw that he had met his match.  He spread his dragon wings and flew away, over the plain; and Christian saw him no more.

The pilgrim looked up and smiled.  “Thanks be to Him that delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, and to Him that did help me against Apollyon,” he said.

Then there came to him a hand with some of the leaves of the tree of life; and he took these and laid them upon his wounds, and he was healed immediately.

And he sat down to eat bread and to drink from the bottle that was given him by the maidens of the House Beautiful.

Categories
Theology Worship

Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience

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From a teaching series on Worship, this lesson explored the notions of Sphere Sovereignty and the limits of authority that God has placed upon certain institutions. It then explored the notion of Liberty of Conscience and how it affects our understanding of corporate Worship.

The lesson notes can be downloaded here: Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XX
Of Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience

I. The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law;[1] and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin;[2] from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation;[3] as also, in their free access to God,[4] and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind.[5] All which were common also to believers under the law.[6] But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected;[7] and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace,[8] and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of.[9]

1. Titus 2:14; I Thess. 1:10; Gal. 3:13
2. Gal. 1:4; Col. 1:13; Acts 26:18; Rom. 6:14
3. Rom. 8:28; Psa. 119:71; II Cor. 4:15-18; I Cor. 15:54-57; Rom. 5:9; 8:1; I Thess. 1:10
4. Rom. 5:1-2
5. Rom. 8:14-15; Gal. 4:6; I John 4:18
6. Gal. 3:8-9, 14; Rom. 4:6-8; I Cor. 10:3-4; Heb. 11:1-40
7. Gal. 4:1-7; 5:1; Acts 15:10-11
8. Heb. 4:14-16; 10:19-22
9. John 7:38-39; Acts 2:17-18; II Cor. 3:8, 13, 17-18; Jer. 31:31-34

II. God alone is Lord of the conscience,[10] and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship.[11] So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience:[12] and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.[13]

10. James 4:12; Rom. 14:4, 10; I Cor. 10:29
11. Acts 4:19, 5:29; I Cor. 7:22-23; Matt. 15:1-6, 9; 23:8-10; II Cor. 1:24
12. Col. 2:20-23; Gal. 1:10; 2:4-5; 4:9-10; 5:1
13. Rom. 10:17; Isa. 8:20; Acts 17:11; John 4:22; Rev. 13:12, 16-17; Jer. 8:9; I Peter 3:15

III. They who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, do thereby destroy the end of Christian liberty, which is, that being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.[14]

14. Gal. 5:13; I Peter 2:16; II Peter 2:19; Rom. 6:15; John 8:34; Luke 1:74-75

IV. And because the powers which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath purchased, are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God.[15] And, for their publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature, or to the known principles of Christianity (whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation), or to the power of godliness; or, such erroneous opinions or practices, as either in their own nature, or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and order which Christ hath established in the church, they may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded against, by the censures of the church.[16]

15. I Peter 2:13-14, 16; Rom. 13:1-8; Heb. 13:17; I Thess. 5:12-13
16. Rom. 1:32; 16:17; I Cor. 5:1, 5, 11-13; II John 1:10-11; II Thess. 3:6, 14; I Tim. 1:19-20; 6:3-4; Titus 1:10-11, 13-14; 3:10; Matt. 18:15-17; Rev. 2:2, 14-15, 20

Things to consider:

What is the difference between a scruple and something in the Law of God?

How do we handle those whose scruples are more strict than our own?

How do we handle those whose scruples are less strict than our own?

Do the Elders of the Church have the right to decide what is right for worship and everyone just needs to go along?

What if everybody in a Church is fine with something in worship but an element of worship troubles the conscience of a single individual?

Categories
Epistles Scripture

Romans 6:1-11

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The following exhortation was given to the Korean Agape Church and translated into Korean.

Romans 6:1-11
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

One of the struggles we all have is how to properly understand what it means to be holy in Christ and how we are made holy by Him. We understand that we are saved by putting our faith in Christ but we often begin to think that our holiness depends upon us. Romans 6 reminds us that those who trust Christ are also made holy by the power of Christ. It is Christ in them that saves them and makes them holy.

Chapter 6 follows a teaching by the Apostle that leads some to lie about the Gospel. He reminds us that it is wrong to think that God wants us to sin so He can show how much He forgives us.

Verse 2 emphasizes this: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Before we were saved we lived in slavery to sin but we are no longer in Adam but in Christ. We have died to sin. We were in the house of Adam, we were in bondage to sin. We have now been set free by Christ and are no longer slaves to sin but have been set free.

Verse 3 then reminds us of the significance of our baptism. Our baptism reminds us that if we hav faith, we are baptized into Christ’s death. This connection we have with Christ does not stop with His death because He rose from the dead with an indestructible life. Again, because we are united with Him, we possess His indestructible life. We begin to see where the power over sin comes from.

Verse 5 confirms what Paul has just said: 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Paul doesn’t say this is a process where we prove to God that we’re worthy to be identified with Christ by our obedience. No. Our obedience is because we have life in Christ. We have been raised from the dead with Him when He rose. The apostle doesn’t write that a believer “might be” united with him but makes it most certain by saying “we shall certainly” be united with Christ. We must be made holy by Christ.

Verse 6 shows how wrong it is to think we can sin as we are still slaves. Christ’s death on a cross destroyed the power of sin. The old man was crucified with Christ on the Cross. Union with Christ in the crucifixion delivers us from the prison of Sin. This does not mean that we no longer sin but victory in the battle over sin is assured in the nailing of enslaving authority to the Cross. We are no longer controlled by a sin nature but by our slavery to Christ.

It is common for us to lose focus and to regard our sin as inevitable. Paul wants to lift us from looking inside of ourselves for power to battle sin and to look outward and up to the Cross where we see Sin nailed to the Cross of Christ. Our Savior has conquered that power on the Cross! The old man no longer has authority.

Earlier in Romans, Paul reminded us that we are declared righteous in Christ. We are not actually righteous, in ourselves, but counted righteous due to Christ’s payment on our behalf and the giving of Christ’s life to us. Verse 7 teaches that the power of sin has already been judged for us. By the act of the Judge, we are sure to be made holy because the power of sin was judged at the Cross for us.

Holiness is not achieved by a power we find within. No, the power comes because Christ has judged Sin itself. We know we can progress in holiness because Sin has been put to death and we know that no condemnation comes from the sin that continues in our members.

Verse 8 encourages us to think of ourselves as being an image of Christ ““ not only has the old self of sin been crucified but we now posses spiritual life in Christ. When we sin, we forget our union with Christ and deny what Christ has accomplished. When we remember who we are, we are empowered to give battle to sin and to live unto righteousness.

