THE GOSPEL OF GOD
HEARING GOD’S VOICE
(Deuteronomy 18:15-22)
SUBJECT: Prophecy
F.C.F: Why doesn’t God speak to us today?
PROPOSITION: Since God has spoken through his prophets, we must listen to them.
INTRODUCTION:
A. Would you like to hear from God? Would you like almighty God to sit down with you and carefully explain who he is, why he made you, what has gone wrong with the world, and how he is repairing the damage? This is, it would seem to me, our greatest and most pressing need. There’s a story of a dog in a kennel crate at a railway station. Day after day, an employee would feed him and give him fresh water. One day another worker asked, “What’s up with the dog in the crate?” “Oh, that’s a tragedy,” he was told. “That dog chewed his tag off the crate. Now nobody knows who he is, where he came from, or where he’s going.”
B. An even greater tragedy is that the vast majority of the people God has made are in the same situation. Because they do not hear from God, they do not know who they are, where they came from, or where they are going. What a sad picture of a whole life lived in ignorance, futility, uselessness, and irrelevance. So, would you like to hear from God?
I. GOD ONLY SPEAKS TO US INDIRECTLY.
A. We should not really expect to hear from God directly. We should not expect a still, small voice, a dream or vision, or a booming voice from heaven. The reason we know this is because God has already told us how he would speak to us. God will speak to us in our own language using a human voice. God will speak to us through the voice of a prophet.
B. This was the pattern God established early on in the history of his people Israel. After he rescued them from slavery and extermination in Egypt, he brought them to Mt. Sinai where he appeared to them. But his presence was so terrifying that they could not endure his voice. So they begged Moses to go alone and speak with God, and then to come back down the mountain and repeat what God had said. They could endure Moses’ voice, they thought.
In Deuteronomy 18, Moses explains that he is going to die, but that God will replace him with another prophet. God would continue to speak through a succession of prophets. Here’s what God said.
15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” So that became the pattern, and that pattern continued all the way up through the New Testament as well.
C. Isn’t this helpful? We need not fear that God is going to scare us to death by striking us down with a thunderous voice that splinters trees and shatters mountains. God will speak to us in ordinary words through ordinary men he calls to be his prophets. He will put his words into the prophets’ mouths, and they will tell us what God has said.
So, if you would like to hear from God, then you must listen carefully to what he says through his prophets.
II. GOD’S VOICE CREATES AN OBLIGATION.
A. Now I must caution you, because when God speaks it creates an obligation. God’s voice through his prophets is not just another voice in the marketplace of ideas or opinions. It is God’s voice. It is the Word of your Maker, the one who created you for himself and has not released you or turned you loose as a free agent. So in truth, the obligation to God has never been removed. God’s voice, his word through the prophets, only helps us to understand this obligation: who God is, why he made us, and what he requires of us.
B. Can you think of anything more pressing or urgent or imperative than to listen carefully to what God says to us? We have a saying in our country, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” If for some reason you do not know the speed limit, you can still be ticketed for speeding, and your ignorance of the law will be no defense. If you drive, you are obligated to know the traffic laws and to obey them at all times. How much more critical it is to know what God says!
God says, “18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.” What would happen if the prophets do not declare what God says? No matter, God still requires it of his people. The obligation remains. The unfaithful prophet will be called to account, but the unheeding people will still perish. Ignorance of God’s law is no excuse. So, again, how pressing, how urgent it is that we listen carefully to what God says!
C. This is true even though what God says to us may be painful. And the truth is that God’s speech to us will indeed be painful at times. We are broken, rebellious sinners. And even more, we already have an inner voice that constantly leads us astray. This inner voice tells us to love self above all, to worship and serve self. Well, that’s bound to create some conflict, because God’s voice will tell us to deny self, to crucify self, and to put him first in all things. “You shall have no other gods before me” is God’s very first commandment. Rather than self-love, God calls us to love him first, and after that to love neighbor as you love yourself. That goes against the grain; that is a frontal assault on fallen human nature, and that contradicts everything our inner voice is telling us.
D. It is because of this stubborn waywardness, this sinful rebellion resident in every human heart, that the prophets, God’s spokesmen, often assumed the role of God’s prosecutors. Often the message of the prophets was a hard message, intensely unpopular, and the prophets themselves were frequently mistreated as a result. “Don’t shoot the messenger,” was a statement probably coined by God’s prophets, his messengers who were required to faithfully deliver unpopular messages.
