Greyfriars Sermons

The Ascension of Christ (Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:9-11)

2012-01-23T10:56:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 22/1/2012

Luke is the Gospel writer who gives most details of the ascension of Jesus. Matthew closes his Gospel by referring to the Great Commission given in Galilee; John finishes with the story of the restoration of Peter, also in Galilee. Mark mentions the ascension briefly when he writes, ‘So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God’ (Mark 16:19). This is not to say that these writers did not mention the ascension elsewhere in their books.

Luke closes his Gospel by describing the ascension, indicating that he presented it as the climax of Jesus’ life on earth; he begins his second volume, the Book of Acts, with an account of the day of the ascension, so indicating that he also perceived the ascension as the catalyst for the launch of the church of Christ on to the stage of world history.

The ascension is obviously a key event in the life of the Saviour. It ranks with his incarnation, baptism, transfiguration, death and resurrection in a series of critical events that identify his mission and destiny. If the ascension had not taken place, then Jesus would have remained on earth as a man risen from the dead. In itself, such a scenario would be a great wonder, although it would not have been such a grand climax to his life as the ascension to heaven was. Later, we will refer to some important consequences of the ascension that prove this conclusion. In the meantime, it is sufficient to say, in order to show its grandness, that his ascension was not merely to heaven as a risen person but also to sit on the throne of God as its rightful occupant.

When did he go?

One answer to this question is that he ascended forty days after he had risen from the dead. Luke informs that he had met with his disciples during that period in order to instruct them about the kingdom he was about to set up. So we could say that he ascended once he had finished preparing his disciples for the great task that he had given to them. There are three reasons as to why Jesus remained forty days with his disciple: (1) to testify to his disciples the genuineness of his humanity; (2) to confirm them in the reality of his resurrection; (3) to instruct them in the knowledge of his kingdom. Once he had done these for a sufficient period of time, he left the disciples and ascended to heaven.

Another answer to this question is that he ascended during a time of fellowship with his disciples. Luke tells us that the ascension occurred as Jesus and his disciples walked the short distance from Jerusalem to Bethany. We are not informed as to whether or not Jesus had intimated to his disciples that he was about to leave them. The impression is given that they and Jesus were enjoying a walk together and during this everyday activity he ascended to heaven. I think this has a message for us, which is that nothing in life is ordinary if Jesus is present with us.

The mention of Bethany points to another answer. Bethany was the village where Jesus had close friends – Mary, Martha and Lazarus. He had spent many happy hours in their home. It is touching that Jesus left the earth close to a place where he had often been welcome and where he had performed his great miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11). It was there also that he had been anointed by Mary with her very precious oil (John 12). So Jesus’ last physical location was a place with dear memories for him.

The parting scene, as described by Luke, includes another important detail – Jesus blessed them before he ascended. He bestowed on them his shalom. Said T. V. Moore, ‘The benediction was begun on earth, but not ended, for “while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.” That benediction still lingers in the air, and cheers the hearts of God’s people, and will continue to do so, until the words of the departing Saviour are swallowed up in the sounds that will proclaim the coming Judge.’

Thomas Boston also reminds us that ‘The first tidings of our Redeemer’s birth were attended with praises to God and blessings to men; he began his public ministry with pronouncing blessings on certain characters, Matt. 4; when he died, he breathed out his soul in blessings to his enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;” and just when he was leaving the world, he was translated with a blessing in his mouth.’

Putting these details together, we can see that the Christ who ascended was a very human person: he had special friends whom he loved deeply, he had special places that he remembered fondly, and he had special blessings to give to those who had shared his life. His disciples would have remembered these features as they thought of Jesus in the years ahead and they would have been greatly comforted by them. Although our experience cannot be exactly the same as theirs, we too can have special times with Jesus when we receive extra-special treatment from him.

2. Where did he go?

A superficial answer to this question is that he ascended into the sky until finally he became a dot so small that he could no longer be seen. In contrast to this idea, Luke tells us that Jesus ascended on a cloud. He also records the words of the angel that the disciples had seen Jesus enter into heaven. This leads to the conclusion that the cloud was not one of the white fluffy shapes that the wind blows across the sky. Instead it was similar to the cloud of glory that had enveloped the disciples when they were on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus and the heavenly visitors, Moses and Elijah. The cloud seems to have been the doorway for Jesus to enter into heaven.

According to some scholars, the Greek term translated as ‘received’ means ‘to carry’. The picture is not of Jesus being obscured by the cloud but of being conveyed by it. According to Peter Toon, ‘He was taken up (epeiromai), and the cloud, a symbol of the glory of God, received him (hupolambano) by (as it were) getting underneath him, as when a dolphin assumes its rider, or when a father picks up his child.’ It was a common interpretation to regard the cloud as a kind of royal chariot that bore the ascending Christ towards the throne of God. As Horatius Bonar explained, ‘A cloud received Him out of their sight — most likely the shekinah-cloud, descending to form his chariot (“He maketh the clouds his chariot”).’ This is why his ascension was a visible event. It would have been possible for Jesus to have entered heaven in an invisible manner; he could have simply disappeared from the sight of his disciples instead of ascending. If he had done that, they would not have seen him being welcomed by the retinue of glory that came to greet him as he made his way to the throne of God.

Jesus, in making this journey, was heading home. Heaven had been his eternal dwelling-place. There he had experienced the fullness of love and joy that marks the presence of God. He was going to once again know the glory that he had enjoyed with the Father before the world was.

3. Why did he go?

There are many reasons for the ascension of Jesus. For example, it was essential for the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies that foretold the Messiah would be given such glory. It was also necessary for the validation of Christ’s own claims that he would yet ascend to heaven (John 6:62). His ascension was also crucial for his role as the heavenly Intercessor, with this activity being linked to his reign. But I would like to focus on five other features of his ascension.

First, Jesus was going to his reward. He was returning home from a successful mission carried out on behalf of his Father. The mission had involved him becoming a human and enduring God’s punishment against sin on the cross. He had been commissioned to provide such an atonement, which he did. At the same time he had also defeated the devil, stripping him of his power and putting him to shame. It was common, in the ancient world, for returning conquerors to be met by the city dignitaries, to be applauded by the populace as they marched down the city streets, with their defeated enemies in chains. This imagery is used of Christ’s ascension in Ephesians 4, quoting Psalm 68. Jesus was returning in triumph; he was met by the heavenly host, he was cheered by the heavenly inhabitants on his victory parade to the throne of God. We can imagine Enoch saying to Elijah, ‘They don’t need to speak about our ascensions any more because a more important one has taken place.’

Secondly, Jesus did not only return to heaven as a conqueror, he also returned there as a king to reign. He was welcomed by the Father’s invitation to sit at his right hand, at the place of power. There he reigns until all his enemies will become his footstool. I cannot predict everything that you will yet do. But I can predict this: each one of you will yet bow before Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:11). Some of us will bow before him as a gracious King; others will do it as before their final Judge.

Thirdly, Jesus was going as our esteemed representative. Before God, each human has the choice of one of two representatives, either Adam the failure or Jesus the Successful. Adam lost our inheritance and he cannot get it back for us. Jesus has gone into God’s presence as the forerunner of his people, to claim their inheritance on their behalf. He is there to ensure that they will experience regeneration of the souls, resurrection of the body, and reception of the inheritance of the new heavens and new earth.

Fourthly, Jesus was going to heaven in order to bring the nations to repentance. This he was going to accomplish by the giving of the Spirit, which began at Pentecost and continues on until now. He is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins and he works in providence to bring this about.

Fifthly, and tying it all together, we can say that Jesus was going to the place of rejoicing. It is the case that Jesus was called the Man of Sorrows when he was on earth. This does not mean that he did not have joy when he was here. It is impossible that he did not experience gladness in his heart as he healed the lame and helped the needy; how much more did he know joy when he forgave sinners. Spurgeon says in one of his sermons: ‘As pearls may lie in plenty in caverns, over which there rolls a dread tempestuous sea, so there slept in the heart of Jesus treasures of joy, even when the ocean of his holy soul was lashed with hurricanes of woe.’ Again he said, ‘There is a joy in living entirely out of one’s self for the good of others, and this Jesus drank to the full.’ But in comparison to the world of glory his joy on earth was not as extensive.

He rejoices to be in the presence of his Father, to behold his delight in his Son. He rejoices in the conversion of sinners, which means he has experienced great joy today as sinners throughout the world have been saved. He rejoices in giving consolation and comfort to each of his people, which also means he has experienced great joy today from this activity. The fact is that Jesus in heaven rejoices to be the Source that meets the needs of sinful creatures, be they penitent sinners or weary saints. Another source of joy to Jesus today is the arrival of sinners into his heavenly home. No doubt, there would be sadness on earth where they have lost loved ones; yet those who die in the Lord enter the bliss of Christ, the joy of the Lord.

Great is the significance of the ascension of the risen Christ!

Defeating the Devil (1 Peter 5:8-9)

2012-01-19T18:43:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 19/1/2012

There are moments in life that one never forgets. Peter had his highs and lows, and one of his lows occurred when he was not sober-minded and watchful, and then discovered that he was under intense attack by the enemy of his soul which led to the denial that he knew Jesus. That occasion was when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Peter had followed them to the high priest’s house where he denied that he knew Jesus. Peter had not been thinking soberly and had not been watchful, even in a literal sense, and shortly afterwards was caught in the devil’s trap. And we can see his memory at work as he recalled that sad time.

The focus to have

Peter calls on his readers to have a certain attitude all the time. They are to be sober and alert. Sobriety refers to their way of thinking and alertness describes their concern about possible dangers. Such sobriety and alertness can co-exist together. We would expect a soldier on guard duty to be serious as well as alert. And we are always on guard duty in a sense because we have to protect ourselves from the enemy of our souls.

If a Christian is marked by sobriety and alertness, he will not fall, no matter how fierce the devil’s opposition becomes. This reality is clearly revealed in the story of Job. Job had no idea that one day he would be called to go through a fiery trial; yet what is of great significance is that he was ready for such a trial, whether he knew it would come or not. Job prepared for the future by his behaviour in the present, when he always put God first. Because he lived each day in the fear of God and in keeping away from evil, he was inflexible when the devil’s fierce attacks came.

Christians are in a war, and a war situation demands a particular strategy, which is to keep a clear head and to look for potential attacks. A Christian knows that the devil can only be in one place at a time, but the believer cannot tell who the devil will target next. Therefore the realistic Christian will always be ready because he knows that the devil could attack him soon.

The fact to face

The fact that each of us has to face is that our adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (v. 8). How does he do this? John Brown, in his commentary on 1 Peter, summarises the activity of the adversary in these words: ‘He exerts himself, by his numerous agents, infernal and human, in counteracting the Divine benignant plan for the salvation of men. Error, sin, and misery, in all their forms, are, ultimately, his work; his animating principle is hatred of God, and his leading object the maintenance and extension of the power of evil.’ Here Peter likens the devil to a roaring lion; elsewhere he is likened to wily snakes and devious angels. Are there any legitimate deductions that we can make from this graphic illustration of a roaring lion?

The first is that we have a common enemy, the devil. He is the enemy of God and has been so since he rebelled in heaven. In the Garden of Eden, he showed himself to be also an enemy of the human race when he persuaded our first parents to sin. And he is the enemy of Christ’s cause, an enmity which he reveals in many different ways. He is against every single believer in Jesus.

The second deduction is that we have a cunning enemy. His strategy is like that of a roaring lion. The reason why a lion roars is to petrify its prey, and a roar of a lion can be heard several miles away. Apparently it is not too difficult to outrun a lion because it can only keep up a good speed for about 100 yards. If the prey could think intelligently, it would keep at least 100 yards away from the prowling lion. What is dangerous about a lion is not always the loudness of the roar but how near another animal is to it. But the roar can so petrify it that it does not flee.

The third deduction is that we have a confident enemy. He expects to find prey. It is the same with a lion. When it goes hunting, it is aware that there will be easy prey; there will be sick animals, young animals, isolated animals which it can easily catch. The devil does not think he will not find victims. Experience alone tells him that there is usually Christians in a similar state to what Peter was in that evening in Gethsemane.

A fourth deduction is that we have a cruel enemy. This is literally the case with a roaring lion. Once it gets hold of its prey, the victim is finished and sometimes lions will begin to eat before the animal is dead. There is no mercy for the prey of a lion. And the devil will not be lenient to any unprepared Christian he attacks. Many can testify, with Peter, that it is not pleasant to endure the attack of the enemy.

Spurgeon suggests that the devil has three roars in particular. First, there is the roar of persecution, and that was happening to Peter’s readers. Second, there is the roar of strong and vehement temptation. Third, there is the roar of blasphemous thoughts that can suddenly afflict a Christian in the most surprising places.

So how can we deal with such an enemy?

The fortitude to display

Peter calls on his readers to show spiritual courage. They are to resist his attacks by being firm in the faith. In order to understand what Peter means by firm in the faith we can borrow from Paul’s illustration in Ephesians 6 about spiritual warfare.

Paul begins by telling his readers to wear the belt of truth. The belt was used to tie up nay loose garments a soldier was wearing so that they would not hinder him. It is not too difficult to see what the belt signifies. First, it means that we must have the right understanding of the doctrines of God’s Word. But ‘truth’ refers to more than head knowledge of the Bible; it also includes our characters which are to be marked by truthfulness. This was the character of the righteous man described in Psalm 15:2: ‘He that walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart.’ Such a person lives out from the heart the character of God. In other words, he becomes Christlike. When the enemy roars, think of the Word of God; think about its promises and its commands, remembering that they have been given to keep us safe when under attack.

The second piece of armour mentioned by Paul is the breastplate of righteousness. A Roman soldier’s breastplate covered his chest and stomach and protected many of the vital organs. What does the apostle have in mind by righteousness? Paul is speaking about imputed righteousness, that is, the perfect lawkeeping of Jesus that was credited to our account. We wear this as our breastplate, and it is a breastplate that fits comfortably as well as giving a sense of security. When the enemy roars, think of the suitability of what Jesus has done for us.

The third item in the armour concerned the soldier’s footwear, which Paul says is the readiness or preparation of the gospel of peace. We need shoes to keep our balance, they provide protection as we move, and they enable us to move more quickly. Paul is not saying that we are being prepared to pass on the gospel; rather he is saying that the gospel prepares Christians to defend themselves against the enemy. A Roman soldier had always to be ready for a sudden change in the enemy’s tactics. Each Christian has to be ready as well because he does not know when the devil will change his tactics.

The peace here is not with our enemy but with our Commander. So it is a reminder that we were once at enmity with him. Yet Paul is not referring only to a cessation of enmity; he is also referring to an experience of peace in our hearts; he is not only referring to our Christian standing before God, he is also referring to a Christian’s sense of security. The first aspect concerns the removal of hostility, which occurs at conversion because of what Jesus did when he was on the cross; the second concerns the confident sense of God’s favour, which should be our ongoing experience. The first is reconciliation between God and us; the second is assurance. Paul is saying that the preparation we need to fight the devil is an understanding that we are reconciled with God and are enjoying the assurance of his favour. We need this awareness of reconciliation accomplished and the experience of peace in our souls when the lion roars.

The fourth item in resisting the devil is, according to Paul, the shield of faith. We should note that Paul here changes the verb from ‘having’ to ‘taking’, which suggests that some items have to be utilised in specific locations. Obviously a shield in battle had to be flexible: sometimes a soldier would hold it in front of him, at other times he would hold it above his head. A believer’s faith has to focus on matters that are suitable to a particular time. What matters about faith is not its strength, but its object, and the object of Christian faith is Jesus. As noted earlier, such faith will concentrate on the aspects of Jesus that are needed at the moment. So if a person is under Satanic attack, he will focus on the power and on the sympathy of Jesus.

A Roman soldier prepared for battle by drenching his shield in water. Then, in the battle, the fiery arrows would be extinguished when they attached themselves to the wet shield. A soldier who failed to wet his shield did not make adequate preparation for the battle. We need to saturate our faith in the Word of God, and we will diminish the effects of the devil’s roar.

The fifth item mentioned by Paul is the helmet of salvation. The Roman helmet was designed to protect the head. Paul is saying that salvation is the particular doctrine that will protect the believer’s mind and vision. This salvation enables the Christian to resist the devil by looking back (a good memory), looking up (a good attitude), and looking ahead (clear-sighted about the future). He can look back to conversion, indeed even further back to the eternal counsels when Jesus agreed to become the Saviour. And he can look back deliverances he has known in the Christian journey. Then he can look up to where Jesus is and see how he is willing and able to help each of his people. And he can look ahead to what he will receive when Jesus returns and there will be the great resurrection and transformation of his people.

The sixth item is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. A soldier’s sword was for using at close quarters and we have to use the Bible when we find ourselves under attack. The Bible was produced by the Spirit and he ensured that it is full of Jesus. It is also always his property, even when we are using it, so he will only use it in a right way. Yet we have to familiarize ourselves with it in order to use it. The Bible is a very effective way of dealing with the roaring lion.

Paul adds another feature, which we can call the Christian soldier’s battle cry, and that is prayer. When the lion roars, respond with the battle cry, which is prayer in the Spirit. In a sense, all we do is tell our Commander that the enemy is roaring. Such prayer is very specific in asking for divine help.

In addition to the items in Paul’s spiritual armour, Peter reminds his readers that their experience of Satanic attack is not unique – it was ‘being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world’ (v. 9). This is a call for sympathy because the experiences of conflict should lead us to empathise with others enduring the same. But it is also a call to learn from and be challenged by the faithfulness of others. This is what the writer of Hebrews does in his eleventh chapter. It is good for us to think about those who have endured trouble for the faith, whether we have read about them or even knew them. And regarding some of them we know that they were taken safely through a hostile world by their faithful Master.

So there are many reasons for being confident when under threat from the devil. His roaring cannot harm us and eventually Jesus will reveal that he has already won the victory over all his enemies. If we keep our heads with regard to the roars and watch carefully for signs of his advance, we will discover that he has provided what we need to resist the attacks of the devil.

Daniel’s Vision of Jesus (Daniel 7)

2012-01-16T21:41:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 15/1/2012

As we can see from 7:1, the details described in Daniel 7 happened before the events that were the focus of Daniel 5 and 6. In Daniel 5, the time was the last year of Belshazzar’s reign whereas in Daniel 7 it is the first year of his reign. Belshazzar reigned for about a decade in Babylon as a co-regent with his father who spent most of the period away from the city.

Daniel 7 concerns a vision that Daniel had and the interpretation he was given. The vision has two parts to it: the first part concerns four unusual animals (vv. 2-8) and the second part concerns the beginning of the kingdom that God would set up (vv. 2-9). Daniel is told that the beasts will come out of the sea (v. 3), which is figurative language for the Gentile world. Each of the beasts is very powerful and aggressive, especially the fourth one. There are similarities between the four beasts and the four sections of the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had seen in his earlier vision about fifty years previously and which Daniel had interpreted (Dan. 2), and most expositors take them as referring to the same four world empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome.

The type of literature is apocalyptic and is not designed to be taken literally, so it is pointless to try and find particular fulfilment of every number and image that is mentioned. Some speculate as to who were the three ribs in the bear’s mouth, or who is signified by the four heads of the leopard. But more than one reasonable suggestion can be made from the historical information that is available, and it is impossible to give an exact application of such details.

Apocalyptic adds vividness to the message because it is directed to the eye as well as to the ear. It seems clear from the description of each beast that there will be horrid wickedness and cruelty in each empire, with the evil getting worse as times goes on. They behave like wild animals determined to get their prey. Even the fact that the fourth beast is not compared to an animal should alert us to the possibility that it will be an empire so evil and cruel that it cannot be likened to the worst of animals.

One may ask why Daniel was given a repeat set of information about the four coming empires. An answer is that a new king Belshazzar had taken over the rule of the first empire and perhaps Daniel needed assurance that God’s plan for the world was still in place. It could have been deduced from the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue that his kingdom would disappear when he did. Since he was gone and it yet remained, perhaps Daniel was given divine assurance that God’s plan was still in place. Whatever the reason for receiving it, Daniel was led by the Spirit to write it down for the benefit of God’s people, which includes us living after the four empires, and not just one of them, have come and gone.

A second reason would be an understanding that, no matter how powerful the human empires would be, God’s throne would remain intact and unthreatened by what was happening on earth. So Daniel was given a marvellous vision of the splendour of God’s throne and what takes place around it. Daniel was used to being around earthly thrones and their attendants, but he was blessed with a vision that told him about the greatness of the divine throne.

The heavenly courtroom

In the vision, Daniel is informed that there will yet be a great occasion in heaven during the period of the fourth earthly kingdom. He has seen how the fourth kingdom is going to be all powerful and boastful, yet it could not realise that its behaviour was not only being monitored in heaven but was being opposed by heaven (vv. 9-12). But Daniel was told that the time for judging it would come.

So the heavenly courtroom is described and immediately we should note its calmness in contrast to the upheaval that marks the four earthly kingdoms (they arise from a disturbed sea, v. 2). Everything about the heavenly courtroom is serene, especially the judge.

All the focus is on the splendour of the One who sits on the throne. We should note his title – he is the Ancient of Days. This is a reminder that his origin cannot be located, which is not surprising because he has no beginning. He is the eternal God.

Further he is a righteous judge, depicted by his white clothing and hair. His portable throne chariot is surrounded by fire, which describes his holiness. Surrounding the throne are countless servants (angels) ready to do his will.

Before him are the heavenly records of the events of earth containing the evidence of what each of the beasts have done. When God chooses to do so, the sentence is passed and they lose their power.

What a profound vision of a majestic God! It is good for our souls to gaze with wonder at who he and what he can do. The kings of the earth are not even as big as pygmies in his presence. But Daniel sees that there is One who can draw near to the throne of God.

The arrival of the Son of man (vv. 13-14)

In his vision, Daniel observes the arrival of an exalted figure – his mode of transport is the clouds. He is able to draw near to the Ancient of Days and is given from him universal and endless dominion. His empire is larger and will last longer than the previous rulers.

Who is the Son of man? The New Testament gives us the answer to this question. He is Jesus; indeed we know that he often called himself by this name. This is a reminder that he knew where he was going when he used this title of himself.

When did he receive his position of power? It was during the time of the fourth empire. Jesus received from God the Father the name that is above every name at his ascension from this world into the world of glory.

Jesus himself referred to this prophecy when he answered the question of the high priest in Matthew 26:63-66: ‘And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgement?” They answered, “He deserves death.”’

We should note that this kingdom was given to the Son of man. The one who gave it was the Ancient of Days. What did this kingdom involve? It involves all nations, so the kingdom that is being described here cannot be the church because many multitudes of people have never been subjects of his saving grace. The subjects of the kingdom here cannot be limited to converted people; nevertheless the emphasis is that Jesus is king over all humans and their nations. At the time of his coronation, the nations under his power were completely unaware that he was in control, and although he has ruled over all the nations since then they are unaware of it as well.

Are there other biblical passages that would support this universal rule of Jesus? There are, and one of them is the Great Commission in which Jesus claimed to have all authority in heaven and on earth, and not just in the church. Another reference is Ephesians 1:22, where Paul writes that Jesus is head over all things for the benefit of his body the church. There are also Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:25 that Jesus must reign until all his enemies are under his feet. Jesus himself said in John 5:26-27 that the Father had committed all judgement unto the Son because he is the Son of man. And in his prayer in John 17:2, Jesus rejoiced that the Father had given him authority over all flesh in order that he would give eternal life to his people. In Revelation 14:14, Jesus is entitled as the ‘Lord of lords and King of kings’ who fights against his rebellious subjects.

So there are many verses that teach the universal reign of the ascended Christ.

Some lessons

The first detail to observe is the amazing accuracy of God’s predictions regarding the world. Throughout the Old Testament there are hundreds of prophecies. Many of them have been fulfilled already, especially those given in connection to the first coming of Jesus, and their fulfilment encourages us to believe that the others will also be fulfilled. We should ask ourselves when reading a prophecy in the Old Testament, say about the fate of countries such as Edom or Tyre, if it has been fulfilled already. A decent Bible commentary will give you the information and such details will deepen your appreciation of God’s control of historical events.

A second lesson is the complete inability of world empires to overcome the kingdom of God. They often make war against the saints, yet cannot overcome them, even although they develop in intensity against the people of God. This is the case today as much as it was the case in the past. There is mystery here, in that the weak overcome the strong because of the King who rules for ever.

Third, we should be thankful that we live in the period in which Jesus rules from heaven’s throne. We know that he rules over two kingdoms: he rules over his church and he rules over the nations. Because of our circumstances caused by living in a country which does not recognise the second aspect, we are liable to forget that it is also as real as his rule over the church. Jesus is the universal Governor, and he works all things for the good of his church. Providence is in his hands.

Fourth, Daniel was informed that his hopes for the future had to be connected to Jesus, the one who would yet have universal power. Daniel’s hopes were not to be in the return of his people to their own land from exile, even although it would be a marvellous fulfilment of prophecy for which the returnees would praise God (Psalm 126). Instead his hopes were to be set firmly and only on Christ and what he would do once he had been given the place of highest honour. Similarly our hopes should not be built on what we can call lesser activities of God, whether in providence or even in prophecy (except in the sense that they encourage our faith and are divine activities). We are to look to Jesus and to his victory over all hostile powers.

The Handwriting on the Wall (Daniel 5)

2012-01-08T17:13:00.006Z

This sermon was preached on 1/1/2012

Because the celebration arranged by Belshazzar took place on the evening before the fall of Babylon we know the date on which the event was held – October 11, 539 B.C. This means that about twenty-five years have passed since the details recorded in the previous chapter took place. Nebuchadnezzar himself died in 562 BC, and perhaps because of his passing Daniel seems to have been sidelined. Perhaps there was an attempt to forget the rather embarrassing behaviour of Nebuchadnezzar and his advisor Daniel. But the earthly powers forgot that God does not forget and neither can he be sidelined.

The sudden fall of Babylon – Why did it happen?

Babylon was a powerful empire, so why did it fall? Three answers can be given to this question.

The first reason is that a more powerful empire came along. This is not very surprising for us to note because we are aware of many empires that have come and gone since the days of Belshazzar. Our own country once had an empire, but it has long disappeared. As far as Babylon was concerned, it had replaced the empire of Assyria; now it was her time to be overthrown, and the new powerful empire was that of Media-Persia which was to be in control for several centuries until it in turn was defeated by the Grecian empire. No human empire lasts for ever.

The second reason that it fell is that God had planned it. His purpose for Babylon can be seen in two ways – general and specific. The general aspect had been revealed to Daniel via the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had had of a great image which represented three subsequent empires to Babylon (the dream did not say when the Babylonian empire would end). The specific aspect is found in a prophecy of Jeremiah (Jer. 25:8-14; 29:1-14) which says that after seventy years the Lord would remove power from Babylon and destroy its ruler. There are also prophecies by Jeremiah that the Babylonian empire would be brought to an end by the Medes (Jer. 51:28), and here they were about to overthrow their enemy, as verse 31 indicates.

The third reason is that God’s people prayed for the fall to happen (there is also a prayer for recovery by Daniel in chapter 9, after the Babylonian empire had fallen). We see their longing expressed in the poignant words of Psalm 137, a psalm that has become synonymous with captivity wherever it takes place. It is the case that in accordance with divine instructions they prayed for the prosperity and peace Babylon as long as it lasted (Jer. 29:7), but they still longed for the day when that cruel empire would only be a memory. Their desire was firmly based on the revealed will of God to punish Babylon eventually, as we noted above, and therefore it was not a contradiction of his intentions for that city. Sometimes it is appropriate to pray for wicked people to be removed from power, especially if they engage in acts of cruelty.

The sad fall of Belshazzar – Why did it happen?

Who was Belshazzar? The chapter indicates that he was a descendant of Nebuchadnezzar (‘father’ in verse 11 can mean ancestor). Secular history tells us more about him. He was actually co-ruler with his own father Nabonidus, which explains Belshazzar’s offer to make Daniel the third in the kingdom (Nabonidus was number 1, Belshazzar was number 2). Nabonidus may have married a daughter or a wife of Nebuchadnezzar, and this would explain how Belshazzar was a descendant of Nebuchadnezzar. Although at this time he was leading the Babylonian army in battle against the Medes, Nabonidus actually spent most of his rule away from the city, preferring to live elsewhere, and Belshazzar was recognised there as a co-ruler.

As we have noted, it was the evening before Babylon was captured by the Medes and the Persians. Inevitably this celebration, which may have been held annually, was connected to their siege of the city. Can we suggest why the event took place?

One possible answer is that Belshazzar was unaware of the imminent danger. The Babylonian army under the command of Nabonidus had engaged the Persians on a plain fifty miles from the city. The Persians won a comprehensive victory, Nabonidus fled, and the Persians marched on Babylon to help the troops surrounding the city. It is possible that Belshazzar did not know about the defeat and instead was actually celebrating an assumed victory.

Another suggested answer is that Belshazzar was aware of the loss in battle, but was very confident in the city’s resources. So what if the enemy was nearby, he was sure that it could never capture Babylon (it had been trying to do so already without success for over two years)! The city was surrounded by two walls, 350 feet high and 87 feet wide. On the walls were 250 defence towers towering another 100 feet high. Around the outside wall was a moat thirty feet wide. The River Euphrates flowed through the city, but it also was protected along its path by walls and gates of brass. There were enough provisions in the city to withstand a siege for twenty years. These factors made Belshazzar and his government feel very secure, no matter how large the attacking army.

A third suggested answer is that the feast was connected to Belshazzar becoming sole ruler, now that his father had fled to somewhere else. But since it was possible that Nabonidus could re-appear at any time, this is an unlikely reason.

A fourth suggested answer is that Belshazzar was trying to encourage his people because of the siege. So in addition to stressing the physical security of Babylon, he also drew attention to the supposed power of their pagan gods by contrasting them with the seeming weakness of the God who used to be in the temple at Jerusalem. The meeting certainly had religious overtones, so something similar to this fourth suggestion is probably the reason for the celebration.

So how did the Persians take the city so easily? They adopted a simple plan. Soldiers diverted the river a few miles north of the city, and once the water had dried up in a few hours, the army marched along the river bed into the city. They were probably doing so even as Daniel was speaking to Belshazzar, but the king and his guests were oblivious to what was going on.

What else can we say about Belshazzar? At one level, he was a great achiever and had risen to great heights as far as success can be estimated. He had been one of the most powerful men in the world, and everything seemed to be going great as far as his prospects were concerned. Further, he was an individual who liked to enjoy himself, and the bigger the party the better, although there is evidence that he was not a popular ruler.

Belshazzar was also an arrogant man. His arrogance is seen in two ways: first, he liked to make a big display for which others would praise him (we can see this in the kind of party he arranged); second, he deliberately ignored the warnings that God had given to him. It is clear from Daniel’s response, after he had been summoned to the king’s presence, that Belshazzar had deliberately ignored what had happened to Nebuchadnezzar. Only an arrogant man would ignore the warnings of God.