Verse 9 is our assurance of living with Christ. There can be nothing that can break or interrupt our participation in Christ’s life. There can be no reversal of his death to sin and falling back into complete slavery to its power. If this was possible then Christ’s very resurrection could be reversed or repeated over and over. Christ’s resurrection is final and it represents a complete break from the power of Sin. Christ submitted Himself to the power and judgment of sin. Death even ruled over Christ for a short time yet it was impossible that death could hold Him or swallow Him up. By rising from the dead, He defeated death forever.

Verse 10 is one of the most significant statements regarding the full meaning of Christ’s death ““ Christ died to sin. The Apostle has already noted that Christians are forever freed from the bondage of sin and death and again reminds us we are no longer subjects of its rule. He proves this by reminding why Christ died ““ He died that He would destroy sin. Christ not only dealt with the guilt of sinners on the cross but also with the power of sin. Death ruled but Christ broke its power.

Verse 11 concludes: “Because Christ triumphed over the power of death, those who are united to Him in death died to the power of sin and become dead to sin. Once again, the motivation and power of a Christian’s struggle with Sin is grounded in what Christ has accomplished.

We are to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ. We are not commanded to become dead to sin and alive to God. Christ has accomplished this already for us. And it is not by considering the facts carefully that they become true. The Apostle’s command is that we are to think upon our union with Christ and fully appreciate what Christ has obtained for us. This provides the motivation and strength for our battles.

Beloved, we are no longer our own and no longer under Sin’s power. Our Sin is on the Cross and we are now bondslaves to Christ and bondslaves to righteousness. Christ’s death is once-for-all and He ever lives and so must we. When we lift our heavy heads away from the filth of indwelling sin and its alluring, idolatrous power, we look up to Christ and in Him we find that our hearts deceived us to Sin’s remaining power. Instead of sorrow over our pitiful state we praise God with the Apostle:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:3-10)

Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

Luke 9:28-45

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Luke 9:28-45

28 Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah”””not knowing what he said. 34 As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” 36 And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.

37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39 And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” 41 Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” 42 While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God.

But while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, 44 “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” 45 But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

As we continue in the Gospel of Luke, might have noticed that the first thing that verse 28-45 occurs, as Luke notes: “”¦eight days after these sayings.”

Eight days after what sayings. Let’s recap what was said right before this passage. What did Christ say?

  1. Verse 22: The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected”¦and be killed, and on the third day be raised
  2. Verse 23: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
  3. Verse 24: Whoever would save his live will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
  4. Verse 25: What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
  5. Verse 26: Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory.

Now, if you were listening last week you should have remembered these sayings but I want to point this out because, in a moment, we’re going to be tempted to think of others as more hard-hearted than ourselves but do any of us have any reason to judge the forgetfulness of others this evening?

So, again, eight days after Christ had said these things, he took Peter and John and James up on the mountain to pray.

Verses 29-31 reads:

29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory

First of all, we read that Christ’s appearance was changed and that His face and His clothing became dazzling white. He emanated dazzling glory. Furthermore, on the mountain with Him were Moses and Elijah.

Why Moses and Elijah? Again the text does not tell us but we can reasonably conclude that Moses represented the Law of God. He was a servant in God’s House and faithfully delivered the Law of God. The entire Old Covenant was under the precepts of the Law of God and Moses had acted faithfully to lead God’s people from bondage and bring them into the wilderness to serve Yahweh. He was God’s faithful Prophet to speak the Words that God commanded Him and to write them down for the people to obey as a Nation of God’s peculiar people.

In Deuteronomy 18, before the people entered the land that God had promised, he foretold of a Prophet, like Moses, who would speak the things that God told Him. He would remind them of God’s Word and of His holiness and His righteous requirements.

Elijah, then, represented the Prophetic Office of Israel and how they reminded people of the Law that God had Covenanted with them. He made the heavens stop raining according to the curse of the Law and He called the people back to their true God. Prophets would follow him to prosecute a rebellious nation for their disobedience but the Prophet was now here.

Pay attention now to what Christ was telling Moses and Elijah. Verse 31 records that Christ: “”¦spoke of his departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”

I think it is easy to get distracted by the transfiguration of Christ and completely focus on that point and forget that Christ was speaking to Moses and Elijah about His impending death on a Cross. The word that is translated “departure” in in verse 31 is the same word that is translated “exodus”. Christ was telling of His own exodus that was about to occur.

The disciples awoke from a deep sleep and they saw Christ’s glory and the glory of the two men. As Moses and Elijah were departing, Peter said to Jesus in verse 33: “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah”.

Now the telling part of that is what follows because the Scriptures say that Peter did not know what he said. In other words, it was a foolish thing to say.

Peter’s ignorance is somewhat excusable given the light of the Old Testament. We have more light and I wonder if any of us here know why this was such a bad idea.

Do you really think that three tents, made by sticks and leaves, can contain the glory that was revealed that night? Do you think Christ granted them this vision just so they could all hang out and have their own personal Hall of Fame of spiritual giants? Did Christ come in order to remain in His splendor and tabernacle on a mountain with the Law and the Prophets? Or did He come down from glory for a purpose?

As the story continues, a cloud came and overshadowed them and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. If you know your Scriptures you might hearken back to the book of Exodus where the glory of the Lord covered Mount Sinai and the people were terrified. They even thought that Moses had died because he didn’t return for forty days after entering that fearful cloud. Animals had to be put to death for even touching that fearful and holy mountain.

Beloved, the glory, the holiness, the majesty of God is awesome and terrifying. We’re so accustomed to entering His presence in worship that we forget, in our hard-heartedness, that our God is a holy and consuming fire. The creature, with the stain of sin, is right to be terrified in His presence.

Verse 35: “And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One, listen to him!””

Listen to Him. Do you know what Christ said to the disciples later on or were you not listening?

The Father’s words served to gird up Christ up and encourage Him for the task ahead. Here, the Father, with tender love, testifies of His only begotten and beloved Son and strengthens Christ for His purpose.

Verse 36: “And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.”

Now there’s a reason for this silence because Christ purposefully hid His glory. Indeed, it was glory that the people expected from the Messiah but it was not glory that the people needed from the Son of God. They needed a despised and rejected Lamb for their sins. They wanted a Savior that would be respectable in the eyes of men and inspire awe. Yet, glory unimaginable was in their midst, in human flesh, to suffer and to die.

Luke 9:37-41

37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39 And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” 41 Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”

Coming down from the mountain they were met by a great crowd. Now, I don’t know about you, but I love these stories of men who were so bold and earnest to cry out to Christ.

Lepers cried out to Him.

Blind men groped for Him.

Paralyzed men were lowered into rooms by their friends.