But think about it: it is only truth that can help us. Only a doctor’s true diagnosis, no matter how dreadful or unwelcome, can possibly help us. Only when we come to grips with the real need can we begin to move toward a real solution. The bottom line is that we must trust that God has our best interest in mind when he delivers these painful messages to us through his prophets.
Here is really the root of the matter. The first temptation was to doubt God’s Word. “Did God really say…?” But the germ of this doubt was to distrust God’s character. ‘4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”’ “God doesn’t have your best interest in mind. God is holding out on you. God is keeping you from living up to your potential. God is jealous and does not want you to surpass him.”
That’s the voice of doubt that has been planted deeply into our hearts as a result of our first parents’ sin and rebellion. That’s the seed of unbelief that makes us impatient with God’s Word, reluctant to fully believe the message, and resistant to obeying him completely. That is the voice in your heart right now that is saying, “Be careful, don’t believe everything you hear. Don’t surrender control of your life to this Bible religion. You will lose your independence and your happiness as well.”
But God has spoken, and we are obligated to heed his voice: “19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.” What possibly could be more important than listening carefully to God’s voice?
III. GOD HAS AUTHORIZED HIS SPOKESMEN.
A. The question that remains then is “Who speaks for God?” How can we recognize God’s voice when we hear it? God has already anticipated this question and answered it in our text.
“20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’
We see immediately how seriously God takes the accurate delivery of his message. Sometimes I hear well-meaning people say, “God told me (this or that).” I’ll be honest with you, that kind of language always makes me uncomfortable. If you said that in the Old Testament and you were mistaken, well, let’s just say that there is a big pile of stones, and they have your name on it. All across the countryside there were these mounds of stones, and underneath them were people who mistakenly said, “God told me (this or that).” If you have gotten into the habit of saying, “God told me (this or that),” let me urgently plead with you to stop saying that. Instead you could say, “I have an idea. Here it is. Let’s talk about it.”
B. But how can we know when God really has spoken through his prophets? “21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.”
God has spoken through his prophets, and the words of those prophets have been recorded for us in the Scriptures which we call, interestingly enough, the Word of God. The messages of these prophets were not all predictive prophecy, but these prophets were given sufficient signs to authenticate them. And some of their more long-range prophecies, prophecies regarding the coming of Christ, for example, have faithfully come to pass. So we can trust them.
C. Preeminently, it is Jesus who is the great Prophet of God. In fact, Deuteronomy seems to speak of “prophets” but also of “the Prophet.” It begins with God’s promise “raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers.” So this prophet would be a man of Israel and would be a great prophet like Moses. But the text also points to a succession of lesser prophets who would speak for God and whose word should be tested.
Jesus came as that Great Prophet. On the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, Peter declared “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know….” (Acts 2:22) God gave his stamp of approval on Jesus, who was not only God’s great Prophet, but also God’s true High Priest who offered himself as an atoning sacrifice on the cross, to pay for the sins of his people so that we could be forgiven and reconciled to God through him.
The words of the great prophet have been recorded by his official spokesmen in the Gospels. And Christ’s apostles were also attested by many signs. They served as prophets as well speaking for God, and their word is recorded in the New Testament.
CONCLUSION
And the point is that if you and I want to hear from God, we can do so any time, and we must do so all the time. God’s words through his prophets have been enscriptured, recorded in God’s book.
In the coming weeks, we are going to consider the message of God’s prophets, his prosecutors. We call them “the minor prophets,” Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggi, Zechariah, and Malachi.
These last twelve books of the Old Testament originally circulated as one book. Altogether these twelve books contain 67 chapters, which would make their unified book the second longest book in the Bible, second only to the psalms.
Their message is one of comfort for God’s people, but also rebuke and warning for the wayward. They are God’s prosecutors, but also those who announce good news of a coming hope. In many ways they reveal the coming of Christ.
So I’m anxious to dig in with you and listen carefully to God’s voice. His voice through the Minor Prophets we probably not split the trees or shatter the mountains. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, these messages will hopefully wake the dead, restore the straying, comfort the weary faithful, and show us our Savior.
Prosecutors of the wayward, comforters of the faithful, issuing God’s pleadings, warnings, promises, and incentives.