His arrogance made him a fool. He did not pay any heed to what had happened to his ancestor Nebuchadnezzar and dismissed the information that God had given to him regarding the demise of his kingdom. Belshazzar was aware that the Persian armies had surrounded the cities but he was unimpressed because he imagined that the defences of the city were impregnable. He did not make any connection between the prophecy given to Daniel and the attack by the growing power of Persia.

Belshazzar had his religious outlook. He was confident that his gods would give him victory, and the celebration he arranged was connected to that perspective. In addition he seems to have an inbuilt dislike for the God of the Hebrews. Why else would he want to use the vessels from their temple on this occasion? He added to his arrogance the sin of animosity to the true God.

The hand and the writing

God has ways of getting even the attention of drunken rulers. Yet he can do it in such a way that no-one knows what is happening. Belshazzar is not frightened by the meaning of the words, because he cannot read or understand them. We are not told why he or his wise men could not read the words – one suggestion is that they were written in Hebrew letters, which Daniel could read, but that is only a guess. Yet Belshazzar is absolutely petrified and panic stricken – he shouts for the wise men to come and interpret the words. This is not too surprising because nothing like this has happened before. I suspect that Belshazzar assumed that the hand had something to do with the gods of the Persians and he thought that they possessed a power that was unrealised by the Babylonians.

As usual, an opportunity is now given for the wise men of Babylon to show their incompetency. They have no idea what the words mean, and even the offer of instant promotion does not attract them. What use were these wise men at the moment he needed them the most! Normally they would have something of encouragement to say to their king, even if it was not true. But here they can say nothing, probably because the Lord prevented them from speaking.

Of course, Belshazzar is being reduced of his helps and confidences by God. In the midst of his thousand or so lords, the king finds himself becoming increasingly isolated, unable to control events. It is not that they don’t want to help him; rather it is because he is beyond their help.

At this moment, someone enters the room whom Belshazzar knows well – the Queen Mother. She is called the Queen here, but she is not Belshazzar’s wife because she is already at the party (v. 2). Perhaps she is his mother, but it is probable that she would be away with her husband Nabonidus in one of his retreats. Rather it is suggested that she is the wife of Nebuchadnezzar himself. Certainly her words reveal that she knows all about Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel.

She has affection for Belshazzar (v. 10), which would not be surprising if she was his grandmother. It is clear that she wants to help him. Nevertheless her words are also words of rebuke, reminding him of his folly. She rehearses what had taken place a few years earlier: Nebuchadnezzar had made Daniel the chief of the wise men because he possessed the Spirit of God. What is very significant is that she prefers to call him Daniel and does not refer to him by his pagan Babylonian name except to explain that he had both names. This would suggest that she, like her husband before her, had discovered a depth to Daniel that was only explained by his religious convictions, by his faith in his God. Further, she still has great confidence in him, even if Belshazzar has paid no attention to him (v. 12), and urges Belshazzar to obtain Daniel’s help.

The Queen, whether a believer or not, knew how to recognise the character, priorities and roles of a believer in the true God; and she tells us how we can recognise a believer as well. A believer is a person in whom the Holy Spirit dwells and who gives a special kind of knowledge when he speaks. She knew that Daniel was different from the other wise men.

Belshazzar by this time is so desperate that he will try anything. There is something ironic in him asking for help from a Hebrew while around him are the vessels from the Hebrew temple which he has been using in a disrespectful manner. He finds himself promising great rewards to a despised Jew if he can interpret the words on the wall, which is an indication that his panic had not removed his sense of protocol.

Daniel, the faithful witness

One detail that is obvious about Daniel is that he has no interest in worldly promotion, especially from a man who should have known better. This response to Belshazzar would have helped Daniel when the Persians took over because it would have indicated he was not on the side of their enemies. Instead he gives Belshazzar a history lesson and recites what had happened to Nebuchadnezzar. God in his sovereignty had given him the empire of Babylon and had taken it from him for a while because of his pride. The Lord had brought him very low, but Nebuchadnezzar eventually confessed that God was the sovereign ruler and the kingdom was restored to him. Belshazzar would have been in Babylon at that time.

Then Daniel gives Belshazzar a lesson in religious instruction. He reminds the king that he is wilfully rebelling against God, against the knowledge he had of God’s dealings with his predecessor. And to make matters worse, the king had attempted to demean the living God by abusing the vessels from his temple (the sin of sacrilege) and to extol non-existent gods (the sin of idolatry). Daniel charges the king with the sin of dishonouring the Lord whom his grandfather had honoured.

Having prepared Belshazzar for the bad news, Daniel tells him the meaning of the writing on the wall. The words have a connection to weights and scales – numbered, weighed and divided. God is the one using the scales and he has already performed three things: (a) the time is up for the Babylonian empire (is the numbering a reference to the figure ‘seventy years’ which earmarked the length of the empire’s existence?); (b) Belshazzar himself, unlike Nebuchadnezzar, is finished; (c) the Medes and the Persians have already been given the kingdom. In other words, Belshazzar was told that he was too late in coming to Daniel for help. The time was up, and that evening he was gone from this world, from an idolatrous party to a lost eternity.

Four applications

Belshazzar did not leave much to posterity but he does leave four things for us to think about. The first is the danger of aggravated guilt. Belshazzar had seen enough years before in what had happened to Nebuchadnezzar to know that God will judge sinners. Yet he refused to take note and eventually perished.

The second lesson is that we should learn from the grace that God shows to others, whether in the past or in the present. God had been good to Nebuchadnezzar and shown him mercy. Instead of being a person with a few paragraphs in history about building cities and waging wars he is now an example of God’s mercy to all who read about him. It is good for us to think about those whom we knew tasted the grace of God.

The third lesson is that we should not leave putting things right with God until the last hours. Belshazzar did not get an offer of mercy. Of course, it was possible for him to have experienced personal salvation while losing his kingdom. But he did not hear about mercy because his heart was totally deaf to God and his ways. He had plenty time before this – he probably had known about Daniel and his God all his life. Yet he spurned his opportunities and discovered that he had lost them all.

The fourth application is that God is weighing us in his scales. He is assessing us according to his standards, and if we fail he will punish us. We should remember the reality that what will be pronounced at the Day of Judgement about us is far more important than what can be said about us now. No doubt many of the guests were saying nice things about Belshazzar and his party, but what did their assessment matter since God had already weighed him and past sentence on him?

Daniel in the Den of Lions (Daniel 6)

2012-01-08T17:12:00.001Z

This sermon was preached on 8/1/2012

A new regime is now in place in Babylon. The new rulers may have decided to retain officials from the previous government, which would explain why Daniel was still involved. It was not long before Darius discovered the worth of Daniel and further promotion was planned for him. By this time Daniel was about eighty years of age, and his fellow officials thought it was about time he retired. Yet since retirement did not seem to be on Daniel’s agenda, they had to resort to other means of getting rid of him.

The testimony of the officials

It is one thing for a gifted individual to be assessed by the general public and it is another thing for him to be assessed by his fellow-experts. These men knew all about the running of government departments and what was expected of those working in them. Therefore their conclusion about Daniel is very noteworthy – they could not find even a fault with all his work. This tells us that he was diligent and careful, and I think that is what is meant by ‘faithful’ in verse 4. He worked as hard as he could and he ensured that everything was done well. Why did he do this? The text does not say, but the answer is not hard to deduce. He served in this manner because he knew that he was under the all-seeing eye of God. The Lord not only knew what Daniel did, but was also aware why he did it.

Further the officials knew the key to Daniel’s behaviour – his devotion to God (v. 5), especially his prayer life. They knew that there was the possibility of setting a trap for him if they could make it illegal for him to pray to his God. We’ll come back to their trickery when we consider what the chapter says about the character of Darius. In the meantime we can reflect on the fact that his opponents knew that Daniel was a man devoted to pleasing God. They knew that he was not a man-pleaser, which they probably were. Instead they recognised that Daniel would not compromise any aspect of the demands of the law of God. Daniel was known as a god-fearing man.

There is one more detail that we should note about the officials, and that is that they were entrapped in the net that they had prepared for Daniel. It is a dangerous thing to conspire against those whom God is determined to honour. However unlikely, he is able to turn the tables and bring disaster on those who planned disaster for others, especially his people.

Conversion of Darius?

No-one is sure who Darius was because he is not mentioned in secular history. There have been three suggestions at least: one is that he was governor of Babylon for a short time and therefore his period of rule did not merit subsequent mention; a second is that the word ‘and’ should not be included in the translation of verse 28 (instead of reading as ‘So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian’, it should read as ‘So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius, which was the reign of Cyrus the Persian’) – this suggestion considers Darius and Cyrus to be the same person; the third suggestion is that his other name was Guburu, a general whom Cyrus did appoint to rule in Babylon after it was conquered. An older suggestion, based on Greek historians, is that Darius was the uncle of Cyrus, but that does not seem to be viable.

Darius is introduced to the readers as a wise man who knew how to organise his government so that it would prosper. Further he is an observant person because he discerned the gifts that Daniel possessed would benefit the whole kingdom. Connected to this is the fact that he was a flexible ruler, willing to adjust his own system in order to accommodate the gifts that Daniel possessed – Darius was planning to create a new role for Daniel because the current arrangements did not accommodate him.

Those features, which at one level are commendable, also allowed for the possibility of change with regard to the government practices. There must have been potential developments in the transition of rulers from Babylon to Persia that made the proposal of his government officials attractive to Darius. It is highly unlikely that he assumed he could prevent people praying to their gods. Therefore it may have been the case that he was looking for a scheme that would bring harmony between the various people groups conquered by him. One potential cause of disputes was the various religions found within the empire, so it seemed a good suggestion to ban them all for a month and use him as an access to the gods instead.

Was God at work in the life of Darius in this incident? We could say that providentially he was shown that the policy of having unchangeable laws was not very productive. I have no idea if his government persisted with this temporary law, but Darius was shown that it was not a safe one for his government to have. So that is one good benefit from the incident.

A second detail is that Darius was cornered, not only by the officials, but also by God. Where does he turn in his desperation? A clue is found in verse 16: ‘May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!’ What more suitable advice could Darius have given? He was trapped by his own laws, but he seems to know that Daniel’s God was not limited by them and could provide a way out. Whatever else we make of his comment, it is clear that he had, at least, a small amount of faith in the Lord.

Then, what are we to make of his sleepless night (v. 19)? We are all aware of occasions when sleep flees from us because we have made a foolish decision or said an inappropriate word. Yet the passage seems to indicate that he wanted to be alone. He chose not to utilise the entertainments that could have diverted his thoughts. At the very least, he was concerned about Daniel. There was tension in the air, although I suspect that Darius wanted to be by himself in order to engage in prayer.

The sleepless night was followed Darius’ hurried visit to the den as soon as it was daybreak. What would be the point of him going there unless he had a notion, at least, that the God of Daniel could deliver his servant? In normal circumstances, the lions would have killed the prisoner. And if he did not have a spiritual interest, he could have sent an official to find out what had happened. It looks as he had very strong personal reasons for going to the tomb. Faith can express itself in unusual ways, even in a visit to a den of lions.

And as we listen to Darius speaking, we note that he gives God a special name – he is the living God. He knew that the other gods did not exist, but he was convinced that Daniel’s God did. How did he discover this insight into God’s existence? Somehow he had become convinced of the existence of God. No doubt Daniel had spoken to him often about the Lord. Was it Daniel’s calm composure at negative providences that alerted Darius to something more than normal? Who knows? All we can say is that the ruler of Babylon confessed that there was a living God, which at the same time is also a confession that there are dead gods.

Finally, what about his decree instructing his subjects to worship the true God? After all, Darius composed it because he wanted to. There was no earthly power that could have compelled him to write it. So in a sense, it is Darius’ testimony. What does he say about God?

Darius details how people should worship God – they are to tremble and fear. Darius was used to individuals trembling before him. But he did not want any to tremble in that way without trembling before God in a deeper way. Trembling and respect are appropriate responses to authentic majesty. Why should we tremble before God and fear him? Darius gives four reasons.

First, the Lord is the living God. Darius had seen the ineffectiveness of many false gods. They had made no difference in the lives of their worshippers and had no power to intervene. Wherever they were adored by followers, eventually those followers were demoralised by defeat. It was different with Daniel’s God – he could intervene in impossible situations and could comfort his people, even when he allowed them to go into activity. Because he is alive, he is always there.

Second, the Lord is eternal. This follows on from his livingness. He cannot have had a beginning and he will not have end. He does not diminish in his power and in his commitment to his people.

Third, the Lord is powerful. He reigns over a kingdom that will never be destroyed and no-one will take his power from him. Darius realised that the Lord was the almighty God. As a king, Darius knew about kingdoms coming to an end – only a year before he had been instrumental in bringing the mighty empire of Babylon to an end. He knew that his own kingdom would be outlasted by the kingdom of God, and since he will rule forever he should be feared and worshipped.

Fourth, the Lord delivers his people and in doing so he reveals that he controls the universe. Darius knew that Daniel was in trouble and does not take any credit for his rescue. Instead he gives all the glory to God. What more can be expressed by a man of faith?

We should note the sense of irony here. The officials had suggested to Darius that he represent the gods of the empire for a month. After going through a range of experiences, each of them a step in the ladder he was ascending to God, Darius represented the true God as his messenger and told the whole empire about him. Darius confessed that he, the king, was a subject of the true God. So while the devil may have used the officials to bring Daniel down, the Lord used them to bring Darius up.

The character of Daniel

The first detail to note about Daniel is that he possessed an ‘excellent spirit’ (v. 3). This could be a reference to the common workings of the Holy Spirit who had given him the necessary gifts for his roles. In addition, I would suggest it is a description of his sanctification because it reveals ongoing inner change. His position had not made him proud.

A second detail to observe is that divine testing can come at any age. Daniel had been tested as a young teenager by God and here the Lord tests him again, in his old age. The focus of the testings was the same – who was in charge of Daniel’s life? Would he live according to the demands of God or the demands of earthly rulers?

Daniel could have argued that he should accept the prohibition on vocal praying. After all, he could still pray silently. It would only be for a month, and then he could resume his own personal preferences. Why be so intransigent? Daniel realised that there were limits to the power of the state, and it had intruded into areas of his life over which it had no authority. So he was not prepared to bow to its demands.

With regard to his prayer life, he was consistent. He prayed three times a day for over seventy years, which is almost 80,000 times. On each of these occasions, he had gone to the particular room that faced Jerusalem, kneeled down and prayed. His consistency was based on his disciplined life. It is a man of disciplined prayer that copes with crises because he speaks to God about them.

His prayer life was also consistent in its content and manner. The first thing that he did when he prayed was give thanks to God, even although he was aware that the document that threatened him had been signed. He did not judge God’s commitment to him by the actions of others. When the officials came along, they found him engaged in earnest intercession, pleading his petitions. His prayers were not dry chats with God. Instead he implored divine blessing on others.

There are several challenges from this brief description of Daniel’s prayer life. First, he was naturally very gifted, able to run an empire, yet he always made time for prayer. Second, he prayed in a location where his eyes looked towards what he loved – to Jerusalem, the city of God (Jesus too, when he prayed, looked in a certain direction, to heaven). The challenge is, where are our affections when we pray? Third, his open window was a reminder to him and others that he prayed often. Is there anything in our homes that indicates a strong faith in God? Fourth, would it make much difference to us if prayer was banned for a month and we could not meet on Thursday evenings?

Finally, there is his experience in the den of lions. What does it tell us about his outlook? First, he knew his God – note how he says ‘my’ God. Second, he believed in personal divine protection by heavenly servants, the angels. The passage does not say if Daniel saw the angel, but his words indicate that he believed the Lord delivered him in accordance with his word (Psalm 34:7). Better to see deliverances as heavenly activities rather than mere coincidences.

The obvious lesson from this story is the impossibility of defeating God’s man if God intends to use him.

The second lesson is that seeming disasters are often paths to expansion in the kingdom of God. Daniel’s troubles led to a monarch believing and a set of hostile forces disappearing.

A third lesson is that a believer can have fellowship with God anywhere and sense his help. It is interesting that Daniel does not say that God closed the mouths of the lion – instead he attributed it to the ministry of angels. Daniel recognised that his Lord had an arranged structure of government that was far more effective than the arranged structure of Darius.

The fourth lesson is that we are to look for converts in any providence. We can never deduce that a situation is impossible for divine grace to work in it. If there ever was an unlikely convert, it was Darius. But he was led to have faith in Daniel’s God.

The Risen Christ and the Coming of the Spirit (Acts 1:4-8)

2012-01-08T17:12:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 8/1/2012

Luke begins his second volume (the Acts) by first summarising what Jesus taught his apostles during the forty days between his resurrection and ascension. During these days Jesus instructed them about various aspects of the kingdom of God. Luke then gives details about the final day that Jesus spent on earth with his disciples and we can see that his main focus was on the coming the Spirit. Jesus distinguishes the coming of the Spirit from two other important religious events: the ministry of John the Baptist and the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. In effect he is saying to his disciples that they are not to look back to the days of John or to look forward to the ingathering of Israel. Instead they are to wait for the coming of the Spirit which was to happen shortly.

1. The coming of the Spirit had been foretold in the past

We know that the coming of the Spirit had been a central theme of the teaching of Jesus, for example, in the upper room on the evening of his betrayal and arrest (John 13—17). Obviously, he gave more detailed instruction than had been previously given, but it is still beneficial to consider what others had said before him.

Who was it foretold by? One obvious answer to this question is John the Baptist. He said in Matthew 3:11: ‘I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.’

Yet we can go back long before John, to the days of the prophet Isaiah. This is the comfort he promised to the exiles in Babylon in Isaiah 44:3: ‘For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.’ No doubt, there were many partial fulfilments prior to the coming of Jesus, but now the great fulfilment is near.

Another prediction of these days is found in Zechariah 12:10: ‘And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn’ (KJV).

A third prediction of those days is found in Joel 2:28-29: ‘And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.’ Here the blessing is not limited to Israel, but includes all the nations. Nor is it limited by gender, age or status.

These were great predictions made by God. They were given to stimulate longing for the glorious days of refreshment that were to come, and Zechariah linked them explicitly with the death of the Messiah. In that prophecy, the Messiah is speaking, saying that he will perform the outpouring of the Spirit on Jerusalem.

2. The coming of the Spirit had been promised by the Father

In verse 4, Jesus tells his disciples to wait for the promise of the Father. What did he mean by this statement? One possible answer is that the Father had promised the coming of the Spirit in the Old Testament. In this sense, Jesus would be saying that the Father is about to fulfil the promises he made to his people in the Old Testament.

I also think there is a more profound answer to the question, an answer that takes us back to a pre-creation agreement between the Father and the Son. One term of this agreement was that the Father would give the Holy Spirit to his Son in order to bring about the worldwide blessing describe earlier. But before he would receive the Spirit, the Son was required to pay the penalty for sin and provide a means of salvation for sinners. This Jesus has done, and now he is anticipating the fulfilment of his Father’s promise.

If the predictions of the prophets indicate the details of the purpose of God, the promise of the Father indicates the personal interest that the Trinity has in the plan of salvation. They are not detached from it; rather it was their eternal desire and anticipation.

3. The coming of the Spirit is connected to the preaching of the witnesses

In verse 8, Jesus tells his disciples that they are to be his ‘witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth’. The term ‘witnesses’ does not mean ‘witnessing’ in the way many Christians speak about it today. Often, what they have in mind is a personal testimony of how they came to know the Lord. The apostles were witnesses in the sense that they were to proclaim what they saw when they were with Jesus and also they were to explain what happened to Jesus as well as passing on his teachings. In other words, this is a reference to their declaration of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

It is worth noting in passing that the promise of the coming Spirit was not given as a reason not to pray but as a reason to pray. Promises are to be pleaded, used as arguments with God to fulfil what he has said. We should pray persistently for the Spirit to be given.

4. The coming of the Spirit brought power

The witnesses to Christ’s mission inform listners of what Jesus has done and implore them to repent of their sins and to trust in Jesus. They do this with a sense of urgency. Yet they are preaching to people who see no need of a Saviour. This is where the power of the Spirit comes in. What can we say about this power?

First, it is a gentle power. I mention this because often it seems that people expect the power of the Spirit to overwhelm them. They expect him to come as a gale force wind rather than as a gentle breeze. Sometimes he does come in a manner that is like a storm, but more often he draws near in a gentle manner.

Second, it is a gracious power. By this, I mean that he intends to convey grace to us and not condemnation. Of course, if we resist his work, we will increase our condemnation.

Third, it is a convicting power. Usually, the first display of power by the Spirit is convincing us of our sins. He does this by using tools found in the Bible, mainly the law of God and the cross of Christ. He uses the law to show our failure to meet God’s standards and he takes us to the cross in order to see the heinousness of sin as well as to see the remedy for sin. This is what conviction of sin is.

Fourth, it is a regenerating power. His leading us to the cross brings about repentance and faith. Under his overruling and enabling, we look on the One we have pierced and repent of our sins; we look to the pierced Saviour as the only hope of deliverance. Repentance and faith are the evidences that we have been given life.

5. The coming of the Spirit was first known in Jerusalem

In verse 8, Jesus informs his disciples of his divine programme of blessing once they have received the Spirit: ‘you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’ This order is the one that is followed in the Book of Acts and involves three stages: (a) Jerusalem, (b) Judea and Samaria, (c) the end of the earth. As we can see, stage 3 is still ongoing.

Regarding stage 1, it is marvellous to note the Saviour’s desire that the gospel be first preached with power in Jerusalem. Of all places, it deserved his judgement because there he had been crucified. Yet the desire of the risen Jesus, as he was on the doorstep of heaven, was for these great sinners to be converted. This gives great insight into the compassionate heart of Christ. He wanted his enemies to be delivered from the state of sin and be forgiven.

Some of the ones to whom the disciples were to preach had shown awful opposition to Jesus. There in the city were those who had cried for him to be crucified, were those who had spat on him, were those who had borne false witness against him, were those who had mocked him when he was on the cross. To them Jesus wanted his gospel to be preached in the power of the Holy Spirit.

But it was not only rebel sinners who were in Jerusalem. There were also religious sinners gathering there to keep the Feast of Pentecost. Jesus had his eye on them as well when he directed his disciples to begin there. They were travelling from all over the world to keep an appointment, but not the one that they expected. Jesus was watching them as they trudged the weary miles to Jerusalem to keep the feast. What a great surprise awaited them when they arrived! They would hear the way of salvation, a way that their religion could not provide.

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you (1 Peter 5:7)

2012-01-08T17:07:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 5/1/2012

We are all aware that we live in a society marked by anxiety. People are worried about their finances, their families, their health, their security in the face of terrorism, their possessions because of the crime rate, and about many other things. Peter’s readers had their own concerns which affected them, although it may seem that Peter does not analyse their needs in depth when he gives them this piece of advice. So what can we say about his instruction as we approach the topic of dealing with worries.

First, Peter’s comment is a reminder of the bigness of God. It is as if Peter has a measurement tool and he compares all other possible remedies with God. The other remedies may be helpful in one or two area of concern, but they cannot deal with every source of worry. But God can, says Peter. So his words remind us of the bigness of God.

Second, Peter’s words are a reminder not to expect human leaders to be able to do what is beyond their abilities. He has just instructed his readers to obey their elders as they face the difficult circumstances they were about to enter. Those elders would do their best, but even their best is not enough. They are limited in their capabilities, even although they are shepherds who care for their spiritual flocks. But we should not regard them as if they had the caring capabilities of the Chief Shepherd.

Third, Peter’s advice reveals that holding on to our concerns is not an expression of humility. Alexander Nisbet, a Scottish seventeenth-century author, wrote: ‘Misbelieving anxiety, whereby Christians break themselves with the burdens of these cares which God requires to be cast upon him, is one of the greatest signs of pride in the world; and to trust God with the weight of these in following our duty is a prime evidence of true humility.’

When a person retains them, it indicates self-sufficiency, which is an aspect of pride in any creature. Peter links ‘casting’ with humbling ourselves. Doing so is admitting that we cannot deal with any of our cares, be they great or small in our estimation. We might admit that we should hand big concerns over to God, but we are reluctant to hand over small ones because we imagine we can deal with them, and that is an expression of pride.

The sinfulness of anxiety

What is wrong with worry? Of course, we need to distinguish between acceptable concern and illegitimate worry. Paul, for example, had many concerns about the churches to which he wrote, and these concerns were right. Of course, we know that Paul prayed about the causes of care and responded to them appropriately. It is appropriate for parents to worry about their children if they have got lost or are taking part in an exam or are being bullied at school. It is valid for an employer to be worried about his company in an economic downturn. It is normal for a sick person to worry about his health. Yet we also know that we can respond to worries in wrong ways.

First, anxiety can lead us to doubt whether or not God cares for us. Such anxiety is our opinion on divine providence and it reveals that we do not think God has the wisdom or the power or the commitment to deal with it in the best way. So when something seems to go wrong, instead of taking the matter to God, we start to fret over it and suspect that somehow nothing good can come out of the circumstances. We can easily see how Peter’s readers could have reacted in this way as they faced the prospect of persecution and its effects.

Second, anxiety can lead us to take matters into our own hands in a wrong way. Peter has already warned his readers about the danger of certain sins that were liable to appear in their difficult circumstances (1 Pet. 4:14-15). Because they were deprived of goods, there was the danger of stealing; because they were physically abused, there was the danger of responding with violence. Such responses could appear among Christians at all times of difficulty.

Another possible wrong response is to trust in the advice of humans rather than in God’s promises. If we go into a bookshop, we often find that the self-help section is beside the spirituality section. A similar proximity can occur in our lives when we place the opinions of humans above the promises of God. Of course, good advice is to be welcomed. But if the human advice is valued more than counsel of God, then we are sinning.

Third, anxiety can delude us into thinking that we are not in a world affected by sin. Previous generations were perhaps less likely to have this problem because they lived in circumstances where problems were expected. It was normal to live with poverty, ill health, and danger. They realised that humans were liable to all the miseries of this life, as our catechism puts it. Yet we are liable to them. If an earthquake occurs, the houses of Christians and non-Christians will be affected.

Fourth, anxiety can lead to a distorted perspective of events. It has been observed that in the past, when something went wrong, Christians would ask, ‘What is God teaching me in this circumstance?’ Today, even Christians respond by saying, ‘How could God allow this to happen to me?’ or even with, ‘What right has God to allow this to happen to me?’ When we respond with such questions, it is a sign that we have lost a true perspective on life.

Fifth, anxiety can cripple our souls because the concerns we have become the all-consuming focus of our thoughts and we are unable to do anything else. They are with us when we waken in the morning, and they have prevented us from getting to sleep at night. Physically we end up exhausted, and spiritually we are of no help to others because we are pre-occupied with our own concerns. And yet all our worrying does nothing to help the situation. The problems remain, and so does selfishness.

Sixth, such excessive worry is a very bad Christian witness. Can we sing Psalm 46 truthfully if we are convinced that our troubles will destroy us? The words of Psalm 23, about knowing the presence of the Shepherd in dangerous locations (the valley of the shadow of death where wild animals lurked to attack the sheep), are expressions of confidence in God. What would an onlooker say if he saw a fretting sheep walking beside its shepherd? That may happen with physical sheep, but it should not be the case with spiritual sheep. What should concern the physical sheep is how close it should keep to the shepherd, and that should be our concern as well.

The attitude of God

Peter reminds his readers that God cares for them. No doubt he recalled the teaching of Jesus on anxiety as recorded in his Sermon the Mount. He would have remembered how Jesus used birds and flowers to illustrate God’s care, and since he cared for them he would certainly care for his people. We should learn from Jesus and deduce spiritual truths from everyday events. The sun rose this morning, a reminder that God cares about his creatures. In a few weeks, we will see flowers, but they will only appear because now God is looking after the bulbs that have been planted. His providence is everywhere.

In addition to God’s providences, we have his many promises. He has promised to be with us all the time, to work everything for our good, to lead us safely through this world to heaven, to provide for our daily needs, to strengthen us when we need it, and to protect us from our spiritual opponents. Of course, in order to have the comfort of the promises, we must know what they are. I suspect that one cause of anxiety among Christians is that we do not know our Bibles. Therefore we are ignorant of its promises and of the stories of individuals whom God helped in remarkable ways.

It is also important to keep reminding ourselves of who God is. He is the faithful God, the wise God, the loving God, the forgiving God, the prayer-hearing God, the present God, the God who has planned our days with great skill, the tender God. Think of what he has done for us in Christ: chosen us, adopted us, and promised us glory. At present he is sanctifying us, making us like his Son. Jesus remains our Shepherd, our Teacher, our Intercessor, our Defender. And the Holy Spirit indwells us and wants to comfort us. Jesus gave instruction about the ministry of the heavenly Comforter when he was also aware that his disciples were going to face troubles and tribulations.

Peter stresses here that God cares for his people. He care for them as a good father cares for his children, as a good doctor cares for his sick patient, as a good guide cares for those he is leading, as a good commander cares for his soldiers, as a good teacher cares for his pupils, as a good employer cares for his workers.

How can we know that God cares for us? Make a visit to the cross and see the suffering Saviour, and you will know that God cares for us. Take a look into the records of the heavenly councils and see the triune God deciding to save you from your sins, a reminder that God cares for us. Look ahead to the eternal world of glory that is to come, with a particular place assigned for us, and we will see that God cares for us.

The activity of the believer

Peter instructs his readers that they have to cast their cares on God. Here we have a picture of prayer. He does not mean that we cast them in the way that a fisherman casts his line, keeping hold of it. Instead we cast them in the way that a child will give an item to his parent for safe-keeping. The item may not seem much to an onlooker, but both the parent and the child have a shared interest that makes the item important to both of them.

In prayer, we have to ask God to deal with our thinking processes. The fact is that most of our wrong concerns arise from wrong thinking. We are to ask the Lord to teach us how to think in each difficult situation. No doubt we can imagine one of Peter’s readers worrying about what would happen on a particular day. He would ask God to help him to think in that circumstances as a Christian should.

Sometimes, we should ask God to enable us to think about something else whenever we find ourselves having worried thoughts. Paul deals with anxious thoughts in Philippians 4:6-7. He tells his readers to pray about them, and assures them that God’s peace can be known. Then he urges them to meditate on things that are noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report and praise worthy. Frequently, worried thoughts will disappear once we start thinking about spiritual matters.

In prayer, we also have to ask God to enable us to deal with the devil’s attacks. There is a connection between our concerns and the devil’s temptations because Peter will move next to tell his readers how to respond to what Satan is doing to them. Such a request is not for information about what the devil is doing, but for God to preserve us from being led into temptation and of deducing wrong ideas from what is happening to us.