Who cares about politeness or the approval of the crowd?! I need to get Jesus’ attention!

“Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child.”

Christ, please look at my child. Look at him please. Take notice of him. He’s my only child.

Do you hear the desperation borne out of love for his only son? He had every reason to be desperate for:

“Behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. And I begged your disciples to cast it out but they could not.”

How many years had this man prayed to God to deliver his son? Imagine the pain of a father’s love crying out to God as he helplessly watched his son in the clutches of demonic hands!

He was known in the town as the father of a demon-possessed boy. Only a parent’s love can sustain affection. These were not the hopes and dreams he had for an only son. This father loved his boy in spite of this and he would not abandon him even if it meant the reproach of a town.

But now the man heard that Christ and His disciples were near and that they could cast out demons. He had begged the disciples to help his beloved son but they could not.

Christ! Look on my son!

Now Christ’s response must seem harsh: “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son to me.”

One night earlier Christ had been on a mountain emanating refulgent glory but, off in the distance, down in the valley, was the despair of a fallen humanity. Down in the valley was the father of a demoniac who wanted deliverance from the power of Satan.

Up on the mountain, Christ’s glory was fully manifest but He had to come down from that mountain, veil His glory, to be among a faithless and wicked generation.

Scribes and Pharisees interested to see how they could trip Him up.

People sneering at a man and his demoniac son.

Disciples who still didn’t understand why He had come.

But Christ didn’t remain in glory where His holiness could only condemn but came down into the valley. With compassion, Christ told the man to bring to Him his only son.

Luke 9:42 – While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.

 

Before Christ had said a Word, the demon threw the boy to the ground. But at a simple rebuke, Christ cast out that unclean spirit and healed the boy.

And because Christ had come to restore fathers back to their children and children to their fathers, we read these beautiful words: “and He gave him back to his father.”

Christ fully understood the love that a Father has for His only Son. Christ had returned a son to his father. Christ had defeated the powers of darkness in the child’s life. The price that Christ would pay was that He would soon hang on a Cross. The price that Christ would pay is that the Son would offer Himself up to His heavenly Father to receive the wrath that a faithless people deserved and deliver the world from the power of darkness.

 

Luke 9:43″“45

43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God. But while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, 44 “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” 45 But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

Did the Word of God sink into your ears or were you too busy marveling at the work? The Father commanded you and me to listen to Christ on the mount of glory. Christ commanded His disciples to let these words sink into their ears: “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.”

The disciples didn’t understand this is because it was concealed from them.

Do you understand?

Is it concealed from you?

Do you even care whether you understand or are you too busy marveling with the crowd at a powerful sign but fail to follow Christ and listen to what He has to say?

Christ is the Son of God from all eternity. All life, all holiness, all majesty, all goodness, all justice, belong to Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit in one God forever.

In Isaiah 6, Isaiah was transported into the courts of God and saw a vision of the Son of God sitting, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the Temple. The Seraphim flew around Him covering their feet and their eyes to protect themselves from the awesome glory of God and cried out: “Holy! Holy! Holy! Is the Lord God almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory!”

And the vision of that holiness cut Isaiah to the heart. He fell to his face and heaped curses upon himself because he saw the sinfulness of his sin in the presence of a holy God.

Had Christ remained in glory, He would have simply been the judge of all mankind for their sin.

Condemnation. Hell. Everlasting judgment.

That is the only thing the enemies of God deserve and that is what you and I and everyone else in this world deserve.

But God. But God. But God is rich in mercy.

While we were still His enemies. While we were in the valley, a sinful and perverse generation, Christ came down from immeasurable glory and put on the veil of human flesh. He came near to a sinful people, cloaked in that flesh, because without the veiling of His glory we could not come near Him. We could not approach the holy mountain and so He tabernacle in flesh and came down.

Peter was like us. Peter wanted to make coverings of sticks and leaves and say: “God, come hang out with me just as I am. I like majesty. I like glory. Give me a celebrity so I can tell everyone that someone famous is my friend and lives in a tent that I made Him.”

But Christ didn’t need a Tabernacle made by feeble human hands. He was already in the Tabernacle of His flesh. He hadn’t come to simply manifest His glory so everyone could “High Five” and say “I want to be like that guy.”

No, beloved, He already possessed all glory and didn’t need the acclaim of men. And so, while men marveled at the works of God and worshipped God’s work but didn’t worship the God Who worked them, Christ set His face like flint to the Cross.

The Cross? The place of the Curse? The place of reproach?

Nobody but the worst criminals went to the Cross. But Christ had come to offer up His Person on the Cross and became a curse for us. We, in our seeking of glory for ourselves, would have gladly driven every nail and more into Christ’s flesh for disappointing us with the disdain of the Cross!

The Cross was not our idea. The Cross made no sense to us!

But as those nails pierced Him, the Sin of His people was nailed there.

As He hung between heaven and earth the perfect, majestic Son of God received the wrath that God’s enemies deserve.

As He cried out in agony, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!”, He received the forsakenness and eternal wrath that a wicked and rebellious people deserve.

And by this sacrifice in our place, sin and death died with Him. Death could not hold Him and so He rose on the third day and all who believe upon Him rise with Him. As He ascended into glory, He made way for us to approach boldly into the throne of grace.

We enter by the veil of Christ’s perfect flesh.

Christ came down from that mountain for you and me, beloved. For you and me if you but believe upon Christ. Cast yourself at the Savior’s feet. Ignore the crowds looking for glory. Ignore the reproach of the people. Your sins are far worse than you ever imagined.

Cry out! Cry out!

“Master! Look on me!”

Only a man who knows he’s a wretch and knows the Savior can see the glory of a Cross that puts to death his sin. And because we know that Christ is the Son of God we have all the confidence in the world to exclaim:

1 Corinthians 15:54-57

54 “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray.

Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

Luke 15

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Luke 15

1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So he told them this parable: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” 11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. 17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. 25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”

When Sean called me about a week and a half ago asking me if I was interested in teaching this evening I hesitated only for a moment. I’ve been very busy lately yet I love to be able to share the Word of God.   
When Sean told me I could teach on any topic I knew, almost immediately, what I desired to teach because this is one of my favorite parables in the Bible. The problem with teaching on this text is that it is so well known by many people who can probably recite the details by the mere mention of the title.
In a 1988 study, a sociologist named Marcia Whitten authored a work entitled All is Forgiven, wherein she analyzed hundreds of sermons on Luke 15 delivered by mainline Presbyterian and Southern Baptist Churches. The mainline Presbyterian Churches saw in the Parable a teaching about the need for social acceptance of the downcast. Southern Baptist preachers, however, emphasized the troubles that the Prodigal Son faced when he left the boundaries of a Godly home and got into “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Many of you probably have received typical treatments but I hope to demonstrate the power of the Gospel herein.
It is vitally important, in understanding the parables in this Chapter that we begin with verses 1 and 2. Once again we encounter the Pharisees’ criticism of Christ. They complain that Christ receives sinners and even eats with them. No righteous man, in their thinking, would sully himself by spending time around sinners much less sharing a meal with them.
Christ, as was His habit in many teaching situations, responded with three Parables. In the first parable He recounted the great lengths that a good Shepherd will go through to seek out one lost sheep and the rejoicing that ensues when that lost sheep is recovered. The second parable noted the great lengths a woman will go through to find a lost coin in her household. She will literally tear the house apart in search of this wayward coin and rejoices with the entire town upon its discovery. Both of the first two parables would easily resonate with the culture of Christ’s day but to understand the impact of the third parable you’re going to need to take off your 21st Century glasses and journey with me back to the Jewish culture of Christ’s day.
Once upon a time there was a man who had two sons. One day, his younger son came up to him demanding his share in his inheritance.
Right away, jaws should drop. Jewish sons do not demand their inheritance of their father. The inheritance is to be received upon the death of the father with the firstborn son receiving a double portion. The younger son was basically saying: “Father, I wish you were dead. I want my inheritance now and your life is in my way!” The son showed utter disdain for his father. The proper response for a father in this culture would have been to slap his son across the face for disrespect and he had every right to disinherit such a scoundrel. The Pharisees would have been pleased to hear that this was the father’s response.
Incredibly, however, the father granted the son’s request. The inheritance, after all, would have been in the land of the estate. It’s not as if the father had a bank account or stocks he could simply sign over. He would have had to sell a portion of his estate to a buyer at a reduced price with the guarantee that the buyer would receive this land at the father’s death. Do you realize that the penalty for moving a boundary marker in the Law was death? A capital crime. Land was the family’s inheritance and generations had labored to pass the estate from father to son and to build wealth that would bless future generations. This father had, inexplicably, cashed generations of labor in to give cash to this worthless boy.
The boy left home where he squandered this money in reckless living. What had taken centuries to accumulate was blown quickly. What a scum bag. What a wretch! The parables are full of scorn and curses for the foolish who waste their money. Utter ruin will be their end! The Pharisees would have lectured the father that such was to be expected. What was he thinking after all?
And then a famine hit.
And the boy was in a faraway land having squandered his money.
And he began to be in want. His friends left him for such are the friends of folly.
Ah what delight to the heart of a Pharisee. The boy was reaping his just reward. Surely he would die of starvation and the Pharisees would wring their hands with glee about the destruction of the unrighteous.
But the boy managed to find employment feeding pigs.
Excuse me, did you say he was feeding pigs?
By pigs, do you mean the unclean animals that Jews were forbidden to eat or touch?
A Jewish boy feeding pigs?!
But this employment was not feeding him well to the point that the boy envied the pigs for their meal of corn husks.
We don’t know how long this went on but, one day, it dawned upon him: “Even my father’s servants have plenty to eat. I know I can’t go back as a son. I’ve blown any opportunity for that. I understand that, in this culture, I am shamed beyond measure. Perhaps if I return home I can be hired on as a slave and at least I’ll be treated well.”
At this point the Pharisees would have been pleased with the boy. Now we’re talking! That’s right you sinner! That’s right you unrighteous wretch! Return to your home town in shame.
The tradition had a proper process for reconciliation. The boy would be expected to go into his home town and wait at the town center for a few days. During this time the town people would have come and heaped shame upon the boy.
Don’t you realize what a wretch you are?!
Don’t you realize what you have done to your father?!
For shame! For shame you unrighteous one!
Then, after a period, the father would come and the boy would express his utter shame to his father and promise to perform reconciliation by working off what had been squandered. Surely, for such an offense the boy would have had to work his entire life to earn back even a portion of what he had squandered. Only after restitution by work, however, would this boy have truly earned the right to reconciliation. Reconciliation through restitution. Forgiveness and acceptance by works!
But, beloved, this is where the rage in the Pharisees would have begun to boil over. This is where the Gospel is so offensive to so many who see religious duty as a way to buy God’s affection.
‘BUT’, the text reads, ‘while the boy was far off, the father was moved with compassion.’
I used to wonder how parents could single out their childen in a large crowd by the sound of their cry. They all sounded the same. But now that I have four kids, I’ve come to recognize the walk of my children, their smell, the way they walk, their laughs, their cries of pain and sadness and fear – many details a parent who loves his children knows well.
The father had long been looking for his son and he saw a figure in the distance. ‘Yes, that’s the boy! That’s the walk of my son.’ Shoulders hunched over in grief. Gaunt. Weary. Worn out.
The son was heading for the town.
And the father RAN to him.
He ran!
This is not the 21st century. Old men of Christ’s day did not run. It was undignified. It was shameful. In order to run in the long, flowing robes of that culture a man had to hike up his robe. The expression “gird up your loins” refers to the fact that men, in battle, had to hike up their robes and tuck them into their belt in order to run and move in battle. But, except in war, it was considered shameful to bear one’s legs so much so that Jewish tradition taught it was preferable for a priest to let his robe drag in the blood on the temple floor rather than lift the robe lest their legs be exposed.
But the father, in the most undignified manner, ran to his son.
Why the hurry? Was it simply a desire to hold him again.
He ran because the boy was approaching the town center. He was approaching the place of shame.
Oh yes, sin had occurred and shame was due but, beloved, the father ran to ensure that the shame would be his own. Shame would be borne by him and not the boy he loved with an everlasting love!
The father threw himself upon this boy that reeked of pig manure and kissed him.
Sinclair Ferguson once remarked about a longtime friend who had received great honor from the Crown of England for her ministries of mercy to the poor. She told everyone at this ceremony, however, that when it came to dealing with the poor, it was her husband who had the most amazing ability to deal with the incredible stench of feces and urine that the poor reek of. He could minister up close to such men without flinching. How, one wondered to him one day, was he able to do it? He answered: “It’s easy. I picture the filth of my own sin that Christ had to wade through to save me and all physical filth pales in comparison.”
The son found himself now in this loving embrace and the son spoke to his father what he had rehearsed: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But his words stopped.
What else had he planned to say?
He planned to ask to be made a slave in the household.
But he stopped.
I believe he stopped because the embrace of the father squeezed the very breath out of him. The second part about being made a slave was unacceptable. You see, beloved,
in the Kingdom of God, there are no slaves. There are no servants that earn affection from their father.
There are only sons!
‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet!’
A robe?
A ring?
Shoes for his feet?
Only sons wear these. This boy had squandered his inheritance. He had sinned away every right to be called a son in this house. The father, however, was granting him EVERYTHING based on NOTHING THAT THE SON DESERVED! The boy received every good thing and every privilege of sonship based on NOTHING THAT HE HAD DONE!
 ‘And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.  For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’
It’s not as if meat was easy to come by then and they didn’t have refrigerators to store leftovers. Killing a fatted calf was an extraordinary event, which meant a celebration for the entire community. It was a celebration not of the righteousness of a son earning a father’s love but the lavish love of a father who was granting sonship to a man saved alive!
And so the party ensued and the elder brother returned from the field, laboring into the evening. He wanted to know what was going on.
What?! That unrighteous scum bag has returned? My father is holding a party for him? He’s not only treating him like a son but he’s eating with him?
The elder son was so incensed that he refused to even go into his father.
A celebration was going on in the light while the “righteous” man, the elder brother, was standing outside gnashing his teeth at the redeemed son and the gracious father.
But the father came out to him pleading to come in to the light.
The son responded: ‘He might be your son but he’s not my brother. That scum is beneath me!  HOW DARE YOU! Do you realize how much I’ve SLAVED for you all these years. Not once, in all that time, have you given ME so much as a goat so I can have a party with MY friends.   Give me MY due for my labor. I’m not going in to celebrate with you and your house. I have MY friends and I want to earn the right for reward so I can celebrate with my own friends.’
And the story ended abruptly with a celebration going on in the light with the self-righteous elder brother in the darkness gnashing his teeth.
It’s been said that there are three kinds of people in this world:
The first kind are those that don’t care a thing about the things of God. The power of God is manifest all around them. Some even hear of the mighty works of God in Scripture to save me from their sin and they meet it with indifference. God is not magnificent. He is a bore.
The second variety are those who are religious slaves so they can put God in debt to them. I will perform acts of contrition. I will deny myself food and pleasure. I will strap a bomb onto my chest and yell “Allah Akbar!” to a glorious death. Quid pro quo. I do for God and He must do for me.
The grace of the father would be too much for the Pharisees and the story did have a conclusion. That elder brother, and all his Pharisee friends, took the Son of God, who is the father in this tale, and beat him and brought him to Pilate to have Him put to death. There is no room for the mercy of God among the elder brother’s friends. The offense of the Cross that all must bow before it to receive forgiveness and have their own shame placed upon the Son is too much to bear.
The third kind of person is he who recognizes he was once dead in sins and trespasses. But God found him and made him alive.
Beloved, open your eyes. Look around you. Do you see the filth of your sin?
God has appointed a day, calling it ‘Today’. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.
The yoke of your sin is very great. Oh how you have sinned just this past week. Just today, in fact. How could anybody that belongs to the father sin like you have? Surely, you have told yourself, God could not accept this?!
Plod back to where you began and realize that you have no rights to enter the Father’s house.
But stop, for a moment, and look up.
Look up away from yourself. Look up!
What is that in the distance?
It’s the Son of God and He’s running. He’s flying to you.
Look to Him. See what He has done. He is taking your filthy clothes that reek of your sin and has worn them on the Cross. He died to take away your sins and satisfy the wrath of God that you deserve.
He embraces you and covers you with a clean robe. It is the robe of His perfect righteousness. He has risen from the dead with an indestructible life and lives that we live forever more in Him!
Full inheritance. Full sonship in Christ. God gives every blessing not for anything we have done and until you understand that amazing grace you have not rested in the arms of the Father’s embrace.
‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’
All heaven rejoices. Let those that love the Father because He has given them every inheritance crowd in. Today is the day of Salvation for all who hear the voice of the Father! Slay the fatted calf for tonight WE CELEBRATE!”
Categories
Gospels and Acts Scripture