15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
God’s prosecutors.
Something has gone wrong. Most often, drifting away, in danger of crashing on the rocky crags and suffering shipwreck.
Commands to Israel do not apply directly to America or any other nation, but most directly to the church.
Supersessionism
New Testament Epistles as prophecy like this.
Hosea 14
Joel 3
Amos 9
Obadiah 1
Jonah 4
Micah 7
Nahum 3
Habakkuk 3
Zephaniah 3
Haggai 2
Zechariah 14
Malachi 4
67
If taken as one book it is almost the longest in the Bible, second only to the Psalms 150.
Arrangement in the Canon.
God prosecuting you—for your benefit. Parents will understand this. We made the mistakes and deeply desire to prevent our children from the same. So we warn, discipline, threaten, and reward.
A. Judging from the income garnered by spiritualists, psychics, fortune tellers and palm readers, it is apparent that Americans want to know the future. Unfortunately this desire will have to go unfulfilled. Those clairvoyants to whom people turn are more often wrong than they are right. For example, in 1975 The People’s Almanac did a study of 25 of the best psychics. Their success rate? Out of 72 predictions, 66 or 92% were completely wrong and the other 8 could easily be explained away.
Jeanne Dixon was probably the best-known of the psychics whose predictions were routinely published in the National Enquirer about this time each year. She was most famous for supposedly prophesying the assassination of President John F. Kennedy while he was in office. What she actually predicted, however, was a bit less specific. On May 13, 1956 her famous “prophecy was described in these terms: “As for the 1960 election Mrs. Dixon thinks it will be dominated by labor and won by a Democrat. But he will be assassinated or die in office ‘though not necessarily in his first term.’” But what is often overlooked is that four years later, in 1960, she forecast that Kennedy would not win the coming election. She is credited with supposedly predicting his assassination, when, in fact, she also “predicted” that he would never be president. And even more telling, in 1996 she prepared her predictions for the coming year: who she thought would marry and divorce, who would become famous and who would die. But she missed one. On January 25, 1997, Jeanne Dixon died of a heart attack. Why did she not publish the prediction of her own death? Because she did not know it.
A. Horses run on hay. Sailboats run on wind. Cars run on gas. But people run on passion. People are motivated and empowered by zeal, fervor, and ardor. Often this passion can be a sinful passion. Many people are energized by greed or lust or revenge or pride or anger. Often this kind of sinful passion only feeds itself so that greed begets more greed or anger only fuels more anger, until these passions so govern a life that the person is no longer in control, but has become enslaved to his passions. Like an addict in search of the next fix, the slave of sinful passions is ruled by the desire for more and more of that sinful passion.
But the truth is that God has created us to run on joy. G.K. Chesterton called joy “the gigantic secret of the Christian.” We were designed to be moved and empowered by the brightly-burning fires of gladness. As we And at the very center of the Christian faith is a message of incomparable and unquenchable joy—the Gospel, the good news. It is news that is so great and so hopeful and so captivatingly delightful that it changes your whole life and invigorates you all your days. This good news carries the believer through every trial, strengthens him through every hardship, cheers him in every sorrow, and steels him against every fear and foe. These glad tidings are literally better than life itself, and many have given up their lives without hesitation to hold fast to this hope.
B. As we examine the church in our generation and lay it alongside the perfect pattern in the Word of God, we have to keep asking if the church today is a gospel church. And by this I mean to question whether or not this astonishing message of joy is still front and center, still proclaimed clearly and without compromise, still celebrated as the centerpiece of worship, and still the dynamic force of the church’s work and witness. If it is not, then the church in our generation has not only lost her unique voice, but has lost her heart as well, and her unique calling by God. If this bell of freedom in Christ is not rung clearly, if the trumpet sounds an uncertain note, then the Christian faith cannot help but to devolve into something else, some form of mere human religion.
Our Lord Jesus himself shows us how crucial this is in our text for this morning, a familiar parable of the kingdom from Matthew 18.
I. THE PARABLE OF THE KINGDOM.
A. This is a parable of the kingdom. The kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven refers to God’s re-asserting his reign over people’s lives. In the beginning our first parents gladly submitted to God as their king and enjoyed his rule and care. But when they sinned and rebelled against him, we all became outcasts, fugitives who forfeited his blessing. God calls us in Christ to return to him, to be forgiven and to come once again under his care and blessing. This parable shows us just how enormous this all is.