It is also the case that we should pray specifically about illegitimate worries that we have. We should take each one of them to God and ask him to help us with them. This involves time, but it is time well-spent.

Further in prayer, we have to ask God to teach us how we can apply his promises to ourselves continually. No doubt we would all accept the general principle that God cares for his people. Often what we need is the assurance that he cares for me. One of the ways in which we can help ourselves is be praying the psalms. In many of them, the psalmists have fears and we can use their words to help us come through similar experiences.

The Risen Jesus and the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20)

2012-01-01T14:02:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 1/1/2012

This is the second recorded appearance of the risen Christ in Galilee, the other being his appearance to seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberius (John 21). It had been pre-arranged by Jesus, which indicates it was one that he regarded as being very important for the disciples. The central words of the account have become known as the ‘Great Commission’, and obviously serve as the climax to the Gospel of Matthew.

As we consider the way that Matthew has structured his Gospel, we can note two details. First, he began his Gospel by saying that Jesus was both the son of Abraham and the son of David. An alert reader would have realised that Matthew was going to show how Jesus fulfilled the promises made by God to both these individuals. God promised Abraham that blessing would come to the world through his seed; in the Great Commission Jesus sends his apostles to all the nations with a message of forgiveness. Therefore, Jesus is now in the process of fulfilling the covenant promise to Abraham. Similarly, God had promised David that one of his descendants would sit forever on his throne; in the Great Commission, Jesus claims to be the universal king, thus fulfilling the covenant promise to David.

Second, many scholars have noted that Matthew depicts Jesus as similar to Moses. Moses had to be rescued at birth, gave God’s laws from a mountain, and left this world from another mountain (Pisgah). From Pisgah he surveyed the future inheritance of God’s people, commenting on various aspects of their life in the Promised Land. Jesus, too, had to be rescued at birth, gave God’s laws in the Sermon on the Mount, and is here depicted as surveying the future of the new Israel. He looks down the years ahead and sees the ingathering of a vast number of disciples from all over the world.

It is generally assumed by scholars that this occasion in Matthew 28 is the same one as mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:6 when Jesus was seen by over 500 disciples at the same time. In Jerusalem, there seems to have been only 120 disciples, at least that was the number who gathered together after his ascension (Acts 1:15); but since Galilee was the area in which Jesus had given most of his teachings and performed most of his miracles, it is not surprising that he would have more followers there, so it is possible that such a meeting occurred in Galilee. Another reason for this suggestion is that Matthew says that some observers doubted that it was Jesus, which some commentators say is not likely to have been a response of the eleven disciples because they had already met with him previously. Personally I’m not sure about the suggestion that the two events are the same because the passage in Matthew only mentions the eleven apostles, and he was one of them. Surely he would have hinted that others were present if it was the same occasion as when Jesus appeared to the 500 disciples.

As we think of this Great Commission, we need to remind ourselves that the risen Christ gave it more than once to his disciples after he rose from the dead. In the Gospel of John is recorded a commission that he gave on the evening of the day on which his resurrection occurred: ‘Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you’ (John 20:21). In Mark 16:15, he said to the eleven, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’ In Luke 24:46-49, he said to the eleven that ‘repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.’ Similarly in Acts 1:8 he says, ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’ In Mark, Luke, and Acts, the people spoken to by Jesus are the eleven disciples, so it is likely that they are also the ones present in Matthew.

One striking feature of this passage is the fourfold use of the word ‘all’. Jesus claims to have all authority, his disciples are to come from all the nations, they are to be taught all that Christ commanded, and he will be with his people all the days until the end.

The meeting with Christ

They were believers in Jesus, each one with a personal story to tell of how he had brought them to himself. Each of them had experienced the low of denying him and the high of seeing him risen from the dead. In loving obedience to their risen Master they had gone to Galilee in the assured hope of once more seeing him; as Matthew Henry says, it was a long way to go for one sight of Christ, but it was worthwhile. Further, it is likely that as they journeyed to Galilee and through Galilee they would have discussed the great deeds and profound words that they had seen performed by and heard from Jesus. They were marked by authenticity, anticipation and precious memories. Surely a great experience was ahead of them.

We are not surprised that when Jesus appeared to them they worshipped him. What more appropriate response could they give? Before their eyes stood the triumphant Christ, living in the power of an endless life. Songs of praise, words of adoration tumbled from their lips. Here was an occasion of heaven on earth.

Yet we are told that some of them doubted. Despite their personal encounter with Jesus, despite their already having met him alive from the dead, despite all that they knew, they doubted. Is this surprising? Not really. Someone else would have been with them on the road through Galilee, casting doubts on Christ’s promise and on previous experiences. That someone is the devil, and he is always on the move in order to prevent a meaningful encounter with Jesus.

In what ways could their doubt have been expressed? One possibility is doubt about their capability to function once Jesus had left them. Some of them, as we noted in a previous study on John 21, had experienced their inability to even catch fish without his help. That was at a mundane level. His physical absence was a possible reason for their concern because Jesus then proceeded to stress his ongoing presence with his disciples. Another possible source of concern was the fact that there was no sign that the resurrection of Jesus had caused the authorities to change their opposition to the message of Christ. His great achievement seemed to be having no effect outside their small group. It may also have been the case that he looked different from what they had seen of him on previous occasions after his resurrection.

The wonderful consequence of this is that Jesus did not exclude the doubters from participating in the Great Commission. This shows that Jesus was aware that what was needed is his power. It was not the faith of the strong that would achieve the Great Commission.

The supreme position of Christ

Jesus says that he has all authority in heaven and on earth. What is authority? It involves power and the entitlement to use it. For example, the army in Britain has the power to control our country but it does not have the entitlement to it – that authority belongs to our political leaders. Unlike our national situation, Jesus possesses both the power and the right to use it. There are several features we can note about this authority.

First, it was received by Jesus. It was given to him by the Father when he said to him: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool’ (Psalm 110:1). Therefore, this authority was not his inherent authority that he possesses as God. Rather it is authority given to him as the God-man, the Mediator. This leads to the question as to why he was given this authority.

Second, this authority was a reward for his life of obedience, which included his work of atonement. There had been an eternal agreement between the Father and the Son that included the Father’s promise that he would exalt the Son to the highest place once he had paid the penalty for sin. The fulfilment of this promise is described in Philippians 2:9-11: ‘Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’

Third, this authority was given to a risen man. The point of this aspect is that it was given to the One who had defeated death. It is not clear if Jesus is speaking anticipatively here of his ascension and exaltation when he says that he has received this authority; or it may be the case that he had already experienced an inauguration in some way regarding his supreme authority. Several achievements were necessary before he could receive this power. Included among these achievements was his victory over both Satan and death, with his resurrection being the proof that he had triumphed.

Fourth, Jesus mentions the range of this authority, which is full authority in heaven and on earth. In heaven, he has authority to enact the Father’s purposes, he has authority to send the Spirit, and he has authority to be the Judge of all at the end of history. On earth, he has authority over human governments, over human wills, over providence. There is nothing over which he does not rule. As it has been put, there is not a second of history or an inch of geography over which Jesus does not rule.

All these details indicate that Jesus possesses a truly royal authority. I suppose we could say that some earthly kings, because of their power, exhausted the description of kingship. But when we come to Jesus, we have to extend our concepts because his reign is totally unique. There is no previous reign to which we can compare it.

The unchanging purpose of Christ

Jesus then proceeds to state what he wants his apostles to do. There is only one verb in verses 19 and 20 and it is the verb ‘to make disciples’ (’go,’ ‘baptise’ and ‘teach’ are participles connected to the verb, which explains why they are translated as imperatives). This indicates that the primary point of the verse is not the going, or the baptizing, or the teaching, but the making of disciples. These disciples are to be publicly identified (baptism) and comprehensively instructed.

These disciples are to be found in all the nations. This announcement from the King is not one of condemnation but one of compassion. As he spoke, the nations of the earth were in pagan darkness, but Jesus would yet have his disciples from among each nation. Within these nations, there were different classes of people, engaged in different activities, possessing various degrees of intelligence. Jesus tells his apostles that he wants disciples from each situation.

When he was on earth, Jesus saw the masses as lost sheep without a shepherd. He still sees humanity in this way. There is a story told of D.L. Moody. A group of English ministers wanted to find out the secret of his spiritual success. Moody was not educated, spoke English badly, and was not very refined. They came to his room and asked him for the secret. He took them across to the window and asked them what they saw. One said he saw some children playing, another said he saw couples walking together, and a third then asked Moody what he saw. He went to the window and said, with tears in his eyes, ‘I see hundreds of people who will be in hell unless they find the Saviour.’ He saw them with the eyes of Jesus.

Note that Jesus speaks with certainty. He does not tell his disciples to try and make disciples but to make disciples. Success is guaranteed, not because of the gifts of the apostles, but because of the power and wisdom of the King. These disciples could, as we can, look on the task ahead and conclude that they could do nothing. It was too much for them to convert even one individual from Israel, never mind individuals from other nations. In that situation, they were to stop looking at themselves and look at their Leader. He possesses the power not only to convert individuals but also to convert people from all the nations.

It is also important to note that Jesus expected nations as well as individuals to be discipled. His vision is comprehensive and large; we could say that he wants the range of disciples to be as broad as the extent of his authority. Further, his vision is not limited to one period of history, such as the Reformation. There have been periods in history when nations became Christian nations. This does not mean that everyone in them was converted, but it does mean that Christ’s teachings were the foundation of its national life. We can think of the success of the early church, the spread of the Reformation, the effects of the great revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Britain and America, and we can see it today happening in Africa and South America. This commission of Jesus is great in the sense that it holds out for us the prospect of conversions on a national, indeed multi-national scale.

Jesus focuses on the outward profession of these disciples and not on the inner change. This outward profession involved two things: baptism and instruction.

Baptism is a huge topic and cannot be covered in part of one address. Let me say two brief things about its meaning. First, baptism is a sign of ownership. It is an indicator that the baptised person belongs to the Trinity. I suppose we could say it points to adoption into the Father’s family, to redemption by the Son, and to sanctification by the Spirit. Second, baptism is the start of discipleship, because instruction begins after the baptism.

Christian instruction is based on the teachings of Christ. This means several things. First, there is the reality of fulfilment. The Old Testament must be interpreted through principles that Jesus gave for understanding it. He had the authority to dispense with some of its requirements such as the Levitical system. Therefore his disciples were to take to Jews the message that the Old Testament had to be read with the understanding of what Jesus had done.

Second, there is the reality of exclusiveness. Other religions must be dismissed as possible ways to God. If other religions could achieve this, there was no need for Jesus to send out his apostles with the message of salvation. They could have stayed in Israel and left other places to continue with the religions they already had.

Third, there is the reality of fullness. His disciples were not to be selective concerning which teachings of Jesus should be adopted. They were to teach all that Christ had commanded. His disciples were to be taught comprehensively; nothing that he taught was to be omitted from the instruction.

The assured presence of Christ

We can imagine the disciples feeling totally overwhelmed as they listened to the words of Jesus. If some doubted before, these concerns would have increased after listening to his requirements. How could they possibly do this? The answer to this dilemma is given by Jesus himself; he promises them his presence throughout the age until he returns.

Jesus promises to be present on a daily basis. Literally, he says that he will be with them ‘all the days’. He will be there on good days and bad days. This would have been a tremendous comfort for the apostles to recall when they were concerned that they had made a mess of things and when they thought they may have made a poor witness about their Master. And he is present with his power.

Obviously Jesus was present with the apostles in a unique way and there are aspects to their authority as Christ’s delegates that we do not have. Nevertheless, given that he mentions all the days until he returns, and since he also would have known that his immediate apostles would all have died long before then, he must have had in mind the church after their departure from the scene. So we can make legitimate deductions from their commission and apply it to our service for the Master, particularly in three details.

The first detail concerns his presence. Jesus was not promising his physical presence to his apostles; instead he was referring to his spiritual presence which we know, from elsewhere in the New Testament, is brought about by the Holy Spirit. Just as this spiritual presence was known by the apostles, so it can be experienced by Christians at all times and in all localities. We expect him to be present in our church services, but we should also be assured of his presence when we are working for him in other places, especially in situations of difficulty where our witness for him be may treated with contempt and opposition.

The second detail concerns the power that Jesus possesses. He has universal authority, but it was not limited to the lifespans of his apostles. Jesus promises to be with us as he was with the apostles and others who have preceded us. Who made Paul a soul winner? Who made Whitefield and Spurgeon soul winners? It was Jesus being present with them exercising his authority. Therefore, we can see him do great things today if he so chooses, which leads to the third detail.

The third aspect is that the promise of his presence does not mean that Jesus is only present in big gatherings. It is Jesus who chooses the number of disciples in a place. If he wants a big church, there will be a big church. If he wants a small church, there will be a small church. There was a small church in Colosse as well as a big church in Ephesus.

Application

Jesus has a comprehensive authority (everything is under his control), Jesus has a competent authority (he has the ability to govern all things), Jesus has a confident authority (he expects to have disciples), and Jesus has a compassionate authority (he offers mercy to those who have rebelled against him).

The messengers of Christ are ambassadors of the King with universal power. He, through them, comes to us offering pardon and forgiveness. In doing so, he assures that his great power will be exercised on our behalf. This is great consolation.

What happens if we refuse his message? It will mean that his almighty power will be ranged against us on the Day of Judgement. Does this statement of the risen Christ not call us to bow the knee to him? This is a great challenge.

Humility (1 Peter 5:5-6)

2011-12-31T00:11:00.001Z

This sermon was preached on 30/1/2011

Having urged the elders of the congregations to fulfil their responsibilities in times of spiritual difficulties, Peter now addresses the congregational members in general and mentions several important responses that should mark each of them. Given the situation they were facing, which included the likelihood of ongoing persecution, we might be surprised at his first suggestion, which is the necessity of humility.

Humility in younger church members

Initially, he speaks to the younger members in the congregations (5a) before addressing all Christians about this important topic. As far as his words are concerned, he could be instructing the younger to obey all the older members or he could be telling them to obey their official elders. The context must help us decide which option is more likely. ‘Likewise’ indicates that Peter is still referring to church rulers in this sentence. It looks to me that the apostle wants the younger members to obey the elders that governed the churches on Christ’s behalf.

Why did the apostle mention this detail? I don’t think he did so because the younger were already ignoring the opinions of the elders. He is not rebuking them here. Instead he is looking ahead and telling them the best way of proceeding through the potential pitfalls that they may encounter.

The question that then arises for us is whether or not Peter’s requirement was a temporary one because of the particular situations his readers were facing or is it a biblical principle that applies in all situations? There is no suggestion that his requirement is temporary. Of course, he is assuming circumstances in which elders are fulfilling their responsibilities, so he is not suggesting that elders should be obeyed no matter what they are doing. They should only be obeyed if their decisions are biblical. So why should we submit to functioning elders? Here are three reasons:

The basic reason is because God requires it, which obviously places it within the overall area of obedience to him. So a failure to obey scripturally-functioning elders is an expression of rebellion against God, a repudiation of his requirements. Obedience to such church rulers is an expression of submission to God.

A second reason is that the church has already chosen them as elders. Usually such selections would be made because they were identified by other church members as suitable leaders of the congregation. The church recognised two details about them – their God-given gifts and their Christlike characters. So it would be an expression of pride for some, not just younger people, to reject their spiritual authority. Such rejection would cause disharmony in a congregation.

A third reason is two benefits that such elders will inevitably have – wisdom and experience. What is wisdom? Wisdom is knowing what to do with your knowledge, and such wisdom only comes from experience. Anyone can have knowledge if they are willing to learn, but the possession of intellectual knowledge is not the same as knowing what to do in difficult situations. The elders will have been through difficult situations before and will therefore know what to do in order to guide the church.

Humility in all church members

We all have different types of clothes: there are the clothes we wear for working and there are clothes that we wear for relaxing. If invited to a wedding, we would not wear clothes we put on for work. We recognise the necessity of wearing appropriate clothes on every occasion.

Peter also knew that there were appropriate clothes to wear on each occasion. Unlike our daily lives in which we change clothes according to the event, Peter insisted that we must wear the same outfit wherever we go, and the garb he requires us to wear is the suit or dress of humility.

I suspect that he has in mind humility as the outer garment that others will see. Usually undergarments were worn and each would have had different reasons for being put on. For example, in cold weather a person would put on other clothes below the outer garment, but these other clothes would be hidden. I think we can see how this works on the spiritual level. Each of us has gifts and abilities, and we might be tempted to put them on as the outer garment that others will see. We have to wear them, but they should be covered by humility.

Similarly, an outer garment would often hide defects in other items of clothing from the eyes of others. Every Christian has defects, but how will they be hidden? They will not be noticed in a humble person, although they will be seen in a person who is proud. It is a strange fact that when a proud person tries to hide his defects others will see them, but if that person was humble others would not see them.

Humility is a garment that no-one else can put on us; instead we have to put it on ourselves. This does not mean that we provide it ourselves, but we do have to put it on each day. We obtain humility from the heavenly store, the same place where we obtain all other spiritual blessings. As we enter the heavenly shop, we note that the owner is very humble as he delights to serve us. He is very attentive and insists on showing us how we can wear this particular garment. Then he measures us and provides us with a garment that fits us perfectly.

He assures us that his garments will last, and that there will be no need to discard it because it will become frayed. He does say that if we stain it, we should take it back to his shop because he is the only one who knows how to clean it. I think we can all see the points in the illustration.

Each of us obtains humility from God’s storehouse of grace. We have to go there and ask him for it. He has provided a model for us in how it should be worn, and that model is Jesus. We have examples of his humility in the Gospels. He had a humble birth, lived in a humble home, worshipped in a humble synagogue, adopted a humble lifestyle, and died a humble death.

This particular attire covers every part of our body. It covers our eyes (there is nothing uglier than haughty eyes), it covers our tongues (there is nothing as disruptive as proud speech), and it covers our hands and feet (we use them to serve).

Humility fits us perfectly. When Adam was created, he was created humble and such an attitude was very appropriate for him. He sinned because he attempted to rise, which was an expression of pride. When a person is converted, he or she humbles himself or herself and begins to function the way a human should. Humility becomes us and makes us attractive.

Wearing the garment in public

What are the benefits of wearing the garment of humility? We wear spiritual clothes in two different places: in private and in public. Peter is more concerned with the public space here because he urges his readers to wear humility whenever they meet one another. Yet I am sure that Peter would say that we cannot put it on in public unless we have it on in private. So the first benefit that the garment of humility brings is that it delivers us from hypocrisy, from contradiction, from trying to be in public what we are not in private.

Humility also delivers us from the obvious danger of pretending. One of the things that we learn in life is that there is always someone better than us in everything. There is always someone who knows more than we do, who paints better than we do, who drives better than we do, who is more cultured than we are. Often, when we meet such people, we are tempted to give the impression that we are more accomplished than we are. Humility delivers us from such shallowness and liberates us from the chains of pointless competitiveness.

Humility also rescues us from the pitfalls of pride, of which there are many. Pride always comes before a fall. We may want to blame the devil and his temptations for our falling, but while they may have contributed, they are not the reason for the fall. Often, we fall because of a lack of humility.

Humility is a means of obtaining more grace. Peter stresses this when he says that ‘God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble’. We often find ourselves facing a situation when we have to choose between two correct options and find we cannot tell which one is better, even after making careful investigations about them. If we are humble in that situation and confess our ignorance to God, we can expect him to give grace about it and lead us in the best option for us. Surely the fact that God gives grace to the humble should lead us to trust in him increasingly in all situations.

Humility will lead us to respond to the Bible correctly. An example of this is stated in Isaiah 66:1-2: ‘Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”’ Spurgeon, in a sermon on verse 2, mentions several reasons why the humble tremble at God’s Word: (a) they tremble at its majesty; (b) they tremble at its searching power; (c) they tremble at its threatening power; (d) they trembles at the thought of offending the Most High; (e) they trembles at the prospect of missing out on its promises.

Humility will make us teachable by one another. One of the instructions Paul gives is that we should admonish one another. Apollos was a teachable individual who did not resist or resent the fact that Priscilla and Aquila wanted to help him understand more accurately the meaning of certain Bible doctrines (Acts 18:24-26). His humility led him to become even more useful in the church.

Humility will cause us to honour one another. One of the sad aspects of contemporary life is the way character assassination can take place. Usually it involves admittance of a person’s good deeds, but then is added a statement that is designed to lower his or her reputation in the esteem of others. Such should never be part of Christian speech and it will not be part of the speech of a humble Christian who honours other believers. Thomas Watson comments that a ‘humble Christian studies his own infirmities and another’s excellences and that makes him put a higher value upon others than himself.’

Humility is voluntary

Peter tells his readers to ‘Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you’. There is a difference between being humbled and being humble. We are humbled by another person: for example, one tennis player can be humbled by another tennis player who is a better player than him, yet the defeated player may still be a proud person and attempt to exalt his own abilities. Many people have been humbled by God in providence and remained without humility in their lives. How can we become humble?

Humility will lead us to be like our Master. Sanctification is another word for Christlikeness, which means that he is the role model for humility. Therefore we will study his character as revealed in the Gospels. We will note how he bore insults, how he was prepared to be a nobody, and how he was content to leave his future exaltation in his Father’s hands. Jesus made himself of no reputation and the Father gave him the name that is above every name (Phil. 2:5-11). His humility was all-embracing and his exaltation is all-embracing.

Humility will cause us to use our memories. We will not forget where we were when Jesus found us. When we see pride in a Christian, we can be sure that he has a bad memory or else he has forgotten what God knows about him. A humble person cannot forget where his sin brought him.

Humility will cause us to test our motives. It is a lowly person who examines himself. The proud Christian assumes that nothing is wrong, and therefore sees no need for checking up on himself. But as long as we have sin within us, we will need to check our motives.

Humility will lead us to admire progressing Christians. We will love to see signs of God’s grace at work in the lives of our fellow Christians. Indeed we should be looking for this when we meet together.

Humility will take note of the mighty hand of God. At the moment, it is the mighty hand of providence, arranging the circumstances of our lives. If they are difficult, we know that only his hand can protect us and only his hand can replace that kind of providence with another. Yet they will also note that the same mighty hand will exalt them eventually to great heights and there is no power that can prevent it from taking place. The realisation of God’s sovereign power enables humility.

Elders (1 Peter 5:1-4)

2011-12-31T00:11:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 22/12/2011

The people of God to whom Peter was writing were facing difficulties. Some had already known the consequences of persecution, and the situation was liable to get worse. We can imagine all kinds of consequences: the fears some may have had of not being strong enough to continue their witness in the face of never-ending opposition; the sorrow and perplexity of those who had lost possessions and, worse, their loved ones; the normal circumstances of church life such as coping with temptations, looking for guidance, seeking for sympathy, provision of spiritual food, and so on. What does Peter do as he proceeds to advise them? He could have repeated an exhortation to look to the Lord, and there is no doubt that the apostle would have stressed the importance and necessity of such a response. Yet he also knew that the Lord uses means, and one of those means is the elders that rule the various congregations of God’s people. In a war, the victory is usually one by the side with the best commanders. The church was and is in a war and a lot is required of its leaders. Peter knew that as well and therefore he begins by encouraging them.

What is an elder (v. 1)?

The term ‘elder’ here is presbuteros, from which we get the word Presbyterian, although the idea of elders is not limited to Presbyterian denominations. It usually occurs in the plural, a reminder that it is not right for a church to have only one elder as some other ecclesiastical systems have (the only Pauline greeting that mentions ‘elders’ is his greeting to the church in Philippi). The eldership role was probably taken over from Jewish practice and the little information we have about the apostolic practice is that elders were chosen by popular vote. The description so far is an ecclesiastical answer to the question, but there is more to the role than being a plural group selected by church members. So what else is an elder?

Paul answers this question in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9 and in those passages he basically focuses on the character and duties of an elder (there he calls them by the name bishop or overseer). It is a very searching list of items and those of us who are elders should go through them often, asking for divine help to live in such ways. But we will focus on Peter’s description of an elder.

The answer to our question, says Peter, is threefold. First, it is an honourable position. We see this aspect in Peter’s wish to be identified as an elder. After all, he had a more important role, that of an apostle (incidentally this is one of the verses from which it is deduced that lesser offices are included in greater ones, so those who hold to this interpretation would say that Peter was also a deacon). Yet he also wanted to be identified as an elder (Peter is not the only apostle who speaks in this way – the apostle John also calls himself an elder in his second and third letters). He recognised that it was an honourable role.

We can also see an aspect of its honourableness in the way Peter says that he and the elders to which he is writing are ‘fellow-elders’. In other words, he does not grade elders. We have a distinction between them in the use of ‘teaching elders’ and ‘ruling elders’. I have heard this distinction expressed wrongly: it is often said that some elders are teaching elders and the rest are ruling elders. The correct way to describe them is that they are all ruling elders and some are full-time teaching elders. But they have equal authority in the church. Another abuse of this aspect is when an elder is referred to as a ‘chief elder’ or as a ‘senior elder’. If all that is meant is that he is older than the others, then it is harmless. But if it is used to suggest that he has more authority, then it is a wrong description.

Peter reminds us that an elder should be respected because he has an honourable role. He then mentions that in addition to being an elder he is also a witness of the sufferings of Christ. Peter cannot mean that he was a literal witness of what Jesus endured at the hands of various authorities and on the cross. The apostle was not present when Jesus suffered in these ways. Instead he is saying that he was selected by Jesus to testify about what Jesus suffered, not only in a physical sense, but also concerning his atoning sufferings. And that is what elders are as well – they have been selected to testify about the atoning sufferings of Christ. We can see how this would be relevant at a time when his followers were suffering for him. They would need to be reminded of the greater sufferings of Christ.

The third feature that Peter shares with the elders is that he, with them, will partake of the glory that is ahead. Partaking has the idea of inheriting, and people normally look forward to what is going to become theirs in the future. Thinking of the glory to come will make them suitable leaders of the church in the present. What the church needs is not leaders who know a lot about this world; instead it needs leaders who are an example in heavenly-mindedness.

So what is an elder? He is a person who is an honourable ruler of Christ’s church with other rulers who are equal to him in authority; he is one who testifies to the atoning sufferings of Jesus whether in a public occasion or in a more private manner; and he is a person whose mind is in heaven and who anticipates the glory ahead once the troubles of this life are over. So we should see that an elder is a crucial individual in Christ’s church and such people have a very important role to play.

What does an elder do (vv. 2-3)

Peter reminds the elders that they have to care for Christ’s flock as shepherds. They do this by ‘exercising oversight’. Now Peter stresses some aspects which we may pass over. The term ‘flock’ is a way of expressing endearment. Of course, they are God’s flock, the ones whom God loves and cares for. So Peter is reminding the elders that the ones they are looking after are those whom God is very tender towards. It is as if the apostle is saying, ‘Tend them in a manner as to how God would deal with them.’

The basic way in which they care for the flock is by ‘exercising oversight’. The idea here is superintendence of the flock. Clearly, the obvious feature of a superintendant is presence – it is impossible to function as an absent superintendant. Yet the temptation to keep one’s distance would be very strong in a time of difficulty or persecution. Peter is reminding the elders that they cannot abandon the flock that God has put in their care.

What did a literal shepherd do when he was caring for his flock? He provided them with food, he guided them through the day, and he protected them from danger. We can easily see how such applies to the role of an elder. He ensures that proper instruction is given, that proper decisions are made, and that dangers are pointed out and avoided. Those who are teaching elders will do this publicly but all elders are expected to do this for God’s flock. So we can imagine elders finding some of Christ’s suffering people or frightened people or about-to-deny him people and giving them appropriate encouragements from God’s Word. And in situations where persecution is not the problem, they have to ensure that other dangers, such as worldliness, does not affect God’s flock.

Peter mentions three temptations that will affect Christian leaders. They are a reluctant attitude, an intention to get wrong profit, and a dictatorial spirit. I would be a very poor shepherd of literal sheep. I admire men (and women) who will spend hours looking after those silly animals, and who will shed tears when they are taken away to the slaughter-house.

First, an elder will not want to leave one of Christ’s sheep in spiritual distress; he may find that he cannot help the struggling believer, but he cannot remain indifferent. When he finds himself out of his depth, he will call out to the Chief Shepherd for help, and it is amazing how quickly the right words come. But a reluctant person will forget to pray truly for divine help. He might offer a prayer as an attempt not to get involved, but that does not work. Reluctance is a terrible attitude in a professed carer of Christ’s sheep. The true elder will continually say to himself, ‘How would God want me to deal with this sheep?’

Second, an elder will not use Christ’s sheep as a means of self-promotion. This means that he does nothing with the aim of getting a reward for doing it. It is inevitable that those who are helped will express their gratitude and that is a different matter. But it is possible, for example, for an elder not to pay any attention to a Christian who is poor but instead to spend his energies on those he knows will help him in a variety of ways. In other words, this kind of temptation is a reversal of what should happen. Instead of working to help the other person, this kind of elder works in order to be helped by the other person. Peter says such a motive is wrong.

Third, an elder will not be a bully (domineering), forcing others to do what he wants, even when he is right. Peter himself is an example of how elders should behave: he as an apostle could have coerced his fellow-elders to obey him, but he had learned a better way of achieving his goal. There are bullies in the Christian church, and they often use orthodox language. Yet bullies are very ineffective in a spiritual way and instead of helping develop church life they destroy it. The best remedy for stifling such a danger is for the elder to remember that the flock belongs to God. An elder should never exhort someone to perform a spiritual duty he is refusing to do himself. Instead he is to be an example to the flock. If we run through the list of qualifications for eldership in 1 Timothy 1 and Titus 1, we will see that apart from being apt to teach all the other qualifications should be found in every Christian. In other words, what distinguishes an elder is that he is a consistently good example – not a perfect example, but a person who is growing in grace. When an elder lives like this, he does not have to be a bully.

What will an elder get (v. 4)?

Peter reminds his fellow-elders that if they serve Christ well they will receive from him ‘the unfading crown of glory’. This is obviously a form of reward, but it will not be given by an appreciative church (that can happen in this world and it is a good thing to do for all faithful elders); instead it will be given by a pleased Master.

What will the reward include? One aspect will be for an elder to see in glory those he helped when he was an elder. He may not have realised the way that the Lord was blessing such involvement, but he will see that the Lord did use him. He will discover that the hours he thought were fruitless, the many prayers he offered and thought were not heard, were actually the opposite and he now sees those individuals reflecting the glory of Jesus.

Another aspect is that the enjoyment of the reward never diminishes. The reward will be an eternal reminder that Jesus, who never forgets, is always pleased with what his dedicated elders did for his flock that he left in their care.

The other aspects? We can wait until we get there to find out! Meanwhile we have a call as a congregation to pray for our elders and submit to them, and for our elders to continue to tend the flock of God.