The Temptation of Christ (Luke 4:1-13)

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Luke 4:1-13

It’s been some time since Pastor Whitenack covered the baptism of Jesus and, before him, Sam taught on John’s baptism.  I might normally try to bring you up to date right away but I’ll be getting back to both later on this evening in order to place Christ’s temptation into a proper context for us to understand it.

This passage is pretty well known by many Christians.  I suppose it sticks in most minds the same way the Prodigal Son passage does as it is regularly read and taught in Christian pulpits.  Yet, I believe, that today, most people don’t really appreciate what it is that is significant about Christ’s temptation.  There are many details in Christ’s life, including miracles, that are not recorded.  There are even some details only recorded in a single Gospel.  Why is the temptation of Christ recorded in three Gospels?  What is it that the reader is supposed to take away that makes him wise toward salvation?  How you answer that question, I believe, will reveal whether or not you understand the Gospels.

In Luke 3:22, after Christ is baptized, He is filled with the Holy Spirit and the Father announces:  “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”

Here in Chapter 4, we see the Devil is now going to tempt Jesus with this very declaration.  Not only once but twice Satan introduces his temptations by saying:  “If you are the Son of God.”   All Satan knows how to do is ape Truth and mock it in the process.

Man fell into sin and death when the first Adam, as mankind’s representative, yielded to the temptation of the devil.  Even so, as Jesus was about to begin His public ministry it is fitting that the last Adam, the representative of all who trust in Him, should resist the devil’s temptation and render perfect obedience to God.

I think it’s really important to point out that, though Christ was without sin, He was truly tempted.  One of the earliest heresies of the Church that has plagued her history throughout is the error that Christ is either not human at all and just appears to be or that His divinity mixes with His humanity to make Him sort of a hybrid.  I think some of us might not be so sophisticated to be rank heretics but we’re prone to thinking of Jesus as perhaps floating through life as if nothing could really hurt Him or tempt Him.  We confess with the Scriptures, though, that Christ is fully human even as He is fully divine.  He was tempted in every way but did not sin.

Now Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, promises us that we are not tempted beyond what we can bear under.  That is to say, that God in His rich mercy is able to restrain the Evil One in how we are tempted in this life so that we are able to escape temptation.  Even with the Lord’s restraint, because we are so weak, our temptation often seems unbearable, don’t they?  The training wheels are on but we still fall.

If temptation is according to the strength of the person being tempted then who could possibly be tempted any more powerfully than Christ Himself?  Do you doubt that Christ understood temptation?  Beloved, it’s you that doesn’t know what the full weight of temptation is!  It is we who have never felt the weight of temptation without restraint.  We have a strong Savior who was able to bear under this temptation in a way that you and I will never appreciate.  Indeed, we do have a merciful High Priest who is able to patiently bear with us weak sinners because He knows what it is to be tempted and He knows our frame!

Now, as we continue, it is the height of understatement that Christ was hungry at the end of 40 days of fasting and prayer in the wilderness.  This is when the temptation begins.