B. It begins with the debt. 23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. If we do not park at this spot for just a bit, we might miss entirely the greatness of what he is saying. A “talent” was a certain amount of money. How much? A lot. By comparison, it would take a day laborer twenty years to earn a single talent. So 10,000 talents would represent 200,000 years of wages for a day laborer, an astronomical sum equivalent to billions of dollars today. We should probably understand this servant of the king to be an official in his administration, governing some large portion of his empire. His debt would either represent astonishing mismanagement or perhaps embezzlement. And the point is that this was no mere accident, but a serious, deliberate affront to the king for which the servant was personally responsible.
At any rate, he could not pay. “25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.” Their sale into slavery would not repay even a splinter of a fraction of this debt. It was virtually unpayable. The man would be reduced to lifelong, irredeemable slavery and misery.
Now this is where we must make immediate and personal application. This impossible debt is your debt to God. God is the great king, and you and I owed him our perfect obedience, our complete loyalty, and our unfailing love. But the fact is that we have willfully, flagrantly, and repeatedly defied him. We have loved what he hates, and we hate what he loves. With a high hand, we have done what he forbids, and have left undone what he commands. We have, through our deliberate affront to his majesty, incurred a spiritual debt that we could never repay, yet a debt that for which his justice demands satisfaction in the unending torment of hell.
If you do not understand this, or grasp its seriousness, or believe it to be true, or if you still protest that you’re not really all that bad, then nothing good can come from it, and quite frankly, Jesus Christ has nothing for you. He did not come to save the righteous, but sinners. And only those who admit this dark and dreadful truth about themselves, and hate it and grieve it can possibly apprehend the wonder of what comes next.
C. Because the king just forgave the debt. He forgave the mismanagement, the embezzlement, the blundering stupidity, and arrogant offensiveness of this wretched so-called servant. He had the life of this miserable creature in his hand, and he let him go. “26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.”
He got for more than he could have imagined. He only asked for more time to repay the debt (as though that would help). He could never repay it in a thousand lifetimes. But the king went far beyond the request and simply forgave the billions he owed him.
What Jesus did not tell us in this parable, but would show us at the cross, was that the king could afford to forgive this debt because someone else paid it. The king’s own son traded his life so that this criminal could go free. This is what is so good about the good news. This is the message that has turned the world upside down. The kings Son has paid our way. We foolishly turned from our Maker and landed in slavery to sin and misery. We deserved death and hell for our folly and error and willful rebellion. If anyone on earth deserved death and hell, it was us!
But wait, the dreadful sentence was already served…by Another! Can it be? An unpayable debt has been fully paid for us by the Son of God? Death has been overtaken by life? Guilt has been assuaged by mercy? Justice has been satisfied by a substitute?
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! It is true! Beyond all hope it is true! You were standing on the brink of the lake of fire. It was your turn to be cast into everlasting torment, and the Son of God stepped in and said, “Not this one. I’ll pay for him.” And you were set free. And you turned and saw the Father’s love. You heard his voice, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.” Me? This can’t be for me? But it is true. It is all true.
II. THE PASSION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
This is the goodness of the good news. This is the gigantic secret of the Christian. This is the wellspring of Christian zeal that never will run dry. This is the dynamism of Christian joy. What we find is that this Christian joy is multifaceted. The Good News has a variegated effect.
A. For example, the Gospel brings the joy of relief. It is that sense of liberation that comes from a permanent reprieve. The danger has passed, but it will never return. The greatest fear has been overturned, so no other fear can ever overwhelm us. No other fear even moves us.
B. The Gospel also brings the joy of gratitude. This permanent reprieve wasn’t a stroke of luck. It wasn’t due to our cleverness or earnestness or even desiring. When we had given up hope as we should have, God came to our aid. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. So the joy of the Gospel is all the purer because there is no taint of self-congratulation. It was entirely at the initiation and the expense of another.
C. And so the Gospel brings the joy of wonder. This joy is sweetened all the more by the unfathomable mystery of another costly kindness to us. It is transfixed on the wonder of another’s inexplicable love for us. Why would he loves us so? Why would he suffer when it was my sin? Why would he pay my debt for me? Why would he help me, when I hated him? It is a warm joy because it engenders love in return and so is mingled with love in response. “We love because he first loved us.”