The Coming of Christ (Micah 5:2-5)

2011-12-31T00:10:00.001Z

This sermon was preached on 25/12/2011

As we know, there are many prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus. Most probably refer to his reign as universal Lord; others refer to his sacrificial death; and a few refer to his unusual birth. It is interesting that Isaiah and Micah, who ministered about the same time, both have predictions about the birth of Jesus. Isaiah predicts that Jesus will be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14) and later mentions that ‘a child will be born to us’, a child who will be the Wonderful Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father of eternity and the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6-7). Micah here refers to the place where Jesus would be born, mentions several details about him, and informs his listeners of several blessings he can give them.

As many of us also know, this passage in Micah was the one that Herod’s religious advisors turned to in response to his question concerning the birthplace of the Messiah (Matt. 2:5-6). They knew where to find the information, but there is no record that they acted upon the information. These religious officials did not join the wise men in their search for the new-born King. They are a reminder to us that it is possible to know the details of the Bible and not get any profit from our knowledge. What a sad situation it is to know a lot about Jesus but not to know Jesus!

In considering the way Matthew uses this text, we can see that he adjusts it because by the time he wrote his Gospel Jesus had been born. The prophecy in Micah had said that Bethlehem was insignificant (‘too little to be among the clans of Judah’); Matthew says that with the coming of Christ it was no longer the least because he had been born there. This is a picture of the difference that Christ makes in the lives of nobodies – he makes them into important persons because he indwells them by his Holy Spirit.

It is also the case that Micah’s prophecy here further defines previous information given by God about the birth of the Messiah. Since Eden, details had been given, with each adding to his description. In Eden, it was announced that he would be a human; later we are told that he would be a descendant of Abraham through Isaac, Jacob and Judah; later still, that he would belong to the royal line of David. Micah now identifies the place where he will be born, Bethlehem.

1. The state of the people

The background to this prophecy is a time when Israel was being humiliated by her enemies, with the likelihood that the Assyrian empire would overwhelm them. This humiliation is depicted in their enemy’s treatment of their king (v. 1). Things were looking black as far as the prospects of the people of God were concerned. If they were to judge things by what they could see happening or anticipate coming, then they would conclude that there was no hope. To his people, therefore, the Lord gave this detailed prediction concerning the coming of the Messiah. This is a reminder to us that we should consider the Lord’s promises concerning his kingdom when we live in dark times. But what were his people like at that time?

Many of the people who heard Micah did not like his message of delayed salvation, of saying that they would have to wait for the birth of a special child. In verses 5 and 6 we read their response to Micah’s message: ‘When the Assyrian comes into our land and treads in our palaces, then we will raise against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men; they shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod at its entrances; and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes into our land and treads within our border.’ Their response was one of resort to worldly alliances, of getting help from other nations to defeat the Assyrians. They were marked by confidence in men and not trust in God, of brave words with no possibility of success.

2. The place of his birth

The first thing that may strike us regarding this prophecy is its precision. This identification of Bethlehem as the place of the birth of Jesus is a reminder of the supernatural nature of the word of God. There were two Bethlehems in Israel, the other was in the territory of Zebulon. Ephratah was added to indicate which one Micah was referring to. Of course, many prophecies were fulfilled in the life of Jesus, one clear evidence of many that the Bible is true.

Secondly, we may note that God selects an insignificant place to begin his work. Although Bethlehem is famous today, it was not even big enough to be recorded among the towns and villages of Judah. This raises an important point for us who live in a locality that many people have not even heard of. But while we may not have much influence on the important people of this world, we are not unimportant to God. He has commenced many important works in obscure places.

3. The purpose of his coming

God tells his people that the coming Messiah would be the Ruler that he had predicted would come. What Israel longed for was a King who would deliver them from the various enemies that they faced. Yet, as time went by, their kings seemed increasingly incapable of defeating the powerful rulers that were arising. They wanted a deliverer immediately, and why would God not give them one?

So, through Micah, God informs the listeners (and readers) that this coming King would be the servant of God because he is to come forth ‘for God’. This is an important aspect of the person and work of the Saviour that we should always keep in mind, that he came primarily as the servant of God. (Of course, we may not find it difficult to think of Jesus as a servant in the days of his humiliation. But we must always recall that everything he does in the plan of salvation is as a servant.)

Everything Jesus did was done to please the one who sent him, the Father. He served him in a general sense in that he delighted to obey the commandments of God. He also served his Father in a gracious sense because in everything he did he revealed the Father. Jesus was careful in all that he said or did to reveal the kindness and mercy of the one who sent him. And he served God in a gratifying manner as can be deduced from the way that his Father was pleased with him, revealed in the joyful shout from heaven to declare that delight. Yet he also served God in a costly way, because he had to lay down his life. On his shoulders the Father placed a load – the sin of his people – that he had to carry away from the sight of God.

But he is also the servant of God in his exaltation. He reigns today in Heaven on God’s behalf. Possessing all power, he remains the Servant of the Throne, yet he is on the Throne. As the exalted King he governs from Zion and rules the world on behalf of his Father.

4. The pre-existence of the Messiah

But having described this coming King as his servant, God now declares that he is also an eternal person whose goings forth have been from everlasting. There is not much that can be said about this because we struggle to find words to explain it. The servant of the Lord, the future Messiah, possesses the attributes of God. He has eternally existed.

Not only has he always existed, he has always been active (‘goings forth’). These activities include what he did before the universe existed and what he did in human history. What are some of those deeds?

One of them is his involvement in the work of creation. He shared in this wonderful project with the Father and the Holy Spirit. With mutual delight and joy they produced a grand edifice filled with marvels, a structure that displayed their wisdom, power and goodness.

His goings forth also involved him in visiting earth on numerous occasions. The Old Testament contains many such visits, such as when he appeared to Abraham, Hagar, Moses, Joshua and Isaiah. These visits were kind of foretastes of his eventual longer visit.

So one day he made a different journey and appeared in Bethlehem. This visit was not a short one; rather he was to live here for over thirty years. In each of the previous journeys his visit ended with his return to the Father. But on this new visit he met his Father in different places, one of which was Calvary. Micah does not mention the death of the Messiah, but it occurred on the cross when the Father caused him to pay the penalty of sin.

5. The people will be gathered

In this next detail of his prediction, Micah mentions that Israel would be given up by God until a woman gives birth to the Messiah (v. 3). This does not mean that there would not be partial restorations before this birth would occur – there was the partial return of some from the Babylonian captivity. But the people of God as a whole would not be regathered to Zion until the Messiah appeared.

Earlier we noted that Jesus was the servant King. This next statement of the prophecy tells us that he is also the shepherd King because he will begin to gather together his flock. At Bethlehem, the place where shepherds dwelt, the Great Shepherd came with the aim of creating a wonderful family – Micah says the sheep are the brothers of the Messiah, and in this we have the roots of the wonderful doctrine of adoption, revealed more fully in the New Testament where Paul tells the Roman Christians that they are joint-heirs with Christ of his inheritance.

We mentioned that the Messiah would, at the end of each of his goings forth, return to his heavenly Father. This is what he did at the end of this journey when he ascended up to heaven. And it is from heaven that he engages in the work of regathering Israel to Zion, not to an earthly country but to a heavenly one. This leads us on to the next detail.

6. The prosperity of his kingdom

Micah depicts the Messiah as standing. This posture is associated with conquerors. Job looked forward to seeing his Redeemer stand on the earth, the conqueror of death (Job 19). Here in Micah there is a reminder that the promised King will possess the strength of God as he gathers his sheep from all over the world. Wherever they are, he will have the strength to find them. And he will recover them in a glorious manner, suitable to the majesty of God, and lead them to glory in a splendid style. His sheep don’t often realise it, but their Shepherd is transforming them as he leads them to heaven.

7. The peace of his subjects

The outcome of this is that they are entirely secure. Nothing can separate them from the Shepherd. He will always be in total control and his kingdom will spread over all the earth. The Old Testament anticipates with great longing the day when the Messiah will be known all over the world. We are nearer that day than they were, we see his greatness in the spread of his gospel, in bringing his sheep to himself. The security they have will last as long as he is King. Throughout the days of his kingdom, there will be peace within their souls because he himself will be the source of their peace as he sends the Spirit of peace into their hearts.

Today, our society has imagined it is giving honour to the Christ child. Sadly, most of them have no idea who he is, what he did, or where he is now. Therefore they do not know about the peace that he can give – the peace of reconciliation with God, the peace of God in one’s heart, and the peace of the Spirit throughout his people. But we know where he is and therefore we should come to him, no longer in Bethlehem, for this wonderful security and serenity that he alone can give.

The Coming of the Light (Isa. 9:1-5)

2011-12-31T00:10:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 25/12/2011

The background to this passage in Isaiah is twofold, as we can see in the preceding chapters: first, there was the reality of divine judgement on Israel by the foreign power of Assyria; secondly, there was the promise of the coming child who would be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14), and we can another reference to him in Isaiah 9:6-7. In the ninth chapter of Isaiah, those two features or themes continue as Isaiah looks ahead to the coming of Jesus. We can read about the effects of the judgement in the opening verses and then read about the child in verses 6 and 7.

The prophet focuses on the geographical area in the north of Israel that was allotted to the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulon and mentions that they have been in great darkness. The initial reference may be the fact that they were the first areas of Israel to be taken captive by the Assyrian invaders in about 733 BC. Perhaps the rest of the country wondered what the future was for those geographical areas. Or it may be the case that in Judah, which was Isaiah’s home area, there was concern about further invasions. Whether they did or not, Isaiah is given a message from the Lord concerning that territory in the north of Israel. In these areas a light is going to shine. Matthew reminds us that this prophecy of future divine presence was fulfilled when Jesus appeared (Matt. 4:15-16). We know that it was in these areas that Jesus lived as a child in Nazareth and later preached and performed miracles during his public ministry. It is important to note that even in the Old Testament, when God’s name was normally confined to Israel, the way of comfort in times of trouble was to focus on the coming of the Lord Jesus.

Six lessons from this prophecy

There are some applications that are worth noting at this stage. The first is that the prophet puts God at the centre of events, whether it is in judgment or restoration. Isaiah does not say that the troubles that this geographical area experienced were the results of political decisions by enemy regimes. Instead, he says that God caused it. Similarly, the restoration would not happen because these enemies grew weak, but because God would do it. This is an outlook that we all should have. Often we are tempted to assess things through secondary causes, and in doing so we leave God out of the painting he has begun to create and which he will complete.

Second, God often gives encouragement to his church when it is going through dark times. This has been the case from the beginning because he gave words of comfort in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned. Throughout Israel’s history when the nation turned away from God, he sent prophets such as Isaiah and Hosea with a message that included both judgement and hope. The reality is that the church in all ages has only had one hope, and he is the Deliverer that was promised by God. As Spurgeon put it, ‘In the worst of times we are to preach Christ and look to Christ. In Jesus there is a remedy for the direst of diseases, and a rescue from the darkest of despairs.’

Third, places that have known the Lord’s judgement can become places that know his blessing. Naphtali and Zebulon were the first areas of the country to experience the fury of the Assyrian invasion (2 Kings 15:29: ‘In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Assyria). Yet they would be the first area to see the display of light that would dispel the great darkness that would result from that judgement (‘Matthew 4:13-17: ‘And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”’).

Our hope is not to avoid the God of judgement, but to look for him to come in grace. It is obvious that we are under God’s judgement today to a certain degree, and it seems to be increasing because there is little evidence of repentance, either in church or state.

Fourth, God can begin a great work in a surprising place, in an obscure place. Often we are tempted to think that if something important is going to happen in our nation, it must begin in London or Edinburgh. Yet, the history of the church reminds us that often God bypasses the places of earthly influence. God often shuns earthly limelight, and we know that Jesus, in growing up in Nazareth and later moving to Capernaum, chose to live in communities that was out on the edge and not in the centre of power.

Fifth, this recovery promised by God is a reminder that his grace is undeserved. The people of Israel had turned their back on God and ignored his word. They deserved the punishment that they had received, and did not merit this promise of restoration. The same is the case with all the promises of God. This is very encouraging: if what we will get is what we deserve, then we will get nothing good from God; if what we will get is undeserved, then the range of blessings is limitless.

Sixth, we should note the wonder of fulfilled prophecy. Hundreds of predictions are found in the Old Testament concerning the coming of Jesus, whether his first or second comings. Here Isaiah predicts the location where Jesus would begin his public ministry, round the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

Five blessings from the Messiah

The effects of the coming of Jesus are described in verses 1 to 5. There will be recovery of light, growth, great joy, liberation from bondage and the experience of peace.

First, he will give recovery of light; that is knowledge. The situation in which the people were was one of darkness, spiritual darkness, because of their sins. They lived in realm where the Sun of Righteousness did not shine, and what little perception they had only guaranteed the inevitability of their death. What was needed to change this world of horror was to see the Light of the World who would reveal to them what God was like. And that is what they discovered in Galilee.

Jesus said of himself that any who saw him in action and heard his words saw and heard God. In Galilee, lepers discovered that God would touch them in compassion and mercy. Cripples discovered that God could not only cure their disabilities but also pardon their sins, as was the case of the man let through the roof in the house in Capernaum. And they heard about the compassion of God as Jesus spoke to them in parables describing how God was a shepherd seeking the lost, that he had sent his Son to be the bread of life who could give them eternal life. Truly, ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.’

The second blessing is that of growth: ‘You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy.’ This was said initially to a people going into captivity, whose numbers were going to decrease. Of course, the prophet is using the limits of geographical Israel to illustrate this consequence of the coming of Jesus. He is saying that in the land that was about to be depopulated, there would yet be a population explosion.

A similar announcement was made by Hosea: ‘Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God”’ (Hos. 1:10). This verse is taken up by Paul in Romans 9 to describe the ingathering of the Gentiles.

Growth was going to happen in a locality that had so many Gentiles that it was called ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’. And when Jesus came to Galilee, we read about the inclusion of the Roman centurion in Capernaum as well as the blessings that were given to the Syro-Phoenician woman. They were samples of the great harvest that was to come.

The third blessing is that of joy: ‘they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.’ The people that Isaiah preached about had gone to a place where there was no joy, but instead they were in captivity. Here we have a vivid picture of the ones who Jesus came to rescue. They were captives, but not merely captives of Assyria. That great empire had disappeared into the footnotes of history by the time Jesus was born. Yet the people, although back in their own land, were still in captivity, and not just the captivity of Rome but that of sin and Satan. Such a captivity produces despair because there does not seem to be any hope of recovery. But into this world of despair came Jesus and gave great joy. There were many reasons for joy, and we have already mentioned some of them: forgiveness of sins, assurance of the future, increase of numbers. Isaiah 12:3 says that those who followed the Messiah would draw water with joy from the wells of salvation. When that day comes, when the Lord comforts Zion, he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song’ (Isa. 51:3). This is the joy of restoration known by a repentant people who have discovered that the Lord keeps his promises.

The fourth blessing is that of deliverance from slavery, as we have just mentioned: ‘For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian’ (9:4). The inhabitants of Naphtali and Zebulon had gone into captivity. But when Jesus came, people would be released from the chains. This deliverance would be greater than the ones their ancestors had known from the Midianites through the leadership of Gideon (Judg. 6–8). Listen to what Jesus announced in Nazareth about himself when he quoted another passage from Isaiah (61:3): ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.’ The bondage from which they would be delivered was not that of an enemy nation but that of a spiritual foe. In Galilee, Jesus delivered hundreds, if not thousands, from Satanic bondage. Before the eyes of multitudes, Jesus liberated sinners from the devil’s grip. And this liberation was another means of joy, enabling his followers to experience ‘a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit’ (Isa. 61:4).

The fifth blessing is that of peace, described in 9:5 by the removal of enemy power: ‘For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.’ These conquering armies seemed so powerful to the inhabitants of Galilee. Yet when Jesus would come, he would defeat the spiritual powers that opposed his people and give unto them great peace. In Galilee, near Capernaum, he said to the lady with the issue of blood, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease’ (Mark 5:34). And he gave peace to many others as well.

What about us?

These five blessings of light (knowledge of God), growth, joy, freedom and peace are available to us. What will happen to us if we reject the Saviour that offers them to us? The same as happened to those in Galilee who rejected him when he was there. Remember what Jesus said to those who lived in the areas in which Isaiah had predicted the Light would be seen.

‘Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you’ (Matt. 11:20-24).

We look back to the inhabitants of Galilee and say that they were spiritual fools. What will be said about us if we refuse the Saviour’s mercy?

Public Restoration of Peter (John 21:15-25

2011-12-19T18:58:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 18/12/2011

One of the passing comments that can be made about this passage is that rumours were found in the early church. The one that is mentioned here is the rumour that John would not die, but would live until Jesus would return. Now, at the time of writing his Gospel, John was an old man and soon to die. He believed it was important that the source of this rumour be correctly explained, which he does at the end of this chapter.

Another passing comment that can be made from this incident is that we are not to be over-interested in the Lord’s purpose for another of his servants. Peter responded to information about his own future by asking what would happen to John (v. 21). In reply, Jesus basically told Peter it was none of his business. What was Peter’s business was the necessity of him following Jesus as closely as he could.

We have previously seen that the risen Jesus had already appeared to Peter in a private way. That personal appearance took place on the day of Jesus’ resurrection; of course, Jesus has appeared to Peter on two more occasions: first on the evening of that resurrection day and then a week later, with both meetings being gatherings of the apostles. It is evident that on that resurrection day Peter had been personally forgiven his terrible denial of Jesus in the high priest’s house, which raises the question as to the point of this further restoration here. I think the answer is that Jesus knew it was necessary for Peter to have a public restoration as a leader as well as a private one as a disciple.

As just stated, the background to this incident is the denial of Jesus by Peter when he denied his Master three times. Jesus had predicted the denial but had also stated that Peter would be restored, and restored in such a manner as to be able to strengthen his brothers. On that occasion, there was a charcoal fire as well as the three denials. The presence of a charcoal fire here in the incident described in John 21 would have spoken strongly to Peter.

Jesus and his disciples seem to have gone for a walk after the meal. In verse 20, John is describing as walking behind Jesus and Peter as they are speaking. It may be that it was customary for a teacher to instruct one disciple as they walked along, with other disciples listening in to the conversation. Matthew Henry comments that Jesus waited until breakfast was over before he began to speak because he did not want to spoil Peter’s enjoyment of the meal!

The probing of Peter

The probing begins with Jesus asking Peter a question: ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ The first feature that we notice is the name that Jesus uses here when he addresses his disciple as Simon. Of course, Jesus often spoke to him by this name. So its usage here may not mean anything unusual. Nevertheless those who suggest that Jesus is highlighting Simon’s failure to act like an apostle (Peter was the name connected to his apostleship) may have a point. Calling him Simon a few moments before restoring him publicly to his office must have been noticed by Peter himself.

Second, what did Jesus mean by ‘these’? The problem is that the Greek term can be translated two ways because both the masculine and neuter rendering are spelt the same. If it is neuter, it can be translated as ‘these things’, which would mean that Jesus was asking Peter if he loved him more than he loved his calling as a fisherman, with the things in question being the boat, the net and the sea. If this is the correct translation, it suggests that Jesus discerned that Peter was more at ease when he was among familiar situations. These things can be tests for many disciples and many a person has put them before believing in Jesus. Yet such a meaning is unlikely here because seven disciples had gone fishing and the other six are not questioned by Jesus about their actions.

If the term is masculine, it can be translated as ‘these people’, which would mean that Jesus was referring to Peter’s earlier boast that his love was more reliable than the devotion of the other disciples (Matt. 26:33). Peter had been adamant that, whatever they might fail to do, he would remain faithful. He had learned through his own sad experience that he was as fickle, if not more fickle, than them. I suspect that this is what Jesus meant by ‘things’. So Jesus was asking Peter if his love for Jesus was greater than the love the other disciples had for Jesus.

In any case, Jesus’ question concerns the nature of Peter’s love. It has often been noted that Jesus, in the first two questions, uses the term agapeō whereas Peter uses the term fileō; in his third question, Jesus also uses fileō. Some have suggested that these different terms point to various levels of love being required by Jesus. They say that agape agapeō means sacrificial love and fileō means brotherly love or the love that takes pleasure in the object of one’s love. Therefore they interpret the passage as saying that Jesus first asks Peter if he has sacrificial love, then Peter responds by saying he has brotherly love, and eventually Jesus lowers his demand by asking if Peter does have brotherly love towards his Master.

There is very little basis for this suggestion. First, it is likely that Jesus was not speaking Greek, so the use of two different words is probably John’s method of translation of what Jesus and Peter originally said; he is using synonyms to bring variety to his translation. Second, it is also the case that both words would include the meaning of the other word and would be understood in this way. Third, both terms are used to describe the love that the Father has for the Son (agapeō in John 3:35 and fileō in John 5:20), and it would be wrong to suggest that the Father’s love for his Son was stronger in John 3:35 than it was in John 5:20. Fourth, agapeō is used to describe the wrong kind of love that Demas had for the present age (2 Tim. 4:10), which would be a surprising usage if it signified superior love. Fifth, John uses both words when describing himself as the disciple who Jesus loved; in John 20:2 he uses fileō and in John 19:26 he uses agapeō. Sixth, if agapeō was too strong a word, Peter would not have affirmed that he truly loved Jesus; instead he would be minimizing his love. What Jesus is asking is whether or not Peter’s love is real.

Love is the defining mark of a Christian. It is not our experiences, it is not our knowledge, it is not our dedication, because all these things can be had without love, as Paul makes very clear in 1 Corinthians 13. The difference between Peter and Judas, from a human perspective, was the presence of love in Peter’s heart and the absence of it in the heart of Judas.

It is worth observing what Jesus did not ask. For example, he did not ask Peter about how his repentance was getting on. Nor did he ask Peter about his use of his gifts in the service of Christ. He did not ask Peter how many hours he spent each day in prayer. There are many aspects of a disciple’s life that could have been mentioned. Why did Jesus focus on Peter’s love? There are two reasons at least: (1) love is the greatest blessing; (2) the other details would be covered by spiritual love.

The penitence of Peter

At the third question, Peter was grieved because it immediately reminded him of his three denials. As we look at Peter’s response, we can deduce several important aspects.

First, he no longer based his assessment of a situation on his own knowledge. Instead he referred to Christ’s knowledge of him. Perhaps in the days since the resurrection he had come to know just how much Jesus knew about him. Maybe it was the similarities between his current situation and the features of the room where he denied the Saviour. Whatever it was, he now bowed to Jesus’ knowledge, which Peter knew could not be mistaken.

Second, Peter’s love was a chastened love. He had known the dark night of the soul when all his hopes had been dashed, when his sense of blessing had gone. His sin had caused him to lose his sense of divine favour.

Third, Peter’s love was a repentant one. He had gone out and wept bitterly for his sin. Before the throne of grace he had poured out his heart. His regrets, his self-denunciation, his shame, would have been stressed. But he discovered that his God was merciful, that he does not deal with us the way our sins deserve. ‘The great thing Christ eyes in penitents is their eyeing him in their repentance’ (Matthew Henry).

Fourth, Peter’s love was now a dependent one. Gone was his old self-confidence and bravado. Instead he is now meek and humble, listening to his Saviour without interrupting as he had been prone to do.

The purpose for Peter

Jesus mentions a twofold purpose for his servant Peter. The first describes his calling as an apostle and the second details his calling to be a martyr.

As an apostle, Peter was to perform two tasks. First, he was to provide appropriate food for Christ’s people (the term boskō, used in verses 15 and 21, indicates this) and he was to guide and protect them (the term poimainō, used in verse 16, indicates this) from spiritual dangers.

As a martyr, Jesus indicated that Peter would suffer an unusual death: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go’ (v. 18). This description is regarded as a description of crucifixion, and church tradition indicates that Peter was crucified upside down in Rome. He refers to his upcoming death in 2 Peter 1:14: ‘since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.’

Christian service is other-people centred. Jesus told Peter to feed the lambs as well as the sheep in his flock. Peter was no longer to be out for himself, imagining a great place in Christ’s kingdom. The spiritual needs of others were to be his concern. This is the message of the Parable that Jesus told about the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25.

Christian service is costly. In Peter’s case, it would involve all his energy and eventually cost him his life. Jesus requires this of all his people; he demands their lives. They are to leave the consequences and repercussions of Christian service to him. This does not mean that the Christian life is unrewarding. But the benefits can be out of this world.

Christian service requires love not perfection. There is a temptation that faces some people which is that they will do nothing until they are good at it. The usual outcome of that attitude is that nothing gets done. Jesus indicates that what is required is love one’s fellow believers. But he also indicates that Christian service demands love for Christ as its dynamic.

Application

Firstly, we can say that Peter is an object lesson for his fellow Christians. Christians, as was Peter, are not made perfect when they are converted. Even on this occasion he revealed sinful traits when he asked about John’s future. None of us know what kind of sins we may do. If someone had met Peter on his first meeting with Jesus that he would deny his Master, he would have been appalled. We don’t know what sins we may commit if given the circumstances.

Secondly, how do we react when we fall into sin? Obviously, there should be a sense of shame and regret. The biggest dangers when we fall into sin are despair on the one hand and self-righteousness on the other. Despair can make us conclude that we have been sidelined and self-righteousness can cause us to respond by determining to do better the next time in our own strength. Neither of these responses is appropriate. When we sin, our faith in Jesus does not die, our love to Jesus does not die. We believed in Jesus for the first time because we were sinners needing forgiveness; we continue to trust in Jesus because we are sinners needing forgiveness. We loved Jesus in the past because he provided salvation; we love Jesus in the present because he provides salvation. Our love for him is marked by repentance.

Thirdly, service for God does not depend on our past state of heart but on our present state of soul. Peter had known great privileges and, while they were important, they were not the crucial factor. Jesus did not say to him, ‘Do you recall the time when I gave you a great catch of fish?’, nor did he say to him, ‘Do you recall the time I took you up the Mount of Transfiguration?’ These memories would have caused Peter great sorrow because he had sinned against great privileges. All he was asked was whether or not he loved the Saviour.

What’s the Point of Suffering? (1 Peter 4:12-21)

2011-12-17T20:34:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 15/12/2011

We often respond to a situation by asking, ‘What’s the point?’ Sometimes the question indicates curiosity, at other times it points to frustration. I suppose one occurrence that can prompt such a question is the relevance of suffering. Today there are many thousands of Christians who suffer for the faith, and as we are informed about what they are experiencing we may ask, ‘What’s the point?’ Peter gives several answers to the question in 1 Peter 4:12-19.

1. Suffering for Jesus proves the genuineness of their faith (v. 12)

The first feature of suffering for the faith that Peter mentions is that it is a test. Peter here highlights one of the benefits of suffering, which is that it will usually reveal whether or not a claim to faith is genuine. Persecution is not the only way in which a person is tested, but it is mentioned frequently in the Bible. It is a fact that in everyday life anything that claims to be valuable has to be tested for genuineness, otherwise we can be deceived. Suffering will usually get rid of hypocrites from a church because the individual concerned will conclude that the deprivations or punishments connected to persecution are not worth enduring. Indeed, a little suffering will achieve this as Bunyan noted in his Pilgrim’s Progress when he describe the easy way in which Pliable gave up an interest in the Christian faith. In contrast, true Christians will usually persevere despite the consequences of persecution.

Peter says that his readers should not be surprised if they find themselves in a situation of suffering. Some of them might have been surprised at the ferocity of the persecution; after all, they were not a physical threat to the government. Indeed, they prayed for their rulers and wanted to obey them as long as their requirements did not transgress God’s law. Yet if they are surprised, it is because they have forgotten or ignored clear evidence that such persecution will take place. What is the evidence they should have noted? They should not be surprised, firstly, because Jesus often taught that his followers would suffer. Many times he said that his disciples would endure opposition, as did the apostles in their letters. A second reason for them not to be surprised is the reality that behind many of the ideas of a society is the devil and he will always want to damage the people of God. Thirdly, they should not be surprised at persecution because the world does not understand them and will want to get rid of them. A wise Christian will always be ready for the possibility of opposition.

Of course, we may be surprised by the purpose of the persecution, which Peter reminds us is testing to see if we are genuine. An easy exam in a college is no use because it does not reveal what the student knows or does not know. Similarly, a Christian life without trials from the devil or the world is worrying because it would indicate that God in his providence is not testing the genuineness of the person’s faith in Christ. This does not mean that God does not know which professing disciples are genuine. He does know, but he is also determined that genuine disciples should know that they are the real thing.

2. Suffering for Jesus is a guarantee of glory (v. 13)

Secondly, when suffering for the faith comes their way, Peter informs his readers of the importance of having a proper perspective. They need to remind themselves that they are sharing the sufferings of Christ. Peter here is not referring to the atoning sufferings of Jesus when he was on the cross because believers do not share in them. Instead Peter recognises that there are other kinds of sufferings connected to the cause of Christ.

First, he probably has in mind the idea that a period of sufferings would precede the eternal age of glory. Before that latter age would come, those who identify with the Messiah will always face the possibility of suffering for the faith. In contrast to the length of the eternal age of glory, the period of suffering would be short. This aspect is true, even although the church of Christ has known periods of suffering throughout its history. Suffering from this perspective is not only a test of genuineness but is also the guarantee that the persecuted will yet have glory. Paul refers to this connection in Romans 8:17: ‘and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.’ He also mentions this relationship in 2 Timothy 2:12: ‘if we endure, we will also reign with him.’ The perspective they must maintain is that they will experience now what Jesus would experience if he was here, and that they will yet experience in the eternal world what Jesus will experience there.

Second, they need to have more than a perspective, however. In attrition, they must have a response that will be found in both states (the state of suffering and the state of glory). The common response is rejoicing. We can easily understand why Peter anticipates great joy in the state of glory, but how can he appreciate the presence of joy during persecution and opposition because of following Christ? What aspects of the suffering can bring joy?

Here are some suggestions. First, suffering for Jesus brings identification with Jesus. Second, suffering for Jesus can be a means of joy because of the secret strength he supplies by the Holy Spirit. Third, suffering for Jesus brings joy because it is short in comparison to eternal suffering that will be endured by the lost. Fourth, suffering for Jesus brings joy because it weans believers away from this world and causes them to long for the perfect world that is yet to be.

3. Suffering for Jesus and the presence of the Spirit (vv. 14-15)

The next aspect of suffering that Peter highlights is that the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon the persecuted believers. Here the apostle uses a particular title of the Spirit (the Spirit of glory) and mentions a specific activity by him (rests). Further Peter suggests that this is an experience of the divine presence that is given to those who are insulted for the name of Christ. The order seems to be persecution followed by a divine blessing, and the blessing is a special sense of the Spirit’s presence in their lives.