The Devil approached Him with utter derision as he challenged Christ, if He’s the Son of God, to turn stones into bread.

You’re hungry, Jesus!  Why not use some of that majestic power of yours?  Dazzle me!  You’ve got Holy Spirit power!  God wants us to have our best life now!  Turn stones into bread and amaze us all with your authority over the created order.  After all, you were there at the beginning, were you not, and all things are created through you?  Prove it!

Compare this temptation to the temptation of Adam.  Adam had not gone without food for any length of time.  Even if Adam had been hungry at the time of temptation he could simply walk to any other tree and eat as much as he needed.  Finally, Adam was living in paradise when he was tempted while Christ was in the middle of a desert.

Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3.  Moses told this to the Israelites who, for forty years, had seen the power of God in the wilderness.  Even when no bread was to be found, God had provided manna from heaven to care for His saints.  Yet, with all that, the Israelites had complained and rebelled against God any time they were deprived of food and water for a short time.  They lived by their bellies and distrusted God at the drop of a hat.

Christ responds to Satan by stating, in effect, “Tempter, you are wrong about man.  In order to satisfy hunger and stay alive you think that bread is absolutely necessary.  You are wrong you liar!  I declare to you that it isn’t bread but the creative, lifegiving, and sustaining power of God that is the indispensable source of life and well-being!”

Failing in this temptation, Satan tempts Christ with the dominion of the world and its governments if He will do but one small thing:  bow before him.  Christ must worship the devil and he will give Him all that he has been given.  Now, was Satan really the possessor of all of these?  I don’t believe he was.  Satan is the father of lies and it’s clear he’s either lying to Christ here or is lying to himself about his own dominion.  After all, even during Christ’s humiliation on this earth, Satan was able to do nothing more than Christ allowed him to do.  Demon expulsions and other events of the NT see Christ’s power breaks through and He is, indeed, able to overcome the strong man when and where He pleases.

How is this a temptation to Christ then?  It is a temptation to obtain the crown without enduring the cross!  This was able to form a great struggle within Him for we know that the Cross was the path for Christ to redeem His people.  It would be the path of shame that would lead to glory for Christ and His own.  It would be His obedience to death and then His raising from the dead that would perfect His work.  He knew the agony He would have to suffer when the wrath of God would be poured out on Him and this is a foretaste of the struggle in Gethsemane.

Satan offered Christ the default religion of man:  the way of glory.  We would build ourselves up, convincing ourselves that our righteousness would please the Father apart from the Cross; for, to admit that Christ had to die on a Cross, is to admit our utter shame and disgusting sin that we bear.  We are repulsed by the Cross because we are repulsed by the idea that our sin is so graphic, so hideous, so monstrous, that the Son of God would have to be smitten for us.  But Christ endured the shame so that He might redeem those who look to the Cross as their only hope and He overcame this temptation for our sake.

Finally, Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple and, again mocking His status as the Son of God, challenged Jesus to throw Himself down to the ground.  After all, Satan noted that the Scriptures promise in Psalm 91 that God will protect the righteous man in all his righteous ways.

“See what the Scriptures say,”  reasoned Satan, “God promises that His angels will not only break your fall, they will do more.  Very tenderly they will bear you up lest you, wearing only sandals, should hurt yourself by striking your foot against one of the sharp stones.”

Have you noticed Satan is actually providing a bit of truth here.  He’s correctly quoted the Scriptures and is “proof-texting” the Scriptures.

But Satan can only ape Truth.  He has no wisdom.  He’s a fool.  He has no spiritual discernment and so he mishandles Scripture like a clumsy, foolish teenager who just read some Richard Dawkins book.  How often, beloved, have you seen Atheists collect verses in a haphazard manner in a facile attempt to demonstrate that God contradicts Himself?  I believe this is a grave sin of infantile exegesis.  It is not the path of wisdom.  It is the way of heretics and unstable men.  Every heretic in Church history has claimed that they’re simply teaching what the Scriptures teach and I would caution you to closely examine a man and not simply follow him because he can vainly quote a few Scriptures.

If you look at this temptation, basically what Satan is telling Christ to do is to experiment with God’s promises.  He had to distrust God in order to do an experiment and, then, if it works out, God’s promise is true.

Christ responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16, which calls to mind the rebellion of the Israelites in Exodus 17:1-7 at a place called Massah and Meribah where they put God on trial and rebelled against Moses because they were thirsty.  They accused God before Moses of cruelly bringing out their families and livestock only to die in the desert and provocatively challenged God by saying:  “Is Jehovah among us or not?!”  The Israelites in the desert are pictured as unbelieving and rebellious throughout the Old Testament and, especially in Book of Hebrews, we are warned not to be distrustful and faithless as they.

Christ knows that Satan’s proposal has nothing to do with humbly trusting in the protecting care promised in Psalm 91 and so He answers that God is not to be tempted.

Life gives us plenty of examples of the kind of false confidence that is similar to what Satan urged on Jesus.  People will pray to God for the blessings of health and then be gluttons with food or drink.  A man will pray to God to save his soul but will neglect the very means of grace that God has given him:  study of the Scripture, church attendance, the Sacraments, and living to the glory of God.  Someone will plead with the Lord for the spiritual well-being of his children but will never take the time to pray with them, to catechize them, to discipline them, or to display a repentant spirit before them.  A man was once admonished for going into a peep show and defended himself by saying:  “I do not deny that I went in there but, all the while, I was constantly praying:  “Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity!”

You shall not put the Lord thy God to the test!

And so, having passed these tests, Satan left Christ.  Christ resisted the devil.  Christ overcame the Strong man and the Strong man was overcome.  Jesus used the Word as His weapon in all cases for in the Word is the truth.  The Word is truth and the Word became flesh to overcome the darkness that hated the light.

Now, the thing that really concerns me about such a passage is what I said before:  how you view this passage determines whether you understand the Gospel.  Is Christ merely the ultimate example for Godly living for you?  Did you strap on your What Would Jesus Do? bracelet as you were listening to this and vow that you would be “on fire” for God and overcome evil by trusting in God’s Word?

I remember listening to a Sermon on the Gospel once in horror as the Preacher proclaimed that he was going to get back to the basics of the Gospel and this was the Gospel he proclaimed:  Jesus came to be an example to us about how to live for God.

Beloved, if you believe that Christ is merely your example for holiness, then I fear you do not know the Gospel at all.  If Christ is just someone you aspire to be like then I fear you may be dead in your sins and trespasses.  The real question for you in this passage is not “What would Jesus do?” but “What has Jesus done?!”