What does the title ‘Spirit of glory’ suggest? Glory describes something that is majestic and superior to everything else. The Spirit is divine and is therefore a supremely glorious person. All he does is marked with glory. When it comes to his work in the heart of a persecuted Christian, I would suggest that he provides a blessing that is a compensation for what the persecuted believer has lost. At the same time, the provision given by the Spirit will be foretaste of the glory that is ahead for all Christians. The Spirit can provide this compensating foretaste in a variety of ways: he can convey divine promises from the Bible in a powerful manner; he can give peace in abundance; and in keeping with the context he can provide and sustain a great amount of joy.

Note that Peter says that the Spirit ‘rests’ on persecuted Christians. This means that he remains with them through all their troubles. It also means that he finds it a pleasant experience to be with his faithful people: ‘rest’ has the idea of enjoyable and peaceful. Those who remain true to Jesus discover that the Spirit is with them in a greater manner than usual. We only have to read the testimonies of martyrs to realise that this was the case.

This experience of having the Spirit of glory resting on a person was a prediction of what would happen to the Messiah. We can read the prophecy in Isaiah 11:2. This means that Peter is reminding his fellow-believers that they share in the blessing that was originally promised to Jesus and procured for them by Jesus because of his atoning death. They have the Spirit of Christ, and he is with them similar to how he was with their Master when he suffered persecution.

Yet this experience can be withdrawn, warns Peter in verse 15, because of sins. We might find the list of sins a bit surprising: murder, theft, evildoing and meddling. From one point of view the apostle can be read as covering sins that are heinous and sins that are not so heinous. Yet I suspect he is being more specific and is highlighting particular sins that persecuted believers would be tempted to commit. But if they did, they would lose the presence of the Spirit of glory.

We can understand how a persecuted Christian might turn on his tormenter and kill him, perhaps intentionally or by accident. Similarly, we can easily imagine situations in which a persecuted Christian would steal because he had lost his possessions. Evildoer would cover a range of possible actions. Meddling is probably interfering in things in which they should not have done so and for which they were rightly punished. Those guilty of such actions should not imagine that their sufferings for such reasons had God’s approval.

Peter’s words in verse 15 remind us that sin will cause havoc whether we are in a situation of persecution or in a situation of outward prosperity. One of our priorities must always be not to grieve the Holy Spirit by our sins. The fact is, there are sins that are peculiar to certain situations and we have to be looking out for them constantly. This is a reminder that when we pray for the persecuted church we should pray that they would be kept from grieving the Spirit of glory who is resting on them.

4. Suffering for Jesus is an honour (v. 16)

Peter stresses that suffering persecution for the sake of Christ is not the same as suffering for crimes such as the sins listed in verse 15. Perhaps the civil authorities were telling the Christians that they should be ashamed of their behaviour because it was against the rules of the government or not conducive to a well-organised society. Or maybe some of their friends had become ashamed of Jesus and given up following him because of the persecution. Shame can be an appropriate response or it can be an expression of cowardice. It is appropriate when it is a response to personal sin. But shame is very inappropriate when it is a denial that we are followers of Jesus.

Of course, Peter himself knew what it was to be ashamed of knowing Jesus when he denied his Master three times in the house of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest, on the night he was on trial. Peter did not intend to be ashamed, but he was ashamed because of his self-confidence. He had boasted that he would not deny Jesus, yet he did.

Instead of shame, the suffering Christian should live to glorify God. Note what Paul wrote in Philippians 1:19-21: ‘for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honoured in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ That was his attitude during his first Roman imprisonment. He had a similar outlook during his second Roman imprisonment: ‘I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me’ (2 Tim. 1:11-12).

5. Suffering for Jesus is connected to divine judgement (vv. 17-18)

Peter’s words here may sound strange and we may wish to respond by asking, ‘Why should judgment begin with the family of God?’ The answer is straightforward – God dwells in his church and rules over it. His purpose is to purify it, and one means that he uses for this goal is persecution. Peter is saying that this judgement is the first stage in the final judgement, but it is a stage in which the judgment is accompanied by mercy. Even when aspects of this initial judgment are severe, as they were in Corinth when some were judged with death because of their sins in the church, the judgment is accompanied by mercy (1 Cor. 11:30-32).

Peter asks a question, the answer to which is a deduction from the fact that God judges his people in this life. Since the judgement on them is severe (persecution), how much worse will the judgement be that will be inflicted by God on those who refuse to heed the requirements of the gospel! We know that it will be eternal and conscious, and it is an awful prospect.

Peter cites a verse from the Book of Proverbs: ‘If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?’ The word translated ‘scarcely’ has the idea of difficulty or hard. He does not mean that salvation of the righteous is uncertain. Instead he is stressing that working out one’s salvation takes all of our time and all of our energy. We know that some building projects require hard work and disciplined concentration. In a far higher sense, Christians should appreciate that persecution actually helps them focus on the strength of their faith. God brings difficulties into our lives, and we have to respond to them. We can respond with expressions of rebellion or we can respond with determination to progress in holiness. The same circumstances can cause a mere professor to give up and can stimulate a genuine Christian to persevere.

6. Suffering for Jesus helps our prayer life (v. 19)

What does Peter tell his persecuted readers to do? His advice is stated in verse 19: ‘Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.’ They will persist in two activities: first, they will continually commit their souls to their faithful, powerful God; second they will simultaneously do good, even to those who oppose them. Here we have an example of how to fulfil Paul’s requirement that we pray without ceasing.

It is noteworthy that Peter does not suggest that they should commit their bodies into God’s hands. The soul of a Christian is far more important than his body. Peter is not despising his body, but he is prioritising matters for his readers. There is no guarantee that God will protect our bodies from harm, but there are many promises about him keeping our souls.

What should a Christian pray about in times of opposition? Obviously he should pray for protection, but should do so knowing that God may allow him to be persecuted. The believer’s priority, whether in times of ease or difficulty, must be his soul. They must persist in asking God to make them Christlike.

So what is the point of suffering? Peter mentions six aspects: suffering proves we are genuine, suffering assures us of glory, suffering brings special blessings from the Spirit, suffering should not lead us to be ashamed of Jesus, suffering is a reminder that divine judgement is coming, and suffering teaches us to pray about the character of our souls.

Nebuchadnezzar Meets his Match (Daniel 4)

2011-12-12T16:53:00.001Z

This sermon was preached on 11/12/2011

In the fourth chapter of Daniel we have the account of the final stage in the story of God’s pursuit of Nebuchadnezzar. The pursuit has lasted for several years, because the first mention of it in the Book of Daniel took place when Daniel and his three friends were teenagers. Now they are adults who have been working for the Babylonian regime for several years. Indeed a further eight years are mentioned in Daniel 4 (the seven times in verse 16 plus the year in verse 28). This is a reminder of the longsuffering of God.

What has the Babylonian emperor learned about God so far? The book begins with Nebuchadnezzar thinking that the God of Israel is weak (the emperor shows this attitude when he places the captured vessels from Jerusalem inside the temple of his god). In the next chapter, however, Nebuchadnezzar finds out that the God whom he imagined he had defeated is truly in control of his life; in fact, the emperor discovers that this ‘weak’ God is in charge of the whole of history. He does not know everything yet about the true God, but he has realised that the God of Daniel is the sovereign God.

Nevertheless Nebuchadnezzar tries to fight against this God, and we noted that in chapter 3 the emperor rejected God’s revealed will to him about the demise of his empire. In determined contrast against what the Lord had said, Nebuchadnezzar built an image which claimed the endlessness of his kingdom. He vented his anger against God by punishing his servants, Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego. Yet even in that situation, the emperor discovered that his expressions of power were impotent in comparison to the God of the Hebrews. Instead of burning to death, the three men were joined by a fourth, whom Nebuchadnezzar recognised was divine (and whom we know was a pre-incarnate appearance of the Son of God). So whatever else, he may have deduced, he was taught that God was with the Hebrews.

What happened to Nebuchadnezzar is a picture of what often happens in the lives of those whom God is pursuing. They try to run from God, but whatever they do, they keep on discovering more about God. Nebuchadnezzar discovered that the Lord was the supreme sovereign, that he knew all the secrets of men’s heart (he knew the details of the emperor’s dream), that he was always present with his people (even when the emperor revealed his diabolical opposition to God’s faithful people). Nebuchadnezzar twice had confessed the greatness of the true God and had even responded in ways that indicated a reluctant acceptance of his authority (when he exalted Daniel and his three friends respectively to important positions); in doing this, he is like those people who try and adjust their lives because they had been in contact with God.

Nebuchadnezzar’s testimony

But more has to happen before Nebuchadnezzar truly experiences God’s grace and becomes a new creation of God. The details of how this took place are recorded in Daniel 4. What we have recorded there is Nebuchadnezzar’s personal testimony. We are usually interested in listening to the testimonies of important people. So what does the emperor have to say?

The first detail to note is that Nebuchadnezzar wants everyone to know what has happened to him (v. 1). Having read the chapter we know that he had gone through a most unusual experience when for a while he went insane and behaved like an animal. Can we imagine a prominent person wanting to tell everyone that such a thing had happened to him? The advisors would have told their masters to hide such information. But Nebuchadnezzar did not make that conclusion because what had happened to him was the road on which he found blessing for his soul. And therefore he was prepared to tell everything publicly, to everyone.

The second detail we should note is Nebuchadnezzar’s attitude towards all the people to whom he is bearing testimony. Remember that he has been a very cruel man, inflicting great punishment on all the nations he has conquered. How does he regard these conquered peoples, now that he has met God in a very profound manner? The answer to the question is also in verse 1. The once-cruel king now wants all of them to know peace in abundance. What an amazing change of attitude! Yet that was the effect of meeting with God on Nebuchadnezzar.

These two details of universality and peace are the marks of a person who has been changed inwardly by Jesus Christ. Such an individual wants everyone to know what God has done in his life and he also wants everyone to know the peace of God in a personal way. So-called dignity and loftiness of position cannot prevent a person who has experienced God’s mercy from speaking about it and wanting those who are above him and those who are below him to come and know this God for themselves.

Then we should observe a third detail, which is that he speaks about God with exalted language. One of the things that grace does with a person’s tongue is that he begins to use appropriate adjectives. Nebuchadnezzar does not merely speak of God; instead he says he is great and mighty. The emperor freely confesses what he had initially opposed and then found very hard to accept, which is that God is the only being who has an endless kingdom. Out of the emperor’s mouth come beautiful statements of praise.

You can tell a convert by his speech. I recall reading a story of a church meeting where individuals were telling one another, and God, what Jesus meant to them. Some of them had been Christians for years and they could describe their experiences in profound and accurate theological language. Eventually, a recent convert rose to speak. All he could say was, ‘O Lord, what a wonderful Saviour!’ It was the unanimous opinion of the meeting that he had said more than they rest of them, because he spoke from his heart! Here is mighty Nebuchadnezzar and he is now speaking beautifully about the God of grace.

The sequence of events

What had happened to bring this about? Fortunately, Nebuchadnezzar himself tells us. He says that God interrupted his life by using the same means that he had used in Daniel 2 when he spoke to the emperor in a dream. On this occasion Nebuchadnezzar definitely recalled the details of his dream, so he asked all his wise men to tell him the meaning, which they could not do. Why was that? After all, they could have made up a meaning. I suspect God, who was now on the case of Nebuchadnezzar, prevented them from interfering with his message. God often does this with the gospel. Sometimes a person hears the gospel but it comes into his mind mixed with a hundred other ideas. Then suddenly all that he finds in his mind is only the Word of God. Like Nebuchadnezzar, he does not know what it means, yet he cannot think of anything else. But because God is at work, along comes someone who does.

Daniel then appears. Nebuchadnezzar has not fully realised who Daniel is. At this stage, the king thinks that Daniel is only a more competent magician, an individual who has deeper insight into the spiritual world. Remember he is telling us what he thought before the final change came on him. He thinks in this way before God deals with him savingly.

So when Daniel appears, Nebuchadnezzar tells the dream to him. It was of a very large luxuriant tree that was chopped down, stripped of its branches, leaves and fruit, and only its stump was left. Surprisingly, the stump was then bound with iron and bronze bands. Even more surprisingly, the emperor is told in his dream that the stump represents a man who will live like a beast for seven years (v. 16). He is also told why this man will undergo this strange experience: it is that people will be informed that God rules over mankind and gives authority to whomever he wishes (vv. 13-19).

Daniel was dismayed and alarmed by what the dream means. In his response, he is a vivid example to all who serve the true God and how they should react to what his word says is the fate of those whom God judges. The punishment on Nebuchadnezzar was only going to last seven years, yet it affected Daniel deeply. Although it was the word of his God, Daniel could not accept it only in an indifferent manner. He did not respond by saying that the emperor had ignored previous warnings and therefore deserved what was coming to him. No, Daniel was affected in his emotions as he considered the temporary judgement of God on an individual. How much more should we be affected when we read about the eternal judgements of God on those who know not the Saviour!

Daniel is encouraged, however, by Nebuchadnezzar to tell him the meaning of the dream. He discovers that the dream is about him, that although he is currently at the height of his power and in the best of health, heaven has decided that he is going to become deranged and live like an animal for seven years. Yet there this the prospect of restoration, not only in his mind but also of his kingdom.

Daniel realises that the dream is a warning from God to Nebuchadnezzar. Therefore he urges the emperor to ‘break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity’ (v. 27). If he changes his ways, then he will have a prosperous reign without having to go through the awful experience that he has been warned about in his dream. When we turn to the Bible, we discover that it is full of warnings. Sometimes the warnings are historical, as in the preaching of Noah to his generation. At other times, they are verbal in the sense that a verse will indicate what will happen to people if they persist in a certain direction. And there are times when warnings are accompanied by divine promises that God will bless us if we change our ways.

The response of Nebuchadnezzar

What did Nebuchadnezzar do with the warning he was given? Maybe he ignored it, and nothing happened for a year. Perhaps he said to himself every day for 365 days, ‘What a lot of rubbish was spoken by Daniel!’ That is one very common response, but ignoring the warnings is not the answer. Or maybe he did what was worse, and succumbed to fatalism and spent each of the 365 days waiting for God’s threatened judgment to come, telling his advisors there was nothing he could do about it. I think he did the first option, but there are many who adopt the second option and imagine that somehow having a fatalistic outlook is pleasing to God. The response God wanted was repentance, and it was the response that Nebuchadnezzar did not want to give. But God was determined to ensure that he would eventually respond correctly.

So the moment came suddenly. In a second, the mighty emperor, full of self-praise, started to live like a cow, and he remained that way for seven years, with uncut hair and fingernails. His power which conquered the known world was no match for heaven’s power. In the end there was not even a contest. Only a fool ignores the warnings of God. Nebuchadnezzar, who asked Daniel for spiritual help, persisted in acting like a fool. What is a fool according to the Bible? A fool is someone who doubts that God can intervene in his life. Such a person is the man in Jesus’ parable who imagined he could go on increasing riches for the foreseeable future; in one night, he lost it all. Fortunately, foolish Nebuchadnezzar did not die, but the reason he was not killed was because God was still pursuing him. His experience tells us that God can go to extraordinary lengths to win us to himself. But it is an awful thing to undergo even God’s temporal judgements.

Nebuchadnezzar testifies, however, to the amazing fact that the Lord who brought him down then brought him up (vv. 34-35). Instead of using his mouth to eat grass, he now uses it to praise God. His words are a marvellous expression of repentance and we can consider them briefly.

As he gives his testimony, the first thing that Nebuchadnezzar tells us is that he lifted up his eyes to heaven. This may seem a small thing, but it was not in his life before because he usually spent it looking in a mirror at himself. Now he is drawn to look at God, which is what happens at conversion.

Then he informs us that his reason returned to him. The judgement of insanity was taken from him and he is now in his right mind (like the demoniac from Gadara whom Jesus healed). And the first thing that a person in his right mind does is speak to God. We can sense Nebuchadnezzar’s enthusiasm about this because he uses three words to describe his response – he blessed, praised and honoured the Lord.

What did he say to God? First, he praised God that he has an eternal kingdom (unlike Nebuchadnezzar); second, he said all humans are insignificant (including Nebuchadnezzar); third, he affirmed that God is completely and permanently sovereign over supernatural and human creatures; fourth, he announced that God kept his promise to restore the throne to him (v. 36) and prospered him even more. The last point is significant: now Nebuchadnezzar knows how to treat increased prosperity. No longer does he praise himself; instead he continues to praise God (v. 37).

Three lessons

There is one other detail in Nebuchadnezzar’s testimony to notice and it is found in his final statement (v. 37). He affirms that it is a good thing to be humbled by God for our sins. The price he paid was not too high. But it is a reminder that we don’t know the price that we may have to pay if we persist in rejecting God’s pursuit of us.

Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion is as striking as the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. And there are several similarities between them. Both despised the Master of God’s people (Paul despised Jesus); both tried to destroy God’s people; both saw Jesus in those they persecuted (Nebuchadnezzar saw him with the men in the fiery furnace and Paul saw him in the face of dying Stephen). If Nebuchadnezzar and Saul of Tarsus can be saved, then there is hope for any sinner, no matter what sins they have committed.

The third lesson is that sometimes it is our successes that need to be removed before we will submit to God. What things are we pleased with in our lives? In themselves, they may be harmless, but if they come between us and God’s grace, he may choose to remove us from them for a while, as he did with Nebuchadnezzar. But then we will discover, as he did, that it is better to have God’s blessing on the things we are good at instead of doing them without his blessing.

Jesus’ Appearance at the Sea of Tiberius (John 21:1-14)

2011-12-12T16:53:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 11/12/2012

This chapter functions as a kind of epilogue in John’s Gospel. We know that John 1:1-18 functions as a prologue to the Gospel, giving important information about the pre-existence of the Saviour such as his presence with the Father and his work as Creator of all things. John 20 closed the main section of the Gospel as can be seen from the way John ends the chapter, when he urged his readers to believe in Jesus and obtain eternal life. He probably expected his readers to reflect on what he had told them, and having done so they would be ready to appreciate the details mentioned in the epilogue. What ideas would come to the mind of a reader? He or she would wonder what happened to backsliding Peter or faithless Thomas; this chapter gives the answer. A reader may wonder what had happened to Nathaniel, who has not been mentioned since chapter 1. He is still with the disciples (most commentators think he is the same person as Bartholomew).

This incident is a fulfilment of a promise that Jesus made before his resurrection as well as on the day of resurrection. In the Garden of Gethsemane he had said to his disciples: ‘You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee’ (Matt. 26:31-32). On the resurrection day he told the women that they were to tell his ‘brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me’ (Matt. 28:10). Both these predictions were met by unbelief initially in the disciples, although by now the disciples knew that Jesus was alive.

This is the first of at least two appearances of the risen Saviour in Galilee. The second is mentioned in Matthew 28:16: ‘Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.’ We can tell that this appearance at the lake was the first in Galilee because John tells us that it was the third appearance of Jesus to his disciples as a group (the previous two had occurred in Jerusalem). Unlike the previous two appearances to the group of disciples, this third appearance was not on a Lord’s Day.

It is also worth noting that both Jesus’ first and last recorded miracles were done in Galilee. The first was the turning of water into wine at Cana and the second was this miraculous catch of fish. Galilee was therefore a highly favoured location that had known many of the Saviour’s miracles. In both the first and the final miracles, Jesus gave abundantly more than was expected.

We should not read the action of the disciples in going fishing as if they had made a mistake. This is often done, with preachers and authors stating that the disciples had somehow forsaken their calling as apostles and had returned to their previous occupations. There is not a hint of such an attitude in the story, and it would have been very surprising for Jesus to bless them if they were in such a state. The fact of the matter is that laziness is not commended in the Bible, and here it was appropriate for the disciples to utilize their time wisely. And the incident tells us that Jesus can appear to us when we are engaged in our employment just as he can appear to us during a religious service.

Another important aspect of the incident is that we should expect fresh experiences of the grace of Jesus. The disciples had previous experience of Jesus’ power; they had seen him do great miracles during his three years of public ministry. And they had seen the evidence of his resurrection power when they had met him in the upper room. But they could not rest on past experiences; it was important that they anticipate more, and that is why they were in Galilee. Connected to that lesson is another one: the disciples had to learn afresh that they still needed Jesus’ enabling, even in the mundane categories of life.

The list of names: Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together (21:2). It is possible that John only named the apostles and the other two were friends of the apostles. The obvious point from this list of names is the prominence it gives to those who had failed Jesus in a very public manner. There are two failures named first: Peter had denied Jesus and Thomas had doubted that Jesus had risen.

The benefits of obedience. Obedience to Jesus results in blessing from Jesus. This is seen in the incident when the disciples obey Jesus and cast out their nets; the consequence is a large catch of fish. But the experience did not stop there. Blessing from Jesus should result in fellowship with Jesus, which is what took place once the boats had come to shore.

The complexities of providence. These disciples were in the path of obedience and were anticipating an encounter with Jesus. They had gone to Galilee in obedience to their Saviour’s instructions in order to meet him there. While we don’t know why this group decided to go fishing, it is reasonable to assume that it was to earn money to live on or to provide food to eat. Despite their spiritual state, they underwent an adverse providential experience when they caught nothing although they had fished all night.

The incident is a reminder that such experiences do not indicate that Christ is displeased with us. Rather they can become opportunities for us to experience more of the Lord’s grace. Many a person has found that the next person he met after an adverse experience was Jesus himself. John’s words are a good confession for us to use whatever our providences. ‘It is the Lord.’

There is also a reminder that we should tell Jesus that we caught nothing. From the shore, he asked them what they had achieved. Their honest reply brought in his help. In one way this is the most important lesson from the incident. We live in a society that is finding it increasingly difficult to admit to failure. Christ’s disciples should be pleased to admit it because as long as they don’t, they won’t experience his help. Admitting their failure was an important step in experiencing his provision.

There is also something worth noting about the precise number of fish that were caught (153). Obviously, they had been counted. Sixty years later, John remembers the number. It is useful for us to take precise features of a providential experience and record them in a manner that will be helpful for us in the future.

What does the story tell us about Jesus?

John tells his readers that the incident was primarily a revelation by Jesus of himself. Twice he says that Jesus showed or revealed himself. So what did he reveal about himself? James Stalker comments that after his resurrection Jesus appeared in places that had special memories for him, such as Bethany and the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee. According to James Stalker, this is evidence of ‘a trait of tender humanity – His attachment to the scenes of His earthly experiences.’

Here are some other suggestions as to what Jesus revealed about himself.

Firstly, Jesus knew where his disciples were. It is unlikely that they sensed his presence as they travelled to Galilee. Nevertheless, he had taken account of their journey and knew where they were. This is true of all his people and it is a source of great comfort.

Secondly, Jesus can appear without being recognised by his disciples. We have already mentioned that we should remind ourselves of him when we go through adverse providences. But it is also the case that Jesus draws near through his Word. One example is when we come across a commandment to obey. If we obey, it will be a step towards meeting him; if we disobey his commandment, then we will not meet him.

Thirdly, Jesus was delighted to help his disciples. Into this rather mundane activity, Jesus came and accomplished what they could not do. This is a reminder that Jesus desires to be involved in the details of our practical living. Connected to his delight is the amazing reality that Jesus rejoices to serve his people. Although he has risen from the dead, he is still marked by humble service. Not only does he do what they could not do (provide the catch of fish), he did what they could have done (prepared a fire for warmth and a meal for strength). This is our compassionate Master, concerned about our physical needs as well as our spiritual ones.

Fourthly, Jesus once again revealed his sovereignty over creation. By providing this catch of fish, he reminded his disciples that the whole of creation was at his disposal when he wants to provide for his people. This would be an encouragement to these disciples as they were about to set out on their campaign of world evangelism. And it should be an encouragement to us as we face concerns about resources.

Fifthly, note how affectionately Jesus greets his disciples, ‘Children.’ We have already noticed the different ways he greeted his disciples after his resurrection: ‘All is well,’ ‘Peace,’ etc. The term ‘children’ points to his care of his people and concern for them.

The response of John

The men in the boats are too far away for identifying Jesus with their eyes. Yet John recognised who it was. John was the one who lay on Jesus’ breast, a position of love. Love has perceptive vision; it can see what others cannot. This is true at the human level, but is also true of the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. ‘The brightest eyes in the church are those who love him most’ (Spurgeon). What does the passage say about a lover of Jesus?

Firstly, it indicates that lovers of Jesus are humble when describing themselves. John describes himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’. He could have written, ‘John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ Instead he focussed on the Lover. Love to Jesus always highlights his contribution.

In what ways had Jesus loved John? He had loved him in the sense that he had been John’s teacher throughout the years of public ministry. John also knew that Jesus became his substitute on the cross. But I suspect that John’s love had grown because he had spent time in the presence of Jesus. This is the secret of developing a strong love. We should be amazed and grateful for Jesus’ teaching and for his salvation. But we should also become his close friends.

Secondly, love in John recognises the exercise of divine power. Probably, John recollected the previous miracle when Jesus gave to the disciples a great catch of fish. It may be that John, being a contemplative character, had often reflected on these mighty works of Jesus so that he was able to recognise another act of Jesus. His heart told him what his eyes could not.

The response of Peter

As we think of this miracle, we can see similarities to the miracle Jesus performed when he called Simon Peter to full-time apostleship (Luke 5:1-11). On that occasion, the disciples had fished all night and caught nothing, and were advised by Jesus where to find fish. At the same time, there are differences, notably Peter’s confession of his unworthiness to be in the company of Christ.

In the incident in John 21, Peter receives the benefit of being close to a person who had strong love to Jesus. John had identified Jesus, and Peter was able to meet Jesus because of it. This was not the first time that John had helped Peter in this way (the incident in the Upper Room when he beckoned to John to ask Jesus to reveal the name of the betrayer) suggests that John was recognised as having this peculiar contact with his Saviour. Every believer loves Jesus, but some love him more deeply. We all know people who have a strong love for Jesus and it is inevitable that we will meet Jesus if we spend time with them.

Here in John 21 Peter runs towards Jesus. I suspect he did this because his recent, fresh forgiveness by Jesus gave him boldness to do so. Peter had discovered that his Saviour did not delay in forgiving him his sins. If John’s love had developed out of his devotional response to Jesus, Peter’s love had increased as a result of being forgiven by Jesus. It can be said of Peter as was said of another by Jesus in Luke 7:47: ‘Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven — for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.’ Forgiveness gives wings to love.

Peter was also reverent in that he put on his outer clothes. It is unlikely that he was naked (as the AV suggests); the words can indicate that he was wearing his undergarment. But the fact that he put on his outer clothes indicates that he thought he was unfit to appear before Jesus without them. Probably his undergarments were dirty because of the work he was doing. The point I am making does not concern our attire; rather I am highlighting the fact that the reception of forgiveness should not cause forgetfulness of Christ’s dignity.

Application

This appearance of the risen Christ has many things to say to us today. We can summarise them as follows. First, the story tells us that Jesus blesses us in our work activities as well as in our religious ones. Second, the account stresses the desire of Jesus to be with his people, to have fellowship with them. Third, the incident highlights that Christians react differently in the same event. Fourth, the occasion reminds us of the zeal that a sense of forgiveness brings.

Doing God's Will in Difficult Days (1 Peter 4:1-11)

2011-12-09T18:18:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 8/12/2011

Although Peter is fully aware that his readers are facing difficult circumstances, he also knows that they face other dangers as well. These other dangers are connected to failing to live the Christian life. Probably he realised that ongoing harassment has the potential to diminish one’s devotion and it can affect our attitude to other things as well, especially with regard to pleasure. Instead of falling into such wrong practices, Peter urges his readers to imitate Jesus.

There are a couple of difficult statements in this passage, and we can consider them briefly. The first is in verse 1: ‘whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.’ Peter is fully aware that some sufferers continue sinning, so he does not mean that suffering brings spiritual benefits to all sufferers. Further, he is also aware that no-one becomes perfect in this life, so ‘ceasing from sin’ does not mean becoming sinless. What he means is that it is better to suffer for the faith than to live in sin. Christians at that time faced this choice continually. If they were to continue following Jesus, they would suffer persecution, but their choice prevented them from living sinful lives.

The second difficult statement is in verse 6: ‘the gospel was preached to those who were dead.’ Some discussion has focussed on whom he means by the ‘dead’ in verse 6. One interpretation is that the gospel was preached to people who have died, and so they were given a second chance of salvation. This view is untenable. Or he may mean those who are dead in a spiritual sense, even the very ones who delight in sinful pleasures. Personally I think he had in mind Christians who have died because of the persecution.

The focus of Jesus

We can see Peter’s call for imitation in verse 1 where he tells his readers to think as Jesus did. Peter regards such a step as a crucial weapon in their spiritual warfare because he says it is the equivalent of a soldier arming himself with the best weapon available. His exhortation is a reminder that the first place where the Christian loses a battle is in his way of thinking. What was the focus of the thinking of Jesus? It was to do the will of God, whatever it involved, and we know that in the case of Jesus it involved great suffering on behalf of his people. And here Peter tells his readers that they should live the rest of their lives on earth in obedience to the will of God.

Aspects of the will of God

When it comes to thinking about the will of God, we know that the phrase can mean different ideas. Here it does not refer to his secret will because we do not have any way of influencing it; his secret will refers to his eternal plan in which he foreordained whatever comes to pass. Nor does the phrase refer to his permissive will whereby he allows certain things to happen in his providence, although one can see how living under suffering is part of his permissive will. Of course, their situation in suffering was also his secret will for them. Instead the will of God here is his revealed will, that is, how he wants his people to live according to his Word.

Jesus lived according to the laws and principles detailed in the Old Testament. In doing so, he set an example for his disciples to follow. This means that we should know what directions are contained in the Bible because it is where we will find all the details of his revealed will. We will not find them elsewhere. Even when a Christian has to live according to another standard, such as the requirements of the company for which he works, these requirements must be in line with the principles of the Bible, otherwise the Christian should not work there.

In this short passage, Peter mentions three aspects of the revealed will of God and they are holy living (vv. 1-6), meaningful prayer (v. 7) and earnest brotherly love (vv. 8-11).

Holy living

The first aspect concerns the presence of sinful pleasure and Peter makes a contrast between what the Gentiles want to do and what God wants his people to do. The Gentiles want to live in uncontrolled license, especially in physical and immoral ways (v. 3). Hedonism is the technical term for such an outlook. It is important to realise that we were made to love pleasure, and sin has not removed that aspect of our humanity. Instead, what sin has brought about is intense love for sinful pleasures. We were made to find great enjoyment in God and in what he gives.

The lifestyle described by Peter is connected to pagan worship which permeated into every area of life. It was what created a community spirit in the ancient world. Through their passionate delight in such behaviour they formed an identity for themselves and expected all living in that area to adopt a similar lifestyle. Christians did not engage in such a way of life and immediately became a threat to those who lived for sinful pleasure.

Peter notes that the lovers of pleasure will be surprised by those who think differently and will disparage them at least and even slander them as dangerous because they refuse to participate in activities that were often connected to religious rituals (v. 4). How should Christians respond to such people? The believers should remember that the lovers of pleasure will yet appear before the judgement seat of God. Their lifestyles will yet be punished with awful divine displeasure. Obviously the knowledge that Jesus is ready to judge them should fill us with compassion for them, but that knowledge should make us afraid to participate in their activities. Better to endure a few taunts now than to receive punishment on the Day of Judgement.

Peter reminds his readers that is why the gospel was preached to those who have died. Before they heard the gospel they were facing the Day of Judgement without the mercy of the Saviour. But the gospel came to them and they heard about God’s way of deliverance. They believed in Jesus and were delivered from the wrath to come. This is one important reason for valuing the gospel, indeed it is probably the most important reason.

Meaningful prayer

The second aspect of the will of God is having a mind suitable for meaningful prayer (v. 7). Peter here reveals the timescale in which we pray. When Peter says that ‘the end of all things is at hand’, he does not mean that the second coming of Jesus is near. Instead he means that the second coming is the next major event in God’s programme of salvation, and since that programme is eternal a period of a few thousand years is not very long. That is the timescale in which we pray. We are not to pray because there are many years left in human history in which our prayers can be answered. There may be many years, but we cannot know how soon or how distant is Christ’s return. Instead we are to pray knowing that the next major divine event is the judgement seat of Christ.

We can see why that perspective requires a lifestyle that is self-controlled and sober-minded. What do these descriptions say about our prayers? They indicate that effective prayer is thoughtful prayer. In order to be thoughtful, prayers must have mental preparation, such as ‘Who should I pray for today?’ or ‘What should I pray for today?’ This inevitably means that effective prayer requires time. The terms also suggest that effective prayer is regular prayer; after all, it would not be possible to have regular prayer if we imitated the lifestyle of the pleasure seekers.

There are many encouragements given to us about prayer in God’s revealed will. We have examples in the Bible of individuals and groups who prayed and were heard by God. In addition, and more importantly, we have God’s great and precious promises about answered prayers. Sometimes, although not always, we make a big mistake when we try and find encouragements for prayer by looking at providence. Of course, answered prayers are encouraging, but we should get more comfort from God’s promises.

Earnest brotherly love

The third aspect of the will of God is earnest brotherly love, and Peter mentions three features of it. I would suggest that he does not mean that we should become earnest and then practice the three features. Instead, we are seen to be earnest when we practice them. The way to become earnest in brotherly love is to practice these three features, which will bring about a balance way of life.

The first evidence of earnest brotherly love is how we respond to the sins of our brothers. Unless a sin by a brother is serious, it should never be the subject of conversation between two other Christians unless they both have seen it. Sins and faults in a congregation should not be broadcast to Christians in other congregations. The greatness of my brotherly love is seen in the extent of my silence regarding the faults I see in other believers. Certainly we should speak to him about the flaw, and usually that will be sufficient.

The second evidence of earnest brotherly love is hospitality. Obviously we can see why hospitality was expected in times of persecution. Yet it was a call to other Christians to do something potentially dangerous because they could end up in trouble with the authorities for helping the persecuted. But hospitality is not limited to times of persecution. What is required for hospitality? It could be put this way — denial and delight. There will be denial of ourselves in that we wish to share what we have; there will be delight in all the brothers and sisters in the congregation. It is amazing the contribution hospitality gives in providing earnest brotherly love.

The third evidence of earnest brotherly love is our use of our gifts (vv. 10-11). Peter says several things about spiritual gifts. First, he reminds his readers that each of them as received at least one gift from God. These gifts are usually given at conversion when we first receive God’s grace. Second, he says that each gift has been given for the benefit of the others in the congregation. Third, the wide range of gifts can be summarised in two categories — speech and service. Those who can speak includes more than preaching; there can be exhorters and encouragers, it can be done in groups or one-to-one, it includes evangelism and witnessing, but all such activities convey the message of God’s Word. Those who serve are not to do it in their own strength but in the power of the Spirit. Fourth, such use of spiritual gifts will result in praise to God because their effects will be seen in the lives of others. The possibility of God being glorified should be the supreme reason for doing anything within the church.

As Peter thinks about his readers living that quality of life, he breaks out into a doxology: ‘To him belong glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.’ Peter is probably referring to Jesus here, so his doxology is also a confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The apostle’s desire was that his Master would be continually acknowledged for who he now is — the Sovereign whose kingdom will never end. This doxology is not merely a statement that focuses on another world; it is also a reminder to his suffering readers that they can bring glory to their Saviour by imitating him by having a desire to obey the revealed will of God regarding holy living, effective prayer and earnest brotherly love.

Responding to God’s Love

2011-12-09T17:22:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 4/12/2011 as part of a communion weekend

‘Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another’ (1 John 4:11)

The apostle John is known as the apostle of love. This description indicates he was a passionate man who loved God and his people. Sometimes we forget that John possessed very strong passions. We can do this by imagining that all he did was lie on the Saviour’s breast, which is a picture of passivity, of receiving love from Jesus. Yet we should also recall that Jesus called him, along with his brother, a son of thunder. John always had the potential for inner eruption that would pour out in great strength.

In what ways did John reveal his love? One obvious way was writing this letter, which was composed initially because of a false teaching that was penetrating the early church. We call that heresy Docetism because it taught that Jesus only seemed to be a real man (1 John 4:1-3). Other wrong doctrines were being taught as well (1 John 1:5-10). So we can see that John used his role in the church in defending God’s people from error and he did so in a loving way. Further, his love did not make him reticent, as we can observe from his resolve to deal with Diotrephes who was trying to impose his will on a local church (3 John).

No doubt there are several answers to the crisis that John faced and he mentions them throughout his letter. As far as the verse we are considering is concerned, his answer was twofold, as we can see in this verse: first, his readers were reminded that they should understand the love of God; second, they were reminded that they should practice brotherly love. We will consider each of these aspects briefly.

1. Understanding the love of the Father

The first point to note is that this divine love is personal. Although John uses the plural pronoun ‘us’, he does not mean that we should only think about this love in a detached manner by limiting our thinking about it to a corporate sense. Instead we are to recognise that the Father loved each of the ‘us’ personally. This is important to recall at all times, that God the Father loves his people individually. And it is the case that this love for each of them is beginningless. God has always loved the ‘us’. Long before he made the universe, God loved each of us. This aspect of his love is connected to his sovereign choice.

A second detail to observe about this love is that it is purposeful. Often human love is random regarding what it can do for the object of its love. I have no idea what I will buy for my wife in five years’ time. Hopefully I will be able to buy something suitable, but at present I don’t know how I will express my love on that future date. Such a random, uncertain description of love cannot be said about God. He has planned every expression of his love to each of his people. He already knows now what he will do throughout the endless future in which he will be continually expressing his love.

Thirdly, we can remind ourselves that the love of the Father is a pardoning love. Yet we know, as we contemplate this aspect, that his pardon is not merely his dismissing our sins from his mind as if they did not matter. The reality is that our sins were offensive to him because of their filthy, iniquitous nature; they were expressions of our rebellion against him and his law. So while his love for use was ongoing and would eventually show itself as a pardoning love, his love had to reveal itself in another way first. And that other way we can describe as a propitiating love because it involved him sending his Son to be the propitiation of our sins (1 John 2:1-2). The word ‘propitiation’ means that the Lord was angry with us because of our sins. As Paul says, Christians were the children of wrath, even as others (Eph. 2:3). So the Father showed his love for the ‘us’ by punishing his own Son instead of them, with the place of that punishment being the cross of Calvary. The cross is both an expression of God’s love and God’s anger.

Fourthly, the love of the Father is a paternal love. He has adopted the ‘us’ into his divine family. John says in 1 John 3:1-2 that this aspect of divine love is astonishing; he says, that we should observe what kind of love it is. Apparently one would use this type of description to ask what kind of country a previously unknown product came from. In other words, there was nothing in any earthly environment with which to compare it. It is unheard of that anyone would adopt outrageous offenders into his family, yet this is what God has done for the ‘us’. The biggest blessing is not merely family membership; in addition it includes always being in the presence of the Father. We can imagine a member of a family who is away from his father’s presence. But that cannot happen to a Christian. Even when he does wrong, he discovers that he is in the Father’s presence and undergoes his chastisement.

The fifth feature of the Father’s love that we should note is that it is a prospective love, a reminder that this family always has a future. In our holiday last week, we visited a ruined castle and outside it was a huge statue of a once-powerful king. At one time, that royal family was the one with a future; the king thought so much of himself that he erected a huge stature of himself (I was a midget standing beside it). Yet all his statue now says is that his family and domain did not have a real future. In contrast to all such human prospects, the family of God look forward to always enjoying the rich inheritance of Jesus. And there will not be any statues of Jesus there, only able to point to something notable in the past. Instead the living Jesus, far bigger than we can imagine, will be present, and in some sense we will be like him, and as we look at him we will see that he retains on his body the marks of his great triumph at Calvary. So wherever we will go in our Father’s endless kingdom, and whatever we will do within its limitless activities, we will always know that we are there because of the crucified Christ.

2. Loving the family of God

Often we ask ourselves how we can test if we are truly the children of God. John tells us one infallible mark in 1 John 3:14: ‘We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers.’ It is an infallible mark, not because it is perfect, but because it is genuine, and will show itself in all kinds of situations. John mentions the importance of practical expressions of brotherly love (1 John 3:16-17). And there are spiritual expressions as well, such as prayer, which is from one perspective, speaking to the Father about his children.

John then reminds his readers that they should love one another. He implies that the expected response to such a wonderful divine love is an appropriate human love. The church of Jesus Christ is where the love of the Father should be known and shown. How can we experience that kind of loving environment? Here are three suggestions.

First, just as God pardoned us, so we should forgive one another. As we sit at the Lord’s Table, we should not be conscious of any antagonism towards other persons here. Whatever they have done against us, we have to treat them as God has treated them. He has forgiven all their sins and does not list them. So we should look at one another and be able to say from our hearts, ‘I gladly forgive all of you for whatever wrong you have done against me, even if done on purpose.’ I know we have to confess our wrongs to one another when necessary; nevertheless we should reflect the attitude of the Father as we interact with his children here.

Secondly, we should rejoice in their presence. Here we are with those whom God loves and delights to be with. In a world where everyone is in a rush, we should use these moments to appreciate those whom we are with, God’s people, who are the excellent of the earth (Ps. 16:3). As we look at one another, we should see the evidences of God’s grace at work in our lives. If we have known one another for a while, we should be observing increasing conformity to Jesus in our brothers and sisters.

Thirdly, we should anticipate their future. After all, their future is our future. Where they will be, we will be. We are heading towards the eternal family gathering in the presence of the Father, of the Elder Brother, and of the Spirit of adoption. Our future is a family future. There were articles in last week’s newspapers about the sad demise in family life in our country. While the family of God in this world is often not what it should be, it always has a future. And we should think of it often.

Jesus Appears to Thomas (John 20:24-29)

2011-12-09T17:18:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 4/12/2011

We noted in the previous study that some commentators regard the appearance of Jesus to his disciples on the evening of the resurrection day as confirming the change of the day of worship from the seventh day to the first day of the week. This second appearance to the disciples on the next Lord’s Day, as once again they met together, adds emphasis to the possibility that they had begun already to meet together on the first day of the week. Albert Barnes summarizes why this is the case: ‘From this it appears that they thus early set apart this day for assembling together, and Jesus countenanced it by appearing twice with them. It was natural that the apostles should observe this day, but not probable that they would do it without the sanction of the Lord Jesus. His repeated presence gave such a sanction, and the historical fact is indisputable that from this time this day was observed as the Christian day of worship.’

Because part of the previous week was connected to the annual Feast of Unleavened Bread in the Jewish religious calendar, it is possible, as David Brown suggests, that the disciples ‘probably met every day during the preceding week, but their Lord designedly reserved His second appearance among them till the recurrence of His resurrection day, that He might thus inaugurate the delightful sanctities of the Lord’s Day (Re 1:10).’

Although John says this second meeting was eight days after the previous one, he is describing a week of days in an inclusive sense, including both Sundays in the total. It is generally assumed that this second meeting also occurred in the same location in Jerusalem as did the first one. Yet it is possible that this second meeting took place somewhere else, even in Galilee.

1. The absence of Thomas

John does not tell us why Thomas was absent when Jesus appeared to the other disciples on the evening of the resurrection day. David Brown comments that ‘The fact merely is here stated, as a loving apology for his slowness of belief.’

It is John, of the Gospel writers, who gives the most details about Thomas. He records his response to Jesus’ decision to go to Bethany after Lazarus had died, a situation wrought with danger because of the opposition Jesus faced. Thomas’ response to go there with Jesus, even although he expected to die there with Jesus, indicates that he had a measure of loyalty to his Master (John 11). John also records Thomas’ question in John 14 concerning the destination of Jesus. It is difficult to say what Thomas’ problem was in that passage; it could have been lack of understanding. In any case, his intervention suggests that he was not shy in asking questions.

Both these aspects of loyalty and willingness to ask for clarification should be borne in mind when asking why Thomas was absent when the disciples met together on the resurrection day. Although his absence is given a negative assessment by many, the Bible does not indicate that Thomas was rebuked for his non-attendance, although he was rebuked for his subsequent expression of unbelief regarding the presence of the risen Saviour. There are many possible reasons for his absence: he was separate from the other disciples and had not been told that Jesus was alive; he was engaged in an important activity that prevented him attending; he was afraid of arrest and thought it unwise to meet together.

The point is that Thomas was not there and so missed out on this blessing. I think this is a reminder that there will always be a special blessing when God’s people come together. Obviously, we should make it our aim to attend as many meetings as possible, because we miss the particular blessing given at each of them. In a sense, God can give a blessing to us when we are prevented from being present, but it will not be as profound as that in the public means of grace.

2. The fervour of the disciples

In one way or another, the disciples had made contact with Thomas. Fresh love in their hearts for Thomas wanted him to experience the wonderful reality of Christ’s resurrection. John uses the imperfect tense when referring to the words of the disciples, indicating that they were telling Thomas repeatedly that Jesus was alive. It is likely that the disciples, in their description of the Lord’s appearance, had focused on the marks on his hands and side, which led to Thomas’ rather cruel comment that he would not believe unless he could touch these wounds.

The disciples discovered that Thomas would not listen to them. He persisted in this outlook despite their enthusiastic description of what had taken place. Why was this? It seems to me that two words can describe Thomas’ outlook: he was a pessimist and he was a realist. These two characteristics are seen, for example, in his response to Jesus’ decision to go to the home of Lazarus. These two traits often go together, just as optimism and idealism can go together. People marked by pessimism and realism are not changed in their outlook merely by the repeated enthusiasm of others.

This is something that we need to learn as we tell others about what God has done for us. We are not to think that their inner response will be the same as ours. They need something more than another person’s testimony; they need to experience it themselves. Obviously there are differences between our situation and the one described here by John. The experience Thomas needed was to meet the risen Christ physically; after all, he had known Jesus physically and was aware of his death; it was also the way that the other disciples had met Jesus. The experience we need is to meet Jesus by faith, which is how those who witness to us have met him. We need a similar experience, but it must be a personal experience. Just as the faith of the ten disciples was not sufficient for Thomas’ lack of faith, so the faith of Christians today is not a substitute for the lack of faith that marks many people.

3. Thomas dictates the terms

Thomas’ response to the message of the disciples, at first glance, might seem to be a desire to base his faith on personal experience; the reality is that he desired a means of contact with Jesus that was not based on faith at all. He is an example of the type of person who will only believe when he is given a personal miracle. The fact is that Thomas did not believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead and he expressed his unbelief in as strong language as he could.

This outlook is very common. People often say that if God does this or that for me, then I will believe in him. Usually they say this in a time of serious illness or other form of stress. Such realise that only God can help in such a situation, therefore prayer is made about it, and often made earnestly, and accompanied by promises of serving God. Yet once the crisis is over, many people forget about their promise to God.

As we think about such an attitude, we realise that the person is ignoring the fact that God has already done something for him – he has sent his Son to be the Saviour. In reality, any other sign that God would give is vastly inferior to that of giving his Son. Jesus himself said so when he told his contemporaries that the only sign they would be given would be his resurrection after three days. If they don’t believe what God says in the Bible, they won’t believe in any other way. We are not to dictate to God.

Thomas’ response should have involved taking the disciples’ testimony at face value and bringing it before God in prayer. He should have cried, ‘Jesus, if you are alive as my friends say, please reveal yourself to me.’

4. Thomas discovers the truth

In any case, Thomas found himself with the other disciples as they met together. I suppose they had a sense of anticipation. The disciples would desire that Jesus would join them and perhaps Thomas was a bit apprehensive what would happen. As it was, Jesus did appear and the first thing he did was bring a sense of peace into the room. He gave the same greeting as when he met them on the previous Lord’s Day: ‘Peace be with you.’

This greeting reminds us that Jesus does not change in his desires for us to know his blessings. Although Thomas had been strong in unbelief, he was no worse than the other disciples in this regard for prior to the meeting when Jesus appeared to them they had refused to listen to the testimony of the women. Jesus treated Thomas in the same way that he had treated the disciples of the previous Sunday.

Thomas discovered that, despite his vehement words, Jesus wanted him to have peace from heaven in his soul. It is the same for those of us who have said something similar to Jesus. He draws near to this gathering that we are having and desires each of us to know his peace.

It was within this environment of peace that Jesus proceeds to speak to Thomas, to rebuke him. C. H. Spurgeon reminds us of an important aspect of the Saviour’s manner of rebuke here: ‘The whole conversation was indeed a rebuke, but so veiled with love that Thomas could scarcely think it so.’ That is a lesson to us as to how to deal with those who have offended us.

Not, too, the persistence of Jesus in ensuring that each of his chosen disciples would meet with him. We can imagine some leaders concluding that such a wilful servant as Thomas was best discarded. But that was not and is not Jesus’ way. In contrast to what others might do, he was determined to complete his preparation of his servant Thomas and enable him to become an apostle. Thomas here experienced the gentle teaching manner of Jesus (Matt. 11:29), who as the sculptor of people’s souls, does not give up on any of his projects.

Yet Thomas must see the error of his words, so Jesus repeats the words of Thomas with the same emphasis as Thomas had given, even to quoting his word ‘thrust’ and urging him to do what he had stated. Jesus also balances Thomas’ statement that he would not believe with ‘be not faithless, but believing’. Of course, Thomas was overcome by the sight of Jesus’s wounds that he could not possibly follow through with his threat. Nevertheless, what which happened to Thomas literally needs to happen to us spiritually. We need to have Jesus show us our sins in the light of his wounds. Sometimes we see our sins in light of other standards. For example, we can compare ourselves to other people and it is not difficult to find those who are worse than us; such comparison can lead to pride that we are better than others or to resolve to do better in the future without dealing with past failures. Another means of seeing our sins is to do so in the light of the law of God; that is a good way, but if it is the only way it will lead us to despair because the law has no means of showing mercy for our failures and transgressions. The best way is to view our sins in the light of the Saviour’s work on the cross, which is what Thomas did.

5. Thomas declares his trust

In the presence of the Conqueror of death, the Saviour of his soul, the Forgiver of his sins, Thomas confesses his personal relationship with the risen Christ. What joy must have been in the heart of Jesus as he heard this marvellous confession! Thomas declared, ‘My Lord and my God!’

This is an astonishing confession. As Spurgeon noted, in a sermon on this passage, Thomas ‘was the first divine who ever taught the Deity of Christ from his wounds. Nor has every divine since then been able to see the Deity of Christ in his wounded humanity risen from the dead.’ And David Brown’s assessment is true as well: ‘His exclamation surpasses all that had been yet uttered, nor can it be surpassed by anything that ever will be uttered in earth or heaven.’

So Thomas’ response is an appropriate confession. Anything less would have been inappropriate. It would not have been enough for Thomas to say that Jesus was a wonderful Teacher or a great miracle worker. Only a confession of his deity was now sufficient.

Thomas’ words are also a model confession, in the sense that it is one that we all should make. Calling him ‘Lord’ indicates that Thomas affirmed that he was a servant of the only Master; calling him ‘God’ indicates that Thomas affirmed that he was a creature made and upheld by Jesus. Thomas’ inserting of ‘my’ before ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ stresses that there was a real union between him and Jesus. We can say the same. Thomas began this new stage in his life with this wonderful declaration. We can begin each day by saying it to Jesus.

6. Jesus distinguishes between responses

We sometimes imagine that it would be a lot easier to believe in Jesus if we had lived when he was on earth. Seeing his miracles, hearing his teaching, enjoying his company would have a strong effect on us, we imagine. Yet the reality is that very few believed in Jesus as a result of these privileges. We should not forget that many people saw the wounds of Christ as he travelled to Golgotha and as he hung naked on the cross, and were unimpressed.

Perhaps Jesus has in mind all the millions down the centuries who would hear the story of his resurrection but would not be given the privilege of seeing his physical shape. They could say suspect that their conversion would not be as blessed as that of Thomas because they had an inferior experience. Jesus assures us that faith without visible signs is also a door into a state of divine blessing.

Faith involves dependence arising out of trust in Christ’s character. We listen to the testimony of his servants, including that of Thomas, and we respond by committing our souls into his hands. On this second Sunday of the Christian era, Jesus gave a promise to us as well as to the apostles.

The Father’s House (John 14:1-3)

2011-12-09T17:12:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 3/12/2011 as part of a communion weekend

A question that should cross our minds at this time of communion is, ‘What did Jesus speak about on the first occasion of the Lord’s Supper?’ Surprisingly, the Gospel that gives the most information regarding an answer is the Gospel that does not even mention the Lord’s Supper. Several chapters of John’s Gospel record what was said by Jesus on the evening of his betrayal, which was when he commenced the Lord’s Supper. So when we read John 13-17, we can see what Jesus spoke about. For example, he stressed the importance of humble service, which he exemplified when he washed the feet of his disciples. He also spoke about the necessity of brotherly love, which would be a very effective means of witness to the world (John 13:35). Other themes about which he spoke were that of peace (John 14:27), of fellowship with God (John 13:23), or troubles and opposition (John 16:1-4).

The themes that I would like us to consider this evening are found in John 14:1-3. These verses have been favourite ones with the Lord’s people because they have given to them a wonderful view of heaven as their eternal home. Home is wonderful imagery for most people, and of course heaven was the eternal home of Jesus. Spurgeon commented, when preaching on this passage, that the words were better than any sermon as far as spiritual consolation is concerned. So we will look first at the consolation Jesus gives, then we will consider the description he gives of heaven, and third we will think briefly about the future welcome he would give to his disciples when they reached there. And we should remember that he is speaking to disciples while they were taking part in the Lord’s Supper.

The consolation Jesus gave to his disciples

Verse 1 is obviously connected to the previous statements of Jesus which concerned the imminent denial of Jesus by his friend Peter (John 13:36-38) and some of them may also have been confused by what Jesus had said about Judas betraying him (it looks as if all the disciples did not hear the conversation about Judas in John 13:23-30). No doubt the disciples were disturbed by this prediction about Peter because if brave Peter could fail, then the same could denial could be committed by all of them. Perhaps Jesus was seeing the concern on their faces. This consolation was given to a group who were preoccupied with their own place in an imagery kingdom, who were about to deny him, who were not listening to his teaching. Jesus knew all this about them, but because he loved them he proceeded to comfort them.

Jesus encourages his disciples by telling them not to focus on their surroundings but on his divine ability. Although he was facing the most difficult situation ever known by a person, of being abandoned by God because he was the substitute of sinners when on the cross, he showed his compassion by dealing with their concerns. Things might seem unusual to them, but they should take their eyes of these matters and focus on what he was able to do. He claims to be equal with the Father and as much an object of their trust as the Father was.

Jesus does not only direct his troubled disciples to think about his ability, he also points them to his divine aims or purpose. This purpose involves their arrival in heaven. If they would concentrate on heaven, they would enter into a similar expectation that Jesus was experiencing, because these verses make clear that Jesus is longing for them to be in heaven with him. Heaven was much on his mind as he sat with them at the Lord’s Table.

This description of Jesus’ desires also reminds us of his divine affections for his people. His heart was full of loving sympathy as he noted their increasing consternation and apprehension. These divine affections had been set on them in eternity past, had been shown to them during the months and years they had been together, and even although they were not what they should have been, Jesus was glad to be with them. This occasion of the first Lord’s Supper was a time of love.

It is good for us to consider these three aspects of Christ when we find ourselves in situations of spiritual difficulty. Think of his divine ability, his divine aims, and his divine affections as directed towards you.

A beautiful picture of heaven

There are many pictures given in the Bible of heaven. It is likened to a city, to a better country, to a place of rest. Jesus on the cross calls heaven by the name of Paradise, the place of true delights. Heaven is the remade universe, the new heavens and new earth in which righteousness will dwell. Here Jesus employs a title for heaven that is only used by him, the Father’s house.

In passing, we can note that Jesus affirms that there will be a large number of people in heaven because he says that there will be ‘many’ rooms there. This emphasis on the size of the redeemed is stressed elsewhere, as in Revelation 7 where the crowd surrounding the throne is described as being ‘a number that no one can count’. Let us not become over-depressed by the apparent smallness of the church in our day. At the end of the story, Jesus will have redeemed billions of sinners.

We may wonder why the word ‘mansion’ was used by the Authorised Version translators because it is evident that it is impossible to have many mansions inside a house. In the seventeenth century, the word ‘mansion’ was used not for a large house but for a lodging-place where travellers would spend the night. The term comes from the Latin translation, the Vulgate. These lodging-places would usually comprise just one room. The translators thought that Jesus was saying that there were many lodging-places in his Father’s house.

The home Jesus is preparing

What is meant by the term ‘Father’s house’? Several suggestions have been made. One is that heaven is a world of variety, with each room containing details not found in the others. I suppose if we were to apply the rooms found in an everyday house, we could say that in the Father’s house there is the heavenly dining-room in which God’s people feast at the celestial banquet, with Jesus as the host. Also in the Father’s house, there is the library in which are kept records of all the earthly progress of the people of God. In this room, believers can review their earthly journey and give thanks to the Shepherd who led them safely through the desert. Another room in the Father’s house is the lounge where the residents meet together to discuss the events of that day. We could list a wide variety of rooms.

A second suggestion that is made is that the rooms indicate progression. As we noted above, the term translated ‘rooms’ was used in the past for lodges in which travellers stayed on their journeys. As they went from lodge to lodge, they made progress until they reached their destination. The progression that believers will enjoy in the eternal world is one that will never come to an end; there will be an infinite number of rooms to go through for these believers as they advance in the knowledge of God.

A third suggestion is that the term points to the eternal reunion of the Saviour and his people. It is customary for family members to meet together in the family home on special occasions. Similarly the Father’s house will be the place where all the children of God will meet in eternal festival to enjoy his enduring presence and to know his ongoing blessing.

Obviously all these suggestions contain truth and describe the realities of heaven. But they don’t explain all that Jesus might have meant by this illustration. ‘In Jesus’ day, many dwelling units were combined to form an extended household. It was customary for sons to add to their father’s house once married, so that the entire estate grew into a large compound (called insula) centered round a communal courtyard’ (Kostenberger). Jesus is referring to the practice of additional rooms being added to a home as a family increased in number.

The existing rooms in the Father’s house

The first thing that Jesus tells us that there are already some rooms in the Father’s house. In these rooms, at the time Jesus told this passage, were all the believers of the Old Testament era who had died in the faith. We can read about them in the Old Testament. Several of them are mentioned in Hebrews 11, where a very strong emphasis is placed on the heavenly aspect of their faith. At one stage, there were no residents from the earth, but the happy day arrived when Abel, the first martyr, reached the Father’s house. What a story he had to tell. All his life he had looked at the earthly Paradise that was barred to sinners. He knew that there was not a way back to Eden. But he had looked forward to a more permanent Paradise, to heaven. And he entered in and began singing the song of redemption to the delight of the angels. He is the oldest human resident in the Father’s house.

Since his entrance, many others have joined him. Enoch came in a unique manner, without having to taste death. Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David and Isaiah, to mention some, also reached the Father’s house. They each have their own story to tell as they meet in the heavenly courtyard, of how the Lord had initially met with them, giving them peace and forgiveness, and then led them through the earthly valley until the day came when they went to the Father’s house. And when they reached the Father’s house, they discovered that there was a personal room for each of them.

The additional rooms in the Father’s house

Having referred to those already in rooms in the Father’s house, Jesus turns to his disciples and says that one of the reasons he is leaving them is to go and prepare a place there for them. This statement has often been taken as a reference to the work done by the Saviour on the cross. Yet, given the likely illustration that he has used, I suspect he is referring to some form of heavenly activity in which he is engaged in preparing a particular place for each of his disciples in the Father’s house.

Jesus’ words are a reminder of the unity of the family of God. New Testament believers are going to be with Old Testament believers in the Father’s house. All together are going to be in the company of the Elder Brother.

His words are also an illustration of the uniqueness of each member of the family of God. Just as there are differences between believers on earth in terms of their spiritual experiences, so there will be differences in heaven. Thinking of the illustration of a large house, there would be two places for the residents to meet others – the courtyard and their own rooms. They could illustrate two types of contact with Jesus in heaven: one occurs corporately with all of God’s children (in the courtyard) and the other occurs privately with Jesus (in our room). This private type of heavenly interaction with Christ is found also in the promise that Jesus makes to the overcomers in one of the seven churches of Asia: ‘To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it’ (Rev. 2:17). These words describe a personal intimacy with Jesus in heaven.

In some way the room in the Father’s house will reflect the reward given by Jesus to his people for their faithful service on earth. We are accustomed to giving a valuable item to a person who has done something for us. The room is a picture of the glory that will be given by Jesus to his people. Retaining the illustration of a room, perhaps the furniture in it will be items that Jesus, in his grace, will give as permanent and personal reminders of his joy over our service for him in this life. Little things we did for him, long forgotten by us, are recorded on high and will be connected to the degree of glory that we will enjoy with Jesus in the Father’s house. It is a question to ask ourselves, ‘Am I doing something today that will contribute to my state of glory in the next world?’ We don’t merit the degree of glory by our obedience to Christ, but it is connected to it.

The welcome Jesus will give

Jesus tells his disciples that when he has finished preparing a place for them, he will come and take them there. This promise has two fulfilments. One occurs at the death of believers and the other at the Saviour’s second coming. On both occasions, believers will receive from Jesus a rich welcome. He will say to them, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master’ (Matt. 25:21). ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Matt. 25:34).