We need to back up for a moment into Luke Chapter 3 and hear the Prophet John, a prophet of the Old Covenant, as he sees the people coming out to the banks of the Jordan to be baptized.

Listen to him as he prophecies about you:  “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits in keeping with repentance!”

Oh how the righteous man will simply turn away and say:  “I’m not a viper!  I’m a good person.  I devote myself to God!  I’m sold out for God!”

But the man who knows the Law and its perfect demand hears these words and they lay bear his sin.  The Law of God reveals God’s perfect requirements and awakens to sin and the curse of the Law for it.  Such a man heard these words  of John and beat his chest and said:  “You’re right!  I am a viper!  I have no right to come to these waters on my own merit.  I have no right to ask God yet again to forgive my sins.  I am hopeless and I don’t know what else to do so I repent of my sin and plead the mercy of God.  Cleanse my conscience from sin!”

I imagine the people were so overcome with grief that they didn’t even notice a man from Nazareth walk up.  There was nothing in His appearance that would cause them to turn their heads.  He was from a poor family in a despised region of Galilee.  Pay attention to what this Man is doing because none of the others noticed that their salvation was coming in a Man of no reputation.

He walked up to John and John knew better.  Jesus didn’t need to repent but He had to be baptized.  Beloved, in His baptism, Christ identified Himself with all those men and women desperate for the burden of their sin to be taken away.  He was of them in His baptism.  He came to represent all those who came with nothing in their hands as they cried out to the Lord for salvation from their sin.

Water can represent cleansing but it also represents judgement.  The New Testament says that Noah’s family was baptized in the ark and that Moses and the Israelites were baptized as they passed through the Red Sea on dry ground.  The wrath of God poured out in a flood on God’s enemies but the baptized received a sprinkling and were cleansed.

These people didn’t realize it at the time but they were getting a little wet while the Savior was baptized to identify with them and take on their judgment.   Even as God’s wrath was piled up in a heap as the sins of the people collected and offended a Holy God, Christ was baptized to say:  “I will take this wrath!  I will be the satisfaction.  I will be the sacrifice.”  Christ began His ministry with a baptism because He would be baptized with the full wrath of God on the Cross for His people.  He was clean while His own wer sinful.  His people became clean while He received the wrath for Sin that they deserved.

But, beloved, it doesn’t stop with His baptism.  You should have been leaning forward in anticipation as you read of His lonely walk into the desert.  We are at the waters edge.  Are they waters of judgment or of cleansing?  We look knowingly as Jesus walks alone into the desert and know we cannot follow Him into that temptation.  Will my Savior withstand temptation for me?  Will my Savior succeed?!   O God He must, I have no other hope for righteousness!

He did obey!  He is the righteous one!

Luke tells Theophilus that the purpose of this story was to provide certainty concerning the truths of the Gospel.  Do you desire the certainty that God intends good for you in the Gospel?  Are you weary and heavy laden by your sin?   How can God love someone who has sinned like me?!  You have no idea how wicked I am!  Nobody can sin like me and be a Christian!  Though I desire the good, I sin.  Though I tell myself “That’s the last time I sin like that!”, I fail yet again.  Who will deliver me from this body of death?!

A Savior, strong to save, walked alone into the desert because He knew we couldn’t follow.  He walked into that desert alone and bore the weight of temptation because of a consuming love for His own.   Beloved, believe the Gospel not because you have enough love for God to save yourself but because the Son of God had enough love for you to save you to the uttermost!

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Epistles Scripture

The Living and Active Word (Hebrews 4:12-13)

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Hebrews 4:6-13

6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

“Today, if you hear his voice,do not harden your hearts.”

8For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

11Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

We’re going to be focusing on verses 12-13 of Hebrews Chapter 4 this morning, but I wanted to provide context for the passage of Hebrews that this section falls within because context is extremely important when you handle the Word of God. I believe its importance will become more apparent to you as I continue but I simply want to continue to be faithful in how I teach the Word of God to you because many men are not faithful in its presentation any more.

God inspired specific thoughts and attitudes that rest within a “story” inside each Book of the Bible. We are not at liberty to pull words out of their place and create a message that we think might help people and baptize our advice by pulling God’s Words out of their intended meaning. I could very easily quote the Psalms in part that say: “…there is no God…” but that’s hardly the message of the Scriptures is it? In fact, the portion of Psalm 14 that I left out is that “The fool says in his heart, there is no God.”

That passage about the fool and his disbelief in God is actually very appropriate for today’s passage. You see this kind of foolishness is not merely demonstrated in people that proclaim themselves to be atheists but, in many cases, it is reflected in the unbelief that is often displayed by people who claim to be religious; worse, yet, by people that claim to be Christian.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author warns Hebrew believers to not neglect the salvation that is found only in Jesus Christ. They are losing family, friends, and jobs because they have turned from Judaism to Christianity. There is a strong temptation to escape this persecution by simply returning to the religion of their youth – to return to being practicing Jews and turning their back on Christ.

The author labors to show that there is nothing to go back to because Christ was the aim of the Jewish religion all along. Even as we learned when studying Galatians, Abraham received a promise of inheritance by faith and even the Law was added to be a preparation for the people of God to receive their long awaited Messiah.

In very stern warnings in Hebrews Chapters 3 and Chapters 4, the author reminds everyone of the Israelites in the desert. He tells them that they heard the Gospel for 40 years and for 40 years they rebelled. At the beginning they rebelled, in the middle they rebelled, and at the very end they rebelled. So God swore by Himself that they would not enter the rest: the promised land of Canaan. This was a picture of what Christ would be – a rest for His people. The author, in the most frightening of terms, points out to the Hebrews that they are actually worse than the Israelites in the desert if they rebel now and forsake the Rock – God the Son who has been revealed in Christ Jesus. He is greater than the angels, than Moses, than Aaron for He is the purpose and the end of all of their work. They all pointed to Him. The Israelites in the desert then become a stark picture of unbelief to the Hebrew believers thinking about forsaking Christ for they would be worse than the Israelites in the desert and if they rebelled against the Son then they would be utterly lost for eternity – never to enter into the rest only found in the Son.

Verse 11: Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Notice the author uses the term us: Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

It’s not enough for you to be concerned about your salvation in the Church of Christ. Christianity is not about you and your personal relationship with Jesus. Of course you must believe upon and lay hold of Christ’s feet by faith but when you believe on Jesus it’s supposed to transform your heart and renew your mind. You’re engrafted into the family of God, the household of faith and you have brothers and sisters who are joint heirs in Christ. We strive together to enter into that rest. This is not some sort of thing where we are casually on a journey just asleep in the back seat as a few people drive the train for us to Happyville.