These announcements indicate both the personal nature of the Saviour’s welcome and the permanent presence of Christ into which they are introduced. They are to be Christ’s eternal companions, enjoying his fellowship, experiencing his provision, sharing his inheritance. What a prospect for poor, sinful creatures! What a Saviour they have! And it was what Jesus wanted to speak about during the first occasion of the Lord’s Supper.

The Fiery Furnace (Daniel 3)

2011-11-13T17:33:00.002Z

This sermon was preached on 13/11/2011

Daniel is not mentioned in the events recorded in Daniel 3, so we can assume that he was away from Babylon for a period engaged in government work. During this absence, Nebuchadnezzar erected a large statue of gold (ninety feet high and nine feet wide). Why did he do this? It is possible that he was testing the loyalty of his subjects after he had suppressed a revolt against him. Another reasonable answer is that he had to engage in projects that would remind the people of his empire how great he was. Rulers often engaged in large building projects for this purpose, and perhaps the statue looked like him.

Trying to flee from God

Another possible reason is that Nebuchadnezzar was defying the message he had received from God in the previous chapter when Daniel interpreted the dream for him. In that dream, only the head of the image was of gold. Daniel had stated that the head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, but he also detailed subsequent empires that would yet appear. Nebuchadnezzar initially accepted the interpretation as being the Word of God. Yet now he engages in an action that attempts to say that God’s Word will not be fulfilled. Instead of erecting a statue that corresponded to the image he saw in the dream, he erected a statue with a different message. The different message was that the empire of Babylon would not be succeeded by another empire and that his empire would last forever, no matter what God had said.

It is clear from the account that the statue had a religious dimension. Whenever the orchestra sounded the particular tune, everybody in the vicinity had to fall down and worship the golden statue. Nebuchadnezzar realised that an effective way of unifying the various groups within his empire was by providing a common religion. His aim was to minimise the influence of other religions by providing a religion that would suit everyone. Of course, this policy was not unique to him. In every age, governments have seen the value of combining various religious groups and ideas because such a policy does bring people together. Today we have various kinds of inter-faith activities, and it is not regarded as useful for society for a person to be a religious fundamentalist.

So Nebuchadnezzar was attempting to defy the revealed will of God. We have already seen that God has been pursuing Nebuchadnezzar, showing to him via a dream that although he is king he is still under the control of God, both in the present and in the future. And Nebuchadnezzar had been compelled to acknowledge that the God of Daniel was very powerful. Yet the emperor was not yet a committed believer in the true God. The Lord had not yet changed his heart, so it was inevitable that his confession of God’s greatness would turn out to be short-lived.

This response of Nebuchadnezzar is typical of many people in whose heart God is working. The convicting work of God’s Spirit brings to people an awareness that they should repent of their sins and trust in Jesus. Those looking on may deduce that the work of conversion is taking place. Then the individual does or says something that makes it clear that he has not yet accepted the authority of God. Their action may not be as grand as Nebuchadnezzar’s erection of a giant statue, but there is still a response that indicates they will not submit to Jesus’ offer of mercy.

A second detail from Nebuchadnezzar’s experience should be noted and that is that his plans were frustrated by the Lord. The way God did this was through the determination of the three Hebrews not to worship the statue. At first, the refusal did not seem to threaten Nebuchadnezzar’s plans in any way because he responded by punishing them with what seemed like certain death. Nebuchadnezzar thought that he knew what he was doing, but in fact it was the Lord alone who knew how to control events. The Lord often inserts a divine spoke in the wheels of a person who is trying to flee from him, and the spoke was the three Hebrews. At first, the person may not realise that the spoke has been placed, but it has. One example of such a person is Saul of Tarsus and the spoke the Lord used was the death of Stephen. From one perspective it looked as if Saul had won because Stephen was killed, yet what had also happened was that Saul’s outlook was being affected and he was being led unknowingly to where he would meet Jesus.

This leads us to the third factor in Nebuchadnezzar’s experience on this occasion, which is that Jesus appeared in a very surprising place. Having arranged for the three Hebrews to be thrown into the fiery furnace, the king was very surprised to see that there were four individuals walking about inside the furnace unaffected by the fire. He observed that there was something superior about the fourth person – he was like the Son of God. So the outcome once again was that Nebuchadnezzar was compelled to acknowledge the superiority of the God of Israel. And something similar happens to those who are trying to flee from God – Jesus comes into their lives in surprising ways. He may come to them through a person saying something, he may come through something that is read, he can come through a reminder that someone receives. In fact, there are a limitless number of ways by which he can come and remind such that he is on their case.

Nebuchadnezzar has not yet bowed the knee to the true God, but he is continuing to discover many things about him. He will find out more, as the next chapter will show. For the present he still thinks that the true God approves of horrific physical threats as encouragements to worship him. He still does not grasp who the Lord is. Yet it would be unwise for any who sense the Lord is speaking to them to then persist in refusing to acknowledge him.

The Trial of Following the Lord

At the close of the previous chapter, we are told that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were given a position in Nebuchadnezzar’s government (Dan. 2:49). No doubt it was assumed that they would receive higher roles as time went by; after all, the Lord had opened the door for them to work in such positions. And by the end of the story they had indeed been promoted, although not in the way that was expected.

We first met the three Hebrews in Daniel One when they joined with Daniel and, as teenagers, refused to eat the food that had been offered to idols. They are also mentioned in Daniel Two as effective prayer warriors, even although they are still teenagers. It is not clear how old they now are, but one thing is obvious: further tests are on the way and one of them occurs in Daniel Three.

It can be taken for granted that the Lord arranged all this. Daniel may have gone away for a time, but the Lord never leaves an area. He is always omnipresent, and in such situations he is always omnipotent. And it is one of the rules of his kingdom that each of his subjects will be tested continually as to his or her devotion to him. So the question we should ask of this passage is not, ‘Why did the Lord allow this?’ Instead we should ask, ‘In what area of my life is the Lord testing me at present?’ Because he will test us to see whether or not we will follow his revealed will at all times.

The test begins with a call to participate in a government celebration. Nebuchadnezzar wants all his officials to acknowledge that his kingdom will last for ever – that is what the golden statue affirms. Obviously a failure to do so would be an act of treason, which is why the penalty for failure was so severe. But as far as the three Hebrew men are concerned, to worship at the statue was also an act of treason, except it was treason against God. Whatever they decide to do, they are going to commit treason either against the king or against God. The three Hebrews knew the options, and also knew which one they would choose. They were resolved not to commit treason against God and so they refused to obey the king’s requirement.

How were they able to make this choice? We could answer the question by saying that God at that moment gave them special grace and enabled them to be faithful. That answer is true, but does not say everything as to how they were able to remain faithful. Two other details can be included, and they are essential aspects of spiritual preparation. First, they had previously been faithful in a smaller issue when they had refused to eat the diet suggested by Nebuchadnezzar and had persisted in adhering to their belief for three years while being ‘educated’ by him. Their faithfulness in that aspect illustrates the statement of Jesus: ‘One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much’ (Luke 16:10). Second, they were men of prayer, which was a sign of their dependence on God. Those two aspects of faithfulness in small matters and prayerfulness about all matters prepared them for bigger tests, and both aspects are practices by which we can assess ourselves. If I am not faithful in little things and spending time in prayer it is very likely that I will fail the test when it comes.

The initial cause of the trouble was from government officials who were jealous of the three Hebrews, perhaps because they were so young. These officials had been looking for an opportunity of getting rid of the Hebrews, but had not been able to find anything in the way they had fulfilled their roles. This, in itself, is a great testimony to their God-given wisdom and natural gifts which they were using for the benefit of the government, even although it was a pagan one. It is good when the only complaints opponents can have about a Christian is in connection to the strength of devotion he has towards God.

The opportunity of getting rid of the Hebrews was seized upon by their rivals and they quickly informed Nebuchadnezzar of his mistake in appointing the Hebrews to prominent positions and of their ongoing failure to obey his command about his golden image. So the three Hebrews were taken into the Emperor’s presence and interrogated about their behaviour. In their response we see an example of Peter’s instruction about ‘being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect’ (1 Pet. 3:15).

What can be said about their response? First, it stressed the capability of God. Nebuchadnezzar had questioned the ability of any god to deliver anyone from the fiery furnace. The Hebrews simply said that the Lord could deliver them out of the imminent danger they faced if he intended to do so. They did not attempt to make excuses for God, if he should choose not to rescue them. It is obvious that their understanding of the capability of God included his total sovereignty.

Second, their response stressed their relationship to God – they were his servants and would continue to be so, no matter what happened to them in the Lord’s providence. Said Samuel Rutherford in a letter written while he was imprisoned for his faith: ‘Duties are ours, events are the Lord’s. When our faith goeth to meddle with events, and to hold a court (if I may so speak) upon God’s providence, and beginneth to say, “How wilt Thou do this and that?” we lose ground. We have nothing to do there. It is our part to let the Almighty exercise His own office, and steer His own helm. There is nothing left to us, but to see how we may be approved of Him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls in well-doing upon Him who is God Omnipotent: and when what we thus essay miscarrieth, it will be neither our sin nor cross.’

Third, the response stressed their determination not to worship the Babylonian gods or the king’s golden image because they would be breaking the first two commandments of God’s law. This decision was not made on the spur of the moment. Instead they made it when they resolved as teenagers to honour God in every situation. But their decision took courage, and they could only do this because they realised that the Lord would help them obey him.

The price of faithfulness at this time was very great. Nebuchadnezzar’s warnings were clear – the fiery furnace awaited any who refused to obey his command concerning worshipping the statue. Yet we see in Nebuchadnezzar’s response an illustration of the irrationality that can sometimes affect the persecutors of Christ’s people. What was the point of making the fiery furnace seven times hotter? It was already hot enough to destroy all who were thrown into it. All his irrational reaction achieved was the destruction of his own soldiers (v. 22), and they perhaps were selected in an attempt to prevent the Hebrews from escaping.

Nevertheless the Hebrews were thrown into the furnace of fire. No doubt they anticipated a quick demise. But their Lord had different plans and he appeared with them in the fire. This is a marvellous example of having fellowship with Jesus while suffering for his cause. Jesus drew near to them and they had loving fellowship together. What is surprising is that they were not burnt in the slightest – the only item that was burnt was the ropes that bound them, which may be a picture of the sense of liberty that Jesus gave them. They experienced a miracle as the Lord protected them from all dangers.

Sometimes the Lord protects his people by removing them completely from the place of danger; at other times, as here, he protects them in the very heart of the danger. As Rutherford says in the same letter mentioned already: ‘Providence has a thousand keys, to open a thousand sundry doors for the deliverance of His own.’ Why was Stephen martyred and other church leaders spared when Saul of Tarsus was smashing the church in pieces? Only Jesus has the full answer to that question.

The outcome was that the three Hebrews were promoted. God had over-ruled the attempts of their jealous accusers and prevented any harm coming on his loyal witnesses. Once again we see that those who are faithful to God are honoured by him.

First Appearance to the Disciples (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-23)

2011-11-13T10:39:00.001Z

This sermon was preached on 13/11/2011

This appearance of Jesus, mentioned by both Luke and John, is the fifth by the risen Saviour on his resurrection day. John was no doubt an eyewitness of this meeting, whereas Luke was reporting what others had told him (Luke 1:1-4). It is therefore not surprising that one mentions some details that the other does not. Luke, for example, does not mention that Jesus breathed on the disciples or that he bestowed on them a special provision of the Spirit; John does not mention that the initial response of the disciples to the appearance of the risen Jesus included fear, nor does he include the information that Jesus ate some fish in their presence. Yet there are sufficient details in both accounts that make it very clear that both refer to the same incident: each of them says that the appearance took place in Jerusalem on the evening of the resurrection day (Luke has already said that it was towards evening when Jesus earlier went into the home in Emmaus), both say that Jesus greeted them with a word of peace, and both say that he showed them his wounds (John mentions the wounds in the hands and side of Jesus, and Peter mentions the wounds in the hands and feet of Jesus).

It is likely that each of the persons to whom he had already appeared was present in that room. Peter, as one of the eleven, would have been there with his report of his personal meeting with Jesus, no doubt telling his friends that Jesus had forgiven him for his denials in the house of the high priest. The two whom Jesus met on the road to Emmaus were there too because Luke tells us Jesus manifested himself in the upper room as they were relating what had happened to them. It is also likely that the women to whom Jesus had appeared were there as well.

Probably the initial reason for their gathering together was connected to keeping the week-long Jewish Feast of Unleavened Bread which followed the Passover (Lev. 23:4-8). This has led some commentators, such as T. V. Moore, to suggest that this meeting was the beginning of the Christian Sabbath: ‘As soon as they met for worship, he met with them, thus hallowing the day as a day of worship.’ In itself, this particular occasion may not be a strong argument for authorising the change of day from Saturday to Sunday because the disciples may have met together on each day of the feast, but taken with other arguments it can contribute to the case.

As we read the account of this incident on that evening in Jerusalem, we should remind ourselves that this is the group that Jesus is shortly to use to bring the gospel to the world. They are the church in embryo, the ones who he is going to send out with the gospel in a few weeks’ time. Yet at that moment they seem nowhere near ready for the great task ahead of them. A lot of divine input would be given in the period between this day and the day Jesus would ascend to heaven. And the Holy Spirit, after he had come on the Day of Pentecost, would enable them to understand what Jesus had previously taught them (John 14:26).

As we look in on this group of disciples, some of whom had already seen the risen Saviour, we can see that they are still apprehensive (doors are locked for fear of the Jews) and perplexed. The plural ‘doors’ may refer to the outer door of the house and the inner door of the room. We may find it surprising that they are still afraid now that they have heard that Jesus was alive, but perhaps they recalled the determination of the authorities to kill Lazarus after he had been raised from death by Jesus (John 12:10-11). The disciples may have been still expecting the authorities to come looking for them in a manner similar to how they had pursued after the Saviour before his arrest and death.

What the disciples needed was not merely the news that Jesus was raised from the dead; they also needed an explanation of the consequences of his resurrection, particularly that he could never die again, and what his incapability of dying again would mean for them personally and for the members of the kingdom over which he would reign. But this would not happen until the disciples had received the Holy Spirit in an enlarged manner after he came on the Day of Pentecost. In addition, we can say that appearances of the risen Christ which they had been told about, marvellous though they were, were not enough because he could only be in one place at a time; this is a reminder of how essential it was that the Holy Spirit should be given in the way that he was promised earlier by Jesus in the Upper Room (John 14–16).

Jesus had already done something unusual with his body when he suddenly disappeared from the home of the two disciples in Emmaus. Now he does almost the opposite – he appears in room where he was not present a few seconds before. It is clear that his resurrection body was capable of actions not found in our natural body. R. A. Finlayson comments on this capability:

‘But it became equally manifest that he was in possession of a risen life in which human nature had laid aside some of its ordinary properties and had been lifted to an immeasurably higher level to be a perfect instrument of the spirit within and a fit partner in His divine Person. It had qualities that no human being living under natural law possessed. Though the forms of the risen Lord’s manifestations varied – at times predominantly spiritual and at other times predominantly material – it was nevertheless evident that he conformed to the laws of our present life only as an accommodation to others. It was clear that he now possessed a life transcending physical limitations. He appeared to be, for these forty days, standing between two worlds, the visible and the invisible, and that his closest affinities were with the realm of the unseen and eternal.

‘For one thing, his body seemed no longer subject to the law of matter as commonly understood. Luke mentions, what John states in particular detail, that when the eleven disciples were gathered together behind closed doors, “Jesus himself stood in the midst of them.” This is a new departure in the behaviour of a body – to pass through a closed door, pointing to the fact that it was emancipated from the law of matter. This, too, sheds light on the fact noted by Luke, and stated in greater detail by John, that Peter, on entering the sepulchre, “beheld the linen clothes lying by themselves,” the napkin, we learn from John, in the place where the head had lain, and the shroud where the body had been. This suggests that the body that could pass through closed doors could also pass from its linen wrappings without as much as disturbing the folds. If the question be asked why the body could not also leave the tomb without the stone having been removed, we reply that there is no hint that the stone at the mouth of the grave had been removed to let the body out, but rather to let the witnesses in. There is further evidence that while the body of our Lord is not said to have been seen in two places at the same time, he did appear to have moved from place to place without the passage of time necessary to us.’

It is clear from this incident that locked doors were unable to keep Jesus away from his disciples. This was the case even although the locks were used because they were afraid; but he could still have come into the room in such a supernatural way even if the doors had been locked by their enemies as a form of imprisonment.

1. The greeting of Jesus and the disciples’ response

Up until now Jesus has appeared only to individuals and to small groups of people such as the women and the couple travelling to Emmaus. Now he appears to the larger group, and the first word he says is, ‘Peace.’ This is a statement that conveys the wonderful fact that there was no bitterness in the heart of the Saviour towards those who had denied him when he was arrested and tried. It was a simple greeting that was used by people very day, but yet also so profound and rich because it indicated that the atoning work of the Saviour had been accomplished, that reconciliation with God was a reality for them to realise and enjoy.

I wonder if there is not a lesson here for our church gatherings and as to how we should begin them. We can say that this was a meeting of the church in Jerusalem at that time, and Jesus announces his presence by assuring them that his peace was available for them. Paul usually begins his letters by wishing his readers grace and peace from the Father and from Jesus Christ, a reminder that the passing on of such wishes was part of a New Testament Christian service. It would be good for us spiritually if we were greeted by other believers in each service by the reminder of the peace that comes through the gospel.

In assuring them of his peace, Jesus had come to the disciples with a message from heaven before he would proceed to give them a mission on behalf of heaven. The idea of peace comes from the God of peace, who lives in heaven, and who wants his people to enjoy his heavenly peace in their souls. Yet the response of the disciples was fear, perhaps due to the suddenness of Jesus’ appearance or maybe to the way he now looked. Perhaps they also anticipated some form of judgement because Mark tells us that Jesus upbraided them for not believing what the ladies had told them (Mark 16:14). Yet it seems that the main cause of their new fear was that they imagined that Jesus was a ghost.

This was not the first time that they had thought he was a spirit. On a previous occasion, when Jesus had come walking to them on the sea, when they were in the middle of a storm, they thought it was a spirit (Mark 6:49). How wrong they were on both occasions! On each occasion Jesus had made a miraculous journey in order to bring peace into their souls. The first involved a journey through a natural storm on the Sea of Galilee, but the second required a journey through a spiritual storm on the cross of Calvary. Yet after both, Jesus shared his peace with his disciples.

Such fear on the part of his disciples is inappropriate in the presence of Christ. Of course, there should be elements of true fear such as submission, respect and awe. Yet there is no need for terror because the Saviour is always full of grace and he wants his disciples to enjoy his peace.

2. The gesture of Jesus and the disciples’ reaction

Observing their concern Jesus deals with it and points out he is not a ghost. He does this in two ways: first, by showing his wounds to them and, second, by eating fish and honey. These ways revealed the genuineness of his humanity. It was the case, as we have noticed, that it seems to have increased powers such as walking through locked doors. Nevertheless, it was a recognisable body that he still had.

Jesus expected the disciples to be satisfied regarding his identity once they had considered his wounds. He knew that the sight of his wounds would be sufficient to calm the fears of each disciple. They were a reminder that he had a great love for them, that he had endured great distress in order to deliver them from their spiritual deaths. What lessons are there for us from his wounds? Let me suggest five.

First, the wounds of Jesus are the proof of the pain of Calvary. On the cross, Jesus suffered the unbearable agony of crucifixion as his hands and feet were nailed to the cross. Those wounds were given him at the commencement of his ordeal there. The spear that caused the wound in his side was thrust in there after he had died, in order to ensure that he was dead.

Second, the wounds of Jesus are a pointer to the sufferings of his soul. It was not only physically that Jesus suffered at the cross. Painful as that suffering was, it was not as severe as the suffering of his soul when he endured the wrath of God against sin.

Third, the wounds of Jesus are permanent. In heaven, they were a cause of the angelic praise as they watched the Lamb that was slain ascend to the throne of God (Rev. 5:11-12). And the redeemed will contemplate these wounds for ever.

Fourth, the wounds of Jesus are powerful expressions of the effectiveness of his intercession in heaven. He prayed at the cross for the soldiers as they created the wounds in his hands and side; in a sense these wounds called out to God to show mercy to the soldiers. In a far more dramatic manner, when Jesus lifts his hands to intercede in heaven for his people, the Father sees the wounds, and each prayer is heard.

Fifth, the wounds of Jesus remove all sense of panic. Greater joy came to these disciples when they realised that Christ with his wounds had come into the room than if the most powerful king on earth had come to rescue them from the threat of the Jews. No doubt, the presence of the risen Jesus brought peace to his disciples, but it was confirmed to them by the beholding of his wounds.

Why does the risen Christ retain his wounds? It was possible for him to rise from the dead without them, with no trace of his sufferings. One reason may be that they will let the redeemed of all the ages see something of the suffering he went through. When we see a soldier who has suffered a great deal in a war defending his country, with the consequences of the conflict marked in his body, we can sense something of the price he paid. In a far higher sense this will be true of Jesus.

So we can summarise our comments on the wounds of Christ in this way: first, Christian assurance (peace and joy) comes from viewing the wounds of Christ; second, Christian service comes from viewing the wounds of Christ; third, the hands of Christ outstretched towards sinners today in the gospel sent from heaven are wounded hands; fourth, the hands of the Judge, who at the last day will direct sinners into a lost eternity, will be wounded hands. We should admire the wounds of the Saviour. The response of the disciples was one of glad adoration. This should always be the effect of contemplating the wounds of Christ. After all, there is not a situation of distress into which thinking about his wounds cannot bring peace.

3. The gift of Jesus and the disciples’ role

John records that Jesus repeated his blessing of peace before informing the disciples that he was sending them into the world as his representatives. This, of course, is a reminder of his sovereignty over his disciples.

Jesus then says that there is a similarity between his sending by the Father and his sending of the disciples. In what ways did the Father send Jesus? I would suggest some possibilities.

First, the Father sent the Son because he loved the world of sinners. This is the message of John 3:16. And Jesus sent his disciples with the gospel because he loved the world.

Second, the Father sent the Son to serve his people. Jesus came in a humble manner, to help poor sinners find the way to heaven. He summarised his life when he said that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). And he has sent out his messengers to serve others by declaring the gospel to them.

Third, the Father sent the Son to suffer on the cross. As the risen Jesus looked at the individuals gathered there in the upper room, he knew that most of them would suffer greatly for his sake. Of the eleven apostles, only John would not be martyred, and even he would suffer in his old age. Their sufferings were not atoning, of course.

Fourth, the Father sent the Son in the power of the Spirit (he descended on the Saviour at his baptism in fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies, such as Isaiah 61:1-3). Jesus here bestows on the disciples a foretaste of the experience of the Spirit that they were to have at Pentecost. It is not clear from the Greek if his breathing here was a symbolic act (the words ‘on them’ are not in the original, and the words can be translated, ‘he breathed and said, “Receive you the Spirit”’). They would need this temporary work of the Spirit to enable them to understand the various teachings that Jesus gave to them during the forty days between his resurrection and ascension.

Fifth, the Father sent the Son to declare to sinners a message of forgiveness. And Jesus sent out his disciples to declare the gospel of forgiveness. This is what is meant by remitting and retaining sins. Jesus did not mean that the apostles in themselves had the power to forgive sins. But they could announce through the gospel that all who believed in Jesus would be forgiven, and that all who will not believe will not be forgiven by him.

As we conclude our study of this fifth appearance of the risen Jesus, what lessons come from what he did on that occasion? No doubt, there are many. But here are two important ones. First, Jesus loves to meet with his people and remind them of his sufferings on their behalf on the cross of Calvary. Second, Jesus expects his people to be his witnesses wherever he locates them.

The Real Kingdom (Daniel 2:25-49)

2011-11-06T17:32:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 6/11/2011

Everyone is concerned about the future. This is very much the case today as people consider the various crises that dominate the focus of the great and the small in our contemporary world. Most of them would see no value in looking at the ancient Book of Daniel, but that is their mistake. The chapter we are considering has a great deal to say to us about character and destiny.

One conquered king

As we noted in a previous study, there are different ways of reading the Book of Daniel. One feature that appears in the early chapters involves the story of Nebuchadnezzar. He appears in Daniel 1 as the conqueror of God’s people, yet the accounts of him in the next three chapters don’t depict him as such a conqueror. Instead Nebuchadnezzar himself becomes conquered by God and is therefore an interesting character study of one whom God pursues. Nebuchadnezzar depicts the journey of how a pagan discovered the true God.

In Daniel 1, Nebuchadnezzar thinks that the God of Israel is weak (this is seen in the placing of the vessels from Jerusalem in the pagan temple in Babylon). The reader, however, is aware that all is not going to Nebuchadnezzar’s plan. Four Jewish men outsmarted Nebuchadnezzar over his attempts to conform them to Babylon’s standards. Would they be able to do so again? The answer is yes, and in Daniel 2 we see how he was outsmarted by Daniel and in Daniel 3 we see how he is outsmarted by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar discovers that the God he thinks he has defeated actually controls his life. By means of a particular and precise piece of divine revelation, Nebuchadnezzar realises that he is dealing with a God who is far bigger than first imagined. The message of God, which on one level is against Nebuchadnezzar because it predicts the demise of his regime, speaks powerfully to him about the awesome sovereignty of God. In verse 47, Nebuchadnezzar reveals that his grasp of God’s person and ways is increasing, even although he has not yet realised the uniqueness of God. The earthly emperor has yet to realise that the Lord is not merely a higher version of other gods, but greater understanding will yet come. In this, Nebuchadnezzar is a picture of many when they start reading God’s fuller revelation, the Bible. They sense there is something special about it, even when it condemns them. Their understanding is deficient at first, but as they keep reading it they gain more understanding.

It is also evident from Nebuchadnezzar’s response to Daniel that the king realised there was something special about Daniel. The king had promised great rewards to any who could discover and interpret his dream, but he had not intended to bow down to them. But there he is, falling at the feet of Daniel, fully aware that he is a representative of the supreme God. The Lord is pursuing Nebuchadnezzar and he finds himself doing what he would never have anticipated. And many a person has found himself being unknowingly directed by the seeking Lord to a place where he would be found.

So as far as Nebuchadnezzar is concerned, the book of Daniel is saying, ‘Watch this space!’

Two contrasting servants

Another feature that comes across in the Book of Daniel is his character. In chapter 1 we read about his quiet determination based on his strong faith in God. Earlier in chapter 2, we noticed his calm demeanour when facing the terrifying prospect of being slain with all the wide men of Babylon – he is like the righteous man in Psalm 112:7-8: ‘He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.’ And that passage in Daniel 2 reveals him and his friends to be men of prayer – it is hard to realise they are still in their late teenage years!

In verses 25-30, we see another important feature of Daniel’s character and it is seen in contrast to the character of Arioch, the servant of Nebuchadnezzar. Arioch is a man who wants to take credit for something he had nothing to do with (v. 25); such an attitude is only found in those who think a lot of themselves. He wants to make an impression on his master and is therefore prepared to lie in order to climb the ladder. Of course, in these aspects he is like his master Nebuchadnezzar. The king thought he was very important and lived under a delusion that he was supreme; like his servant Arioch, the king at this time was marked by pride and falsehoods.

In contrast, Daniel the servant of God claimed no credit for having discovered the content of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Instead he stated clearly that only God could have revealed the dream to him. Daniel went out of his way to assert that he did not have special gifts or insights (v. 30). Instead he saw himself as a servant who had to pass on the message of his Master. So Daniel was humble and truthful, the opposite of Arioch. The fact is that we become like those whom we serve or like what we serve. And it means that people can tell what our master is like from our behaviour.

We also observed in the previous study Daniel’s consideration of the other wise men when he asked Arioch not to execute them. His consideration of others re-appears at the end of the chapter when he asks Nebuchadnezzar to give important roles to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Four crushed kingdoms

The Lord informed Daniel about the contents of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream – he saw a statue of a man that was broken in pieces by a stone. The statue itself was made of four metals: a head of gold, the chest and arms of silver, the abdomen and thighs of bronze, and its legs of iron (with the feet having a mixture of iron and clay). Not only did God reveal the dream to Daniel, he also told him what it meant.

The statue represented the four world empires that would rule until God set up his kingdom. First, there was the empire of Babylon (vv. 37-38); the second empire was the Persian Empire (v. 39), which conquered Babylon; the third empire was that of Greece, which defeated the Persians; the fourth empire was the Roman Empire (vv. 40-43) and it defeated Greece. Yet each subsequent empire was also a continuation of the previous because it retained any features that were beneficial. For example, the Greek Empire gave a universal language and the Romans retained it, a decision that was of great benefit in the spreading of the gospel.

As we listen to Daniel’s explanation of the statue, there are two features that are stressed. The first is the total sovereignty of God. He is in control of the rise and demise of these empires. No matter how extensive their domain, or how impregnable their defences, they come to an end when God says so. The subsequent empire may have been able to defeat the previous one, but the One who planned the defeat of one and the success of the other was the Lord himself.

The second feature that is highlighted is the descent of man. What may seem surprising to us is that the victors are inferior to the conquered, a fact depicted in the less value of the metals of which the different parts of the image were made. Persia, although it conquered Babylon, was inferior to it; Rome, although its territory was more extensive that the previous empires and lasted longer than them, was inferior to the Empires that preceded it. How can we say that man is descending as his kingdoms develop?

I suppose the answer to that question is that human achievements cannot deal with the root problem of their peoples. No matter how lofty their aims they discover that a great power controls their subjects, and that greater power is sin. Despite all the benefits that these empires brought about, the subjects were always liable to rebel. There never has been, nor will there ever be, a human government that can control the sinful tendencies of their peoples. That is why every nation has a system of punishment.

Of course, we have to remember that the dream and its interpretation were divine revelation and therefore also contained a message for the people of God. Imagine an Israelite living in the days of these empires. They seemed so dominant, yet a true Israelite living in the time of the third empire could look back and see that the previous two disappeared just as God said they would. Therefore the Israelite would also know that the current third kingdom too would eventually disappear, and he could look ahead to the coming of the fourth kingdom and anticipate the promised victory of God over all these empires.

Imagine yourself a Christian living in the cruel days of the fourth empire, having to watch as hundreds of his fellow-believers were persecuted. If he judged things by the physical eye, he would conclude that the church was going nowhere. But as he read this dream of Nebuchadnezzar he would realise that God’s Word told what would happened and that soon the iron crushing of Rome would be no more and that the infant church would flourish despite the fact that for a short time it would be under the dominance of the iron kingdom.

One continuing kingdom (vv. 44-45)

In his dream Nebuchadnezzar saw rock hewn out of the mountain that came rolling along and without any human help shattered the image in pieces. I suppose the first question that comes to mind is, ‘What is significance of the first mountain (v. 46)?’ One thing would be true of the mountain is that it is a lot bigger than the image. So the biggest thing in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is not the idol, although for a while the idol seemed to block out the mountain. The mountain was a reminder to Nebuchadnezzar that there is something far bigger than the dreams of men and their earthly kingdoms, and that which is far bigger is the purpose of God.

What is declared to Nebuchadnezzar about this purpose of God? The king saw in his dream that something (depicted by the stone that was uncut by humans) would appear and overthrow the powerful earthly kingdoms. The stone, we are told in verse 46, depicts the kingdom of God. This stone unusually is alive, and after overthrowing the last of the empires it is going to grow and grow until it becomes such a large mountain that it will fill all the earth (v. 35). This stone needs to be examined.

First of all, when will it appear? We already know the answer to this question. It will appear during the times of the fourth empire, that of Rome. Second, where does it come from? The answer to this question is that, unlike the four empires, it does not have a human origin. Third, will it look impressive when it first appears? The answer to this question is that it will not look threatening at all to the empires of man; after all it is only a small stone.

As we think of these three answers, let’s move on several centuries to a small town in Galilee, to the house where a young woman lives, at the time when she had an unexpected visit from the angel Gabriel. Listen to what he has to say: ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end’ (Luke 1:30-33). It is in the days of the fourth empire, he does not have a human origin, and it all seems so small, not a threat to the empire of man. Yet the Stone had arrived.

Thirty years later, Jesus begins to preach about the kingdom of God. Eventually he comes into direct contact with the local representative of the fourth empire, Pontius Pilate. Jesus tells Pilate twice in John 18:36: ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ There in the days of the fourth empire, the small Stone without a human origin stands and does not seem a threat. We know what happened. Pilate, under pressure from the crowd, allows Jesus to be crucified, and exposes the weakness of his empire, that it cannot control sin. In the first contact, as it were, between the empire of man and the kingdom of God, the former seems to win. Yet its decision was actually how it was going to lose its grip on many of its subjects because the Stone’s death was only the onset of his role as the Destroyer of earthly empires, as they were soon to discover.

The dream of Nebuchadnezzar sees the Stone conquering the whole earth. It starts small and works its way forward, enlarging his kingdom continually. Throughout its existence it will never be overthrown by any subsequent earthly empires. Not that they have not tried to do so, and no doubt will continue to do so. But they will not succeed because nothing they can do can prevent the triumph of the Stone. Even when they kill his followers, they cannot reduce the extent of his kingdom because his martyred followers are still members of it.

After he rose from the dead, an action which showed the futility of earthly power as the guards at the tomb could not do anything about what was taking place, Jesus spent forty days with his disciples speaking to them about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). His directions for the growth of the kingdom extended to the same limits as the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, to the ends of the earth.

One of the amazing aspects of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar is that time as well as space belongs to the Stone. His throne does not grow decrepit and weak like the thrones of the previous empires. Already Jesus has reigned for a period that is almost four times longer than the era of the longest running human empire, that of Rome.

We know about the past appearance of the Stone, of the small, apparently insignificant beginnings of his kingdom. And we know that his reign now includes the whole earth, as he said to his followers as the basis of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20). This is very encouraging because the empires of man are still plotting against the kingdom of Jesus and sometimes seem so strong. And it is also a very good reason why any of us, who are currently resisting his rule, should bow to him and join his kingdom. For as Nebuchadnezzar was told in his dream, this kingdom is ‘a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people’ (v. 44).

The Baptism of the Philippian Jailor (Acts 16:25-40)

2011-11-06T17:27:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 6/11/2011 (it was a baptismal service)

Luke, in Acts 16, has already given details about two converts of the gospel in Philippi and he would have selected them as samples of the type of persons from there who became followers of the Lord Jesus. First, Paul described the conversion of Lydia, and she represents those in the church who were converted from a Jewish background (she was a proselyte from Thyatira in modern-day Turkey, a Gentile convert to the Jewish faith, which was an indication that she was seeking an interest in the true God). After her conversion her home in Philippi became the location where the new church met. On believing, she and her household were baptised (her household would have included servants but perhaps also family members as well).

Second, Paul described the deliverance of the slave girl from her pagan activity of fortune-telling (she had been a tool of Satan to try and discredit the ministry of Paul, but her deliverance showed how the gospel could penetrate a false religion and deliver even the most active of their devotees).

Third, Paul described the conversion of the local jailor, whose name we are not told (Luke would have known his name because he remained in Philippi afterwards and would have got to know the jailor well). The jailor became involved because Paul and Silas had been arrested at the instigation of the owners of the slave girl. In a sense it was all none of his business, although he soon discovered that he had to make it his business. Of course, behind it all was the arranging hand of God. It is highly unlikely that Paul and Silas thought in the morning that they would be in prison in the evening, and further that they would be the means of the conversion of the jailor and his household. No doubt, Paul and Silas would have prayed to be guided to converts, but such prayers can result in unexpected answers.

The incident also tells us that the Lord will give opportunity for salvation in unexpected places and to individuals who would not have been expecting to be converted. I am sure it had never entered the jailor’s mind that he could be saved; we don’t even know if he had heard that there were such people as Christians.

Also with regard to the jailor, this was the only occasion he would have to hear Paul and Silas. They would have been released the next day and moved on to their next place. Sometimes providence only gives one opportunity for hearing the gospel. Therefore when such an occasion arises, the unconverted person should repent of their sins and be saved.

What kind of man was the Philippian jailor?

Usually the impression is given that he was a rough and wild man. Nevertheless, such a suggestion is open to question. It is very unlikely that the Roman authorities would have used such an undisciplined person in this important position. It is clear from the passage that he was used to obeying orders and his treatment of Paul and Silas was according to the instructions he received. In a sense, this man was a government employee, with all the privileges that came with his role. So he would have enjoyed a measure of security.

Whatever may have been these securities, he found himself in a situation where they could not do him any good. In a moment he discovered the fragility of his situation. He knew that he was accountable for any escaped prisoners with his own life, and suicide seemed the only option for him. All his hopes for the future had been dashed.

In these two factors, the jailor is a picture of many of us. We have reasonably secure positions in society through our work and station in life. Then something happens that shows to us that these things cannot really help us when troubles come. If that situation has not yet happened for some of us, it will yet come.

Sometimes God has to remove things from us before we will listen to him. He does not do this with everyone; for example, he did not bring any problems into the life of Lydia. With the young girl, he removed her from various evils that were afflicting her. It was different too with the jailor; he needed to experience a major crisis. God knows what it will take to bring a person to repentance.

The simplicity of conversion

We have seen that this man had very little knowledge of the Christian message. But he knew enough that he needed to be saved. Where he had received this information from is not the crucial question. It seems as if the earthquake and the non-escape of the prisoners had convinced him that the Christian message was true. We are not to be surprised at the methods God uses to convince a person of the truth of the gospel. Sometimes it can be rational arguments as Paul used when he debated with the philosophers in Athens; sometimes it can be a miraculous preservation in providence in which God answered a prayer of desperation, say, by a person drowning at sea; sometimes it can be the quiet, ongoing witness of a converted wife to her unconverted husband as he observes her Christlike character. Whatever the method, they are brought to ask this most profound question, ‘What must I do to be saved?’

Perhaps some of you have not yet asked this question. You may be convinced already about the truth of the Bible, but for various reasons you have not asked the question. You may even think that it is not suitable for you to ask the question. But anyone can ask this question. You can ask it out of curiosity or you may ask it out of desperation, but the answer will be the same.

Why do you need to be saved? The answer to this question is that you need to be saved from the danger of perishing eternally under the judgement of God. Because this is the case, you have to personally ask this question. Note the stress that the jailor put on his own involvement – what must I do?

The answer is a surprising one, is it not? The jailor had wanted to do something, and he was told that the work had been already done by Jesus Christ. Of course, we are not to quibble over the errors in the man’s question. Yet this surprising aspect reminds us of an important problem that recurs again and again in people seeking salvation. In a variety of ways, they don’t focus on what Jesus has done on the cross. They imagine that they have to prepare themselves by making themselves better by reforming their lives. But salvation is based on what Jesus Christ has done.

The answer is also a simple one. The apostles told the jailor that all he had to do was to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not have to move his body an inch in order to be converted. What he needed to do was believe in Jesus.

In thinking about faith, we have to believe about Jesus as well as believing in Jesus. We have to recognise who he is, that he died on the cross as the Saviour and that he has risen from the dead and been given the place of Lord. We depend upon him and devote ourselves to him. Our trust in him is marked by gratitude and reliance. For his sake we receive the forgiveness of our sins and have peace with God.

Think of some potential changes in his life. Right away, there was the beginning of a prison ministry in Philippi because the church there would have access to evangelise the prisoners. His old friends, probably soldiers who had fought with him in military campaigns for the Roman Emperor, would see a remarkable change in his life and would enquire about why he was serving another Ruler. Perhaps some of them became members of the congregation in Philippi – this may be one of the joyful discoveries God’s people will make when they meet all the members of the family of God in heaven.

The baptism (Acts 19:31-34)

The baptism of the jailer followed on from a time of instruction by Paul (v. 32). This took place in the early hours of the morning – the earthquake had taken place shortly after midnight (v. 25), so perhaps an hour or so had passed before the period of instruction would have started. The city authorities wanted Paul and his friends to leave at daylight (v. 35), which would be about six in the morning. So the instruction would have lasted only for a few hours at most. This tells us that a few hours’ instruction is sufficient to prepare candidates for baptism.

What would Paul have said to them? Obviously any answers are a guess, but here are several likely details. They can be summarised as doctrines, duties and destination. The doctrines would be connected to who Jesus is and what happened to him. So Paul would have explained how God the Father sent his Son into the world, how his Son died on the cross bearing the penalty of sin, how he had risen from the dead, then returned to heaven after informing his followers that they had to spread the gospel, and sent the Holy Spirit to guide his church until he returns as universal Judge at the end of history. The duties would include church attendance and personal devotions of prayer and witness. And their destination was heaven, where they would be with Jesus forever. Paul knew that Luke, who was left behind in Philippi, would repeat and enlarge the basic teachings given to the jailor.

In addition to having a time of instruction, the jailor revealed that he was a changed character. We can see the evidence for the change in verse 33 – he washed the stripes that the magistrates had ordered for Paul and Silas (v. 22). Instead of being indifferent to their physical needs he was changed into a compassionate, tender man. How long does it take for grace to show itself in a changed life? It shows itself very quickly. The first sign displayed by the jailor was brotherly love. So on the evidence of his willingness to be instructed and of a changed life, he and his family were baptised (v. 33), perhaps using the same basin as the jailor used for washing the stripes.

Why were his family members baptised? They were baptised because he now believed in God. We are not told who they were, whether his wife was alive, or whether he had young children or teenagers. All that we know about them is that they were all baptised following his profession of faith. The same detail is said about Lydia and her household in verse 15. The practice in the New Testament was to baptise households if possible. Obviously, at that time, it was possible for an unconverted male head of the house to prevent his converted wife from baptising their children. But if it was possible, the practice was to baptise the adult convert and his or her family.

The baptism was followed by a meal gladly provided by the jailor (v. 34). Immediately he realised the importance of hospitality and sharing. This action was potentially dangerous for the jailor because it was a capital offence to perform such an action on behalf of prisoners. Yet his joy in salvation made these potential difficulties seem rather small. He began to show that he wanted to live a Christlike life of service.

Then it was back to normal life. Paul and Silas went back to the prison – they were there when the magistrates command was given at daylight. The jailor resumed his duties (v. 36). At that time, the city of Philippi was unaware of the important event that had occurred during the night hours in the prison. But they would see its effects in the coming days as the jailor and his family lived out the consequences of him now believing in God. In a sense, this is what happens at all baptisms. The outside world is not aware that it has occurred, but they should see its effects in the lives of those who have been baptised and wonder why they are different.

Daniel’s Two Prayers (Daniel 2:1-23)

2011-11-01T13:57:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 30/10/2011

Hardly any time has passed since Daniel and his friends finished their three-year course in Nebuchadnezzar’s learning establishment. The second year of his reign would coincide with their third year (their first year was the year of his accession, so their third year would be the second year of his reign). The point of the date is that it reminds us that Daniel is still a very young man, perhaps even only about nineteen.

This chapter in Daniel serves several purposes. It contains a vision in which the future kingdom of Jesus the Messiah is described; it also shows how Daniel almost from the beginning of his career in government experienced promotion; and as far as this study is concerned, the chapter from Daniel highlights the importance of prayer. We are told about two prayers that Daniel made, and we should remember that he is still a young man. And we will see later in the book that his prayer life was very important.

It is worth spending a few minutes considering Nebuchadnezzar because God has his hand on him, not merely because he is a powerful emperor, but because he needs to be taught important lessons. We will see Nebuchadnezzar go into different classrooms in God’s school in later chapters and discover what he became in the end. For the moment we can ask, ‘What was he taught in the classroom described in Daniel 2?’

One obvious lesson is that the Lord can speak to a person anywhere and through any means, even if the individual is the most powerful person on earth. Here God speaks through a dream in such a way that Nebuchadnezzar is very disturbed by what he saw. Both the dream and the disturbance come from God. Others may have had similar kinds of dreams and were not bothered any more about them. Here God used a dream as a way of getting Nebuchadnezzar’s attention, which is an indication that he wants to do something for the king.

Another lesson is how easy it is for God to show the foolishness of earthly wisdom and the weakness of earthly power. Babylon was the foremost empire on earth and its subjects would have regarded its resources as greater than what had been known before in previous realms. The Lord knows how to make them appear in their real limitedness. One request from Nebuchadnezzar, in response to his dream, reveals the incapability of his leading advisors because they were unable to provide him with what he wanted. Of course, his request would have shown the incapability of any regime that had ever existed.

His request also shows his fear, because although he is a king of a worldwide empire, his dream showed there could be more than one empire. Which of the four was he, and who is the little stone that is going to have a mighty worldwide empire? All this was very unsettling from Nebuchadnezzar’s point of view and he could not restrain his apprehensiveness about it.

The crisis

So Nebuchadnezzar had a dream which he wanted to understand. It is not clear if he had forgotten the details or whether he was testing the claims of his advisors regarding their ability to interpret dreams (perhaps he had worked out that on previous occasions they had merely told him what they thought he wanted to hear). In any case, there was a crisis situation in the palace. The unreasonableness of the command of the king made the crisis worse for the other advisors, but not for Daniel and his three friends.

As we think about Nebuchadnezzar’s demand we can see in Daniel’s response how we should react to situations in which we are being hemmed in by political powers. We live in a society where that possibility is becoming starker as the government attempts to enact more laws that are unbiblical. There are already several laws on our statute book that are against biblical teaching and we wonder what we should do about it. Daniel here gives us one response, the most important response, which is to pray.

Yet to only see Daniel’s situation as the hemming in of the political ruler would be a mistake. In addition, we should see that Daniel is in this situation because of God’s over-ruling providence. That providence had taken him from his homeland and had helped him when he arrived first in Babylon, so that he was now a junior government official. One of the dangers that we face when concluding that a situation has been brought about by providence is to become fatalistic and to assume that we should not respond. Fatalism is never a response of faith. In contrast, Daniel saw the crisis as a God-created opportunity for prayer.

Today we see financial and moral crises in the nation, but have we seen them as God-arranged circumstances about which we should pray? There are crises facing the evangelical church, but have they compelled us to pray earnestly to God? The Lord is pleased when we respond to his providence with suitable prayer attitudes. Like Daniel we should see all circumstances as providential opportunities for prayer, of them being arranged by God so that his people can pray for spiritual growth in the church.

On hearing about the demand of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel went to him and asked for time, which he was given. Immediately Daniel went to his three friends (Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah) and asked them to pray. It is interesting that here they are called by their Hebrew names, and each of these names had one of God’s names in it. The four young men were being asked to live up to their names and call upon their God.

How did Daniel know that he could depend on them to pray? I suppose the obvious answer is that he knew them so well. Together they had shared other spiritual exploits (as recorded in Daniel 1) and no doubt had prayed together many times. I should ask myself, ‘When a crisis comes in my life, who do I know that would definitely pray with and for me?’ It would be foolish to wait until the crisis comes before trying to find out.

In particular Daniel asked them to pray for mercy, a request that gives insight into his character. When a person prays for mercy it is an admission that any answer they receive from God is undeserved. It would have been easy for Daniel’s friends to say to God, ‘Lord, we have been faithful to you. Please deliver us!’ Instead they asked for mercy, a confession of their unworthiness.

This request for mercy is another biblical example that when we pray we should focus on the attributes of God that are best suited to our situation. Their appeal for mercy is a request for God to have pity on them. It is a petition that goes direct to the heart of God. They are asking him to be moved with compassion for them. Such a request only comes from those whose own hearts have become soft and tender. Surely we know that real prayer is the meeting of two hearts – the heart of a pitiful God and the heart of a pleading believer interceding for himself and others.

Daniel also gave them another motive for prayer and that was their lives depended on getting a favourable answer. If they did not discover the contents of the dream they would die. Of course, they would go to heaven if they died, but they would go without obtaining a spiritual victory in this case. Imagine a situation if they had not prayed. A person visits the cemetery in Babylon forty years later and sees their graves. He asks what happened to them and is told, ‘They seemed devoted to God initially, but on one occasion they did not pray seriously for a matter and they were put to death.’ It would be a tragedy. We have a similar motive, don’t we? Whatever our past achievements, the next stage in our progress depends on what we do now. It would be sad if in fifty years’ time people will look back at us and say, ‘They did not pray when the crises came and their church petered out after a few years. Sadly it now has gone.’

We are not told how long they prayed for before Daniel was given the answer by God. I suppose the obvious lesson is that we should keep on praying until we receive the answer. Daniel and his friends could not dare give up praying, because if they did they would die. They would say to us, ‘Keep on praying earnestly until the answer comes.’ Although we are not told when the answer came or how long they prayed about it, we are told what Daniel did once the prayer was answered. The first thing that he did was offer thanksgiving to God and his thanksgiving is recorded in verses 20-23.

Daniel’s Prayer of Thanksgiving

The first detail that comes out of this prayer is that everything God does deserves eternal praise. Daniel affirmed that this one answer to their short-term prayer should be remembered always. Of course, he has helped us to do so by recording the details for us. Yet it is a question worth asking, ‘For which of his activities does God delight in being known?’ One of them is that he is a prayer-answering God. It would be wonderful for us to enter God’s presence, fully aware of his endless existence, but able to say about it that he should be praised for ever for answering our prayers.

Daniel then highlights that he has a balanced understanding of God when he states that wisdom and might belong to him. We know that wisdom without power is pointless and power without wisdom is dangerous. Yet in God they work together in perfect harmony. Often when we pray, we discover the beauty of God.

The prayer of Daniel also reminds us that the Lord himself is the complete source of everything that his people need. On this occasion they needed divine wisdom and they needed divine power. No doubt we can see why they needed wisdom; after all, they had to find out the contents of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. But why was there a focus on divine power? I would suggest that Daniel and his friends were fully aware that they were engaged in warfare against demonic powers. It was not only the power of a tyrant that concerned them, but also the malevolent powers behind the scenes. Their only source of help was the almighty God.

Daniel’s prayer is also a reminder that God is the resource for everything a young person needs as he attempts to live for God in a hostile environment. We have to remember that here we have the prayer of a teenager who, with his young friends, is prepared to do great things for God. They had realised that one person with God on his side will win the battle, no matter who the enemies are.

In his prayer, Daniel acknowledges the consistent sovereignty of the Lord. In verse 21, he says that God reveals his wisdom and might through his control of historical eras. Of course, Daniel is basing this insight on what he has received from God regarding the details of the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had. Yet what a contrast between the universal control of the calm God and the restlessness of the agitated human emperor! We need today to have this insight of Daniel because if we don’t we will imitate the anxiety and impatience of Nebuchadnezzar.

Further, Daniel realises that the Lord knows everything. As Daniel says in verse 22, the Lord knows what is incomprehensible to humans. He knows what dreams we have had; he knows what kingdoms will arise; he knows when he will overthrow the earthly kingdoms and begin his kingdom. Prayer enabled Daniel to realise that the Lord’s perspective on an event is all-comprehensive and focussed. I suppose what he discovered here is that the Lord knew the links between Nebuchadnezzar and the coming of the kingdom of Jesus. We can forget so easily that the Lord’s priority is the kingdom of his Son, not our national or ecclesiastical concerns. Yet his priority does have implications for our concerns.

A final aspect of his prayer is that Daniel identified the Lord as the covenant God, the God of his fathers. He discovered through prayer that he could receive what the great leaders of his people had discovered when they prayed. The details of God’s actions in the past now became means of showing Daniel what the Lord could do for him. And we can do the same. He is the God of our fathers in the Bible, and he is the God of our spiritual fathers who did exploits for him in their days. Because he is God, there is no reason why we should receive less from him than they did. But we will have to pray to him as they did before we will experience the wisdom and power that they were given.

So Daniel went off to tell Nebuchadnezzar about his dream. On the way he showed that his time of prayer to the God of mercy had made him like God because he asked for mercy to be shown to the other wise men. They had done nothing to find out the contents of the dream; perhaps they were even addressing their non-existent pagan gods in a pointless search for help. Nevertheless, because he had been in the presence of the God of mercy, Daniel wanted mercy to be shown to the undeserving. And he did not merely think about it – he acted out his enlarged vision of God.

The Helmet of Salvation (Eph. 6:17)

2011-10-30T13:56:00.000Z

This sermon was preached on 30/10/2011

The next piece of armour that Paul mentions is the helmet, which he says depicts salvation. The Roman helmet was designed obviously to protect the head. It was made of bronze, covered his head, with a front piece coming down on the face to protect the eyes and nose. In using this illustration Paul is saying that salvation is the particular doctrine that will protect the believer’s mind and vision.

Paul has already mentioned the Christian use of the mind when he wrote that the Christian soldier has to gird up his loins with the belt of truth, which we noted had both an objective and a subjective application. Objectively it means the body of truth found in the Bible and subjectively it means a truthful or sincere character.

These features are necessary before we begin to put on the armour. Paul means that we have to know the Bible and have a holy character before we can fight a successful warfare. Of course, he does not mean that the only time a Christian uses the Bible is before he puts on the armour. The various pieces of armour that he has listed must all be understood from the Bible. Nor did he mean that holiness could be sacrificed in the battle. Righteousness, reconciliation, and the shield of faith have their practical outworkings. Nevertheless his use of this illustration of the soldier’s armour enables him to make particular application of these various doctrines.

The example of Christ

We noticed also in previous studies that Paul takes this image from Isaiah 59 which describes the victory of the Messiah when he will come to deliver his helpless people. In verse 17, the prophet affirms: ‘He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.’ This is a reminder that we fight our warfare with the same type of weapons that Jesus used. Remember that we are fighting the same spiritual enemy, the devil.

What can we say about the mind of Christ that we should follow as we fight? Paul in Philippians 2:5 exhorts believers: ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus’ (KJV). As we read further into that passage we find that the chief feature of the Saviour’s mind that Paul stresses is humility. He reminds his readers that Jesus displayed humility before he came into the world when he agreed to make himself of no reputation and take on the form of a servant. And he also displayed humility once he was in the world because he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He voluntarily made himself nothing. Applying this to his conflict with the devil, we should note that this outlook of humility is the opposite of the outlook of the devil, which is pride.

Another feature of Christ’s mind was his regular habits of personal devotions and attendance on public worship. These practices revealed two important features of a Christian soldier: dependence and discipline. We are apt to think that Jesus, because he is a divine person, did not need such human qualities. Yet we must recall that he is also a man, possessing a full human nature. The various graces that the Saviour possessed in his human nature were the product of the work of the Spirit in his heart. During his earthly sojourn, he engaged in spiritual conflict with Satan and each time the Saviour was enabled by the Holy Spirit to defeat the devil.

We can see his dependence and his discipline combining at his baptism. Jesus knew that he had been promised the Holy Spirit in an increased way in order to enable him to fulfil the task given him by the Father. There, at the Jordan, he comes to receive the Spirit, but he is also praying, and it is difficult to imagine that he was not praying for the Father to fulfil his promise. In connection to Jesus’ baptism, we can remind ourselves of the prophecy of Isaiah 42:1: ‘Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.’ There the Father points to his humble Servant and mentions two things about their relationship up to that point: first, he upholds the Servant (which indicates that he was dependent); second, he delights in the Servant (which indicates that they had fellowship together).

Jesus was not only marked by humility and habit as he fought his spiritual war; a third characteristic was his heroism. Throughout his life, he valiantly proceeded against the powerful enemy of our souls, the devil. From his baptism, Jesus marched into battle against Satan and defeated him comprehensively in the desert, in the most uncongenial of surroundings (Matt. 4). In his three years of public ministry, our heroic Warrior defeated the powers of darkness as he liberated people from demon possession and other forms of satanic bondage. On the cross, he engaged in fierce conflict with the powers of darkness and made a show of them openly. Although he died there, this was not a sign of defeat, but a further stage in his campaign because through death he destroyed him that had the power of death (Heb. 2:14) and emerged from the tomb as Conqueror of all.

And he displayed his heroic qualities when he overcame his apprehension of the cross in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he began to appreciate in a new and more intensive manner the awfulness of the conflict about to engulf him. The most powerful weapon that was against him was not the devil’s arrows but the Father’s sword. Zechariah’s ancient prophecy was about to be fulfilled: ‘“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,” declares the LORD of hosts. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones”’ (Zech. 13:7). Jesus proceeded on his way, knowing that he would be wounded very sore when he paid the penalty for the sins of his people by enduring the wrath of God against them.

So far, we have made some comments on the Saviour’s outlook as he journeyed through life. What about his vision, on what he saw as he fought his warfare? We noted earlier that the helmet was designed in such a way that the soldier could see clearly. What was conspicuous about Jesus’ vision? The writer to the Hebrews points out that Jesus was marked by hope as he looked ahead: ‘looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Heb. 12:2). The Saviour anticipated by faith his final victory. Although on the cross he entered a battlefield that no-one had been on before, he approached it confident that he would come through it triumphantly. He looked forward to his Father’s welcome, and he anticipated the great throng of the redeemed that would follow him there down the centuries.

The activity of the Christian soldier

So we see that Jesus, the heavenly Warrior, was noted for his humility, his practices, his valour and his expectancy. What about his people as they continue fighting in this world against spiritual enemies? Because they are sinners, they view salvation differently from the way that their Leader did. It is usual for salvation to be described as having past, present and future aspects. As we think of each Christian soldier protecting his mind in the midst of the battle, we see that he needs to look back (a good memory), to look up (a right attitude), and to look ahead (clear-sighted about the future).

Looking back

As he looks back, there are three levels of reminding himself about the salvation he has received. First, he can look back to the time when he came to know Jesus personally as his Saviour. His conversion may have been a dramatic one, about which he can name the exact time. Yet many believers cannot identify when they were converted, the change in their lives seemed to be a gradual one. What is important is that both types have been converted. Christian soldiers, in the midst of the conflict, have to remind themselves that they belong to the Lord because of their conversions.

Second, the Christian soldier can look back farther than his conversion, right back before the creation of the world to the thoughts of the triune God in the past eternity. As he looks back, in the midst of the battle, he encourages himself that God has eternally loved him, not because he would fight a good warfare without a wound, but because he loved him. The eternal God wanted him not only as a soldier but as a son in his family.

Third, as he fights the devil, the Christian soldier can recall many incidents in which he has been enabled by God to overcome the ruses and attacks of the devil. Often, the soldier was at his wit’s end, bombarded from all directions by Satan’s fierce attacks. Yet, in the midst of his weakness, as he looked to his Commander, strength came into his heart and mind and he won the victory.

These three aspects of the past should be at the forefront of our minds as the devil assaults us. Each should say, ‘I belong to Jesus by personal choice (conversion), by divine covenant (God’s eternal plan), and by ongoing deliverance. The next arrow from Satan, while it may wound me if I am not careful, will not destroy me.’

Looking up

The Christian soldier also experiences salvation in the present. If in the past he was delivered from the penalty of sin, in the present he is being delivered from the power of sin. He needs to be delivered from this power because it is an ally of the devil and will do its utmost to cause the Christian to fall. Therefore the Christian soldier must weaken this indwelling power.

Strong though this power is, it is not stronger than the resources the Christian soldier has at his disposal. Each believer possesses the power of the indwelling Spirit, who, as the apostle John says in 1 John 4:4, is ‘greater than he who is in the world’. The Spirit enables the believer to both put to death heart sins and replace them with holy characteristics. This activity of the Spirit in each believer’s life is a constant one, although it is the case that believers can grieve the Spirit by their sins and they will not know his power overcoming such sins until they repent of them. This does not mean that a believer can ever be in a state, in this life, of not having to repent of personal sins. But there is a big difference between a believer fighting against inward sin, such as wrong thoughts, and a believer ignoring them. Repentance for such sins is accompanied by spiritual power to overcome the sins.

When under attack, the Christian soldier should cry to God for divine aid by the Spirit. At the same time he should remind himself of the power of the Spirit, perhaps recalling the way he worked in the lives of biblical characters, even in those, such as David, who were overcome by a sin. Further, he can see the way he is working in the lives of his fellow-soldiers, which can be a useful means of encouragement.

It is crucial for the Christian soldier that this second aspect of salvation be maintained in a lively spiritual manner. Peter shows its importance in 2 Peter 1:1-11 where he urges his readers to continue adding Christian graces to their characters. He stresses that if a Christian fails to do this, he will develop a bad memory and also become short-sighted: ‘For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins’ (v.9). Failure to look up results in inability to look back or to look far ahead.

Looking ahead

If the first aspect of salvation is deliverance from the penalty of sin and the second aspect is deliverance from the power of sin, then the third aspect, which is the future one, is deliverance from the presence of sin. Paul refers to this aspect when he elsewhere mentions the helmet of salvation: ‘But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation’ (1 Thess. 5:8).

The hope mentioned there by Paul does not mean an uncertain wish. In biblical usage, the word means confident expectancy. As he is under attack, the Christian soldier reminds himself of the many promises of full salvation that will be fulfilled at the second coming of Jesus. He reminds himself that although he is under attack, this does not mean he is on the losing side. Even if he is wounded in the warfare, it will not be a fatal blow. Rather he can say to the devil, ‘Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me’ (Mic. 7:8). He has the promise of Romans 16:20: ‘The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.’

There are many promises of this future deliverance. Here are some of them. James 1:12 (KJV): Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.’

2 Timothy 4:8: ‘Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.’

Philippians 3:20-21: ‘But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.’

1 Corinthians 15:54-55: ‘When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” ’

What a victory parade there is going to yet be in heaven as the soldiers of Christ will march towards their General’s throne to receive from him the grand assessment, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.’ Let us keep our eye on this future glorious occasion as we see the fiery arrows of the evil one coming towards us in the present.