There are struggles, there are temptations, there is suffering, and there is need. We have brothers and sisters around us who are struggling with sin and we dare not say: “Well, we’re heading on, make sure you keep up.” If they fall behind, God help you if you don’t care in the least that they’re falling behind and you just leave the weak to be devoured by the wolves because you’re keeping up with the pack. Absolutely not! Christ calls Himself the good Shepherd because He won’t lose a single sheep. He’ll leave the 99 because He notices one has wandered off and He’ll leave the 99 to bring that last one back into the fold.

The fool says in his heart: “There is no God.”

Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe He is the Good Shepherd? Do you believe that He loves all of His sheep? Then why do we not care when there are weak sheep among us? Why don’t we have a concern for others among the sheepfold other than ourselves? Why doesn’t our concern reflect the concern of our great Shepherd?

Let us therefore strive. Let none of us be found to be unbelieving and may we all weep when we beg and plead and pray with someone who is falling behind. We do everything in our power to keep him in the fold and even get mauled by the wolves if we have to get in the way of the world who is trying to take one of our own.

But there’s sort of a question here about what we’re believing. What is it that we’re trusting? None of us have seen God so how do we know that this stuff is true. The simple answer is the Word of God. At least that’s the Biblical answer. These days, however, people have very un-Biblical notions about how they know God. In fact our ideas about God are very much affected not by Biblical ideas but Pagan ideas about God.

You see Romans 1 reveals that we are prone to idols. Throughout human history to the present day, the thing that is true of all idols is that they are dumb. They cannot speak. They don’t have mouths.

For this reason, all pagan religions have mystics, they have people in the know. They somehow tap into the sources of knowledge in the universe and information is beamed into their head. They enter into altered states, sometimes with drugs, and they give mystical prophecies of things that nobody else knows about.

But our God is not like the idols. Our God speaks. Our God knows. Our God creates. He creates by the Word of His power and light comes forward simply because He says: “Let there be light.”

How has He spoken though? Hebrews 1: “1Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things….” Christ is even referred to in John Chapter 1 as the Word made flesh. God speaks to us through His Word.

But to many people today, the Word of God seems so old, so ancient. It was inspired thousands of years ago and the people who last wrote down the Books of the Bible are long since dead. Men and women everywhere, and sadly many Christians, think that the Word isn’t useful for today. It’s not practical. The letters are dead on a page. In fact, many Pentecostals today seek constant new revelations because, like the pagans, they fall back into the idea that God is mute that He doesn’t speak so they go to their mystics – to people who enter into altered states and tap into the power of the universe. Flee from such people.

But this is what the Scriptures say of the Word: “12For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Far from being dead, far from lying dormant and being of no use for today, the Word of God is living, it is active. It pulses with life and power.

God’s Word cannot be taken lightly because if anyone doesn’t want to listen to it then that person faces no one less than God Himself. It’s not just a collection of ancient writings but it speaks to people, actively, powerfully today and always. The Bible demands a response because God does not tolerate those who ignore what He says. People who ignore this living and powerful Word do so at their own peril.

Stephen, in Acts 7:38 stated that Moses at Mount Sinai received “living oracles” and Peter in 1 Peter 1:23 states that we are born again through the Word of God that lives and abides forever. What we think of as dead letters on a page has the power to make men alive from their sins because they are the Words of the Everlasting God by whose Powerful Word the heavens and the earth were created.

But the fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

Just as God’s Word brought forth His creation, His Word recreates men who are dead in sins and transgressions (Eph 2:1-5). The Word is power but even as it brings life to us it is foolishness to the world. 1 Cor 1:18 states: “The message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

And because it is powerful and active, it has the effect that it is sharp and cutting and sees right through us: it is sharper than any two-edged sword – like the blade of a surgeon it uncovers the most delicate nerves not merely of the body but of the soul as well. In Rev 1:16, Christ is pictured as having a “sharp double-edged sword” coming out of his mouth.

The division between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, is all conveying the same idea that it uncovers the very thoughts and intentions of our heart. Human judges cannot see into the heart when they are rendering a judgment on criminals. They can only see the actions. God’s Word, however, judges and sees through the intentions of the heart. Everything is laid out by its cutting and discerning power.

Nothing remains untouched by the Word of God for it addresses every aspect of man’s life. All the recesses of body and soul face the sharp edge of God’s dividing sword. We might smile at our neighbor while we inwardly despise him but God’s Word uncovers them. God addresses man in the completeness of his existence and man is unable to escape the penetrating impact of God’s Word.

But the fool says in his heart: “There is no God.”

Hebrews 4:13: And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

God’s Word uncovers everything so, in the end, everything is laid bare before the almighty God who we owe perfect obedience to. It is impossible for man to hide sin in the dark corners of his heart. God knows. He sees everything; even darkness is as light to him (Psalm 139:12).

The past, the present, and the future are all before God because He is not bound by time or place but He dwells in eternity and is above His Creation. Do you suppose that if His eye is on the sparrow, and He knows the number of hairs on your head, that there is any hidden motive or thought that He does not know about?

The unbeliever seeks to hide from God but has nowhere to go (Jer 23:24). The secret sins of men are literally naked and open before God. Before the Fall, man lived with no shame but, immediately after His sin, he tried to run from God and cover himself with leaves. Man, in his fallen condition, is so foolish to think that leaves can protect him from the wrath of God for sin but leaves are not much protection from a strong wind much less the power of Almighty God.

And because all of our thoughts and deeds and sins are naked and open before God, all men will one day have to give account to their Creator. The books will be audited and all the bills, payments, and receipts will be checked. The consciences of men will literally be put on trial.

On that final day, unbelievers will call to the mountains and rocks in Rev 6:16: “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!” Everyone will have to give account of himself.

Yes, the fool has said in his heart: “There is no God” because such a thought can bring no comfort to men apart from God’s grace. This Word simply lays bare the failings of men as God said to him: Obey. Man has failed to obey and so the Word is a frightening thing. It is much easier for the unbeliever to be the fool and say to Himself: “There is no God, this is not His Word, and I will not have to give account to it.”

But, you see, that same Word that lays bare and condemns became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word that condemns for sin, became flesh to bear the sins of all who would believe upon Him. The fool says in his heart that there is no God but the redeemed say in their heart that Christ has died for the sins of men on the Cross and risen from the dead for their eternal life.

Therefore, I urge you that a day has been appointed: Today. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. The Word has searched you out and knows you. It knows all your darkest secrets, hidden sins, and faults. It searches out all those things by which you might be condemned but the Word has also revealed Christ and Him crucified. Do not be the fool that denies the authority of the Word, that acts as if God is dumb, that acts as if God cannot see. Submit to the Word and its authority and hear the Good News announced by it for the salvation of your eternal soul.

Let us pray.