D. And the Gospel brings the joy of expectancy. If he has loved me so at the cross, what can I hope for from him when he comes again? If he has given himself for me in the past, what great future has he prepared for me? Or, as Paul declares it, “31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32)
III. THE PRACTICE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
Of course this great news will have a powerful, positive effect upon all who believe it and appropriate its benefits. In fact, this is the shock of the parable Jesus told. The king forgave his servant for his incredible mismanagement resulting in the loss of billions. Yet the servant, rather than being transformed by this gift of grace, refused to forgive the infinitesimal debt of a fellow servant. “28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
The point, of course, is that this astonishing, incomparable grace of God to sinners like us will certainly have a positive, transforming effect. If not, then something
A. This grace of God will transform our worship.
B. This grace of God will transform our witness.
C. This grace of God will transform our discipleship.
D. This grace of God will transform our relationships with others. No one could possibly owe us a debt coming close to the debt we owed God.
“We love because he first loved us.”
Grace-centered Christian life, lived in joyful response of relief, gratitude, wonder, and expectancy.
The debt, the danger, the deliverance.
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
OUTREACH WITH PASSION,
NOT COMPULSION
Because we believe our own message, Christians are passionate about reaching out to unbelievers, spreading this good news, and calling others into this joyful, redeeming, transforming relationship with Christ. The bad news of sin is worse than we think, which means that the good news of pardon and peace in Christ is better than we can imagine.
So, with God’s help, we will always be a “gospel” church. I believe that guilt is a poor motivator. But our aim is to be alarmed at sin and overjoyed in the Gospel. In this passionate gratitude we worship and serve and reach out to others, never denying our guilt, but always celebrating the triumph of our Risen King who loves us to the end!
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
A. What if we took these words quite literally, at face value: Jesus came to save his people FROM THEIR SINS? In the first sense, in the legal sense, Jesus came to save us from the PENALTY of our sins. But even more to the point, Jesus came to save us from the sins themselves. There is something about the sins themselves that we need to be saved from, and not simply the consequences of our sins.
B. This is seldom understood. My guess is that most people really consider sin to be pleasant and enjoyable, even quite desirable. Oh, we know that sin will get us into trouble, but we long to get away with just as much as we can, without getting into too much trouble. I have heard people ask, “How much sin can I commit and still go to heaven?” They were considering sin to be something quite good, and were hoping to have “the best of both worlds”, as it were. They were echoing the sentiment of St. Augustine before he came to faith in Christ, when he prayed, “O Lord, save me from all my sins, but not yet.” It takes a greater wisdom, a God-given wisdom, to see that sin itself is undesirable, and not simply the consequences. In a legal sense, sin leads to condemnation. But in a spiritual sense, sin leads to corruption. In fact, sin is corruption.
To put it in medical terms, sin does not simply lead to disease, sin is the disease itself. Suppose someone has the dreadful disease of cancer, and it is eating away that their body, killing them. And imagine the patient going to the doctor and saying, “Please cure me of this cancer. Now don’t get me wrong, I like the agony, the pain, the contorting disfigurement and crippling disability caused by the disease. I just don’t want to die. So could you keep me alive, but somehow allow the cancer to continue destroying my body?” Why, the thought is ridiculous.
C. Jesus came to save us not only from sin’s condemnation, but from sin’s corruption. You see, ageing, the gradual decline and corruption of the body, is a picture of what’s taking place in our souls within. We are out own walking object lessons of what’s happening to our souls within. As our bodies waste away, continuing on the steady decline toward death and disintegration, so our souls are heading the same way. And that’s why it’s so hopeful when the Apostle Paul writes that outwardly we are wasting away, but inwardly we are being renewed day by day. Christ came to save us from our sins themselves, from their corruption.
OBEDIENCE IN FAITHFULNESS, NOT OPTIONAL SANCTIFICATION
Jesus calls the church to make disciples of all nations by teaching the baptized to obey all that he has commanded. Obedience to the Word of God is to the heart of true discipleship. The word translated “disciple” literally means “student.” But in the world of the New Testament, the disciple or student would literally follow the teacher and learn to imitate his thinking, words, and actions. The thought of optional obedience is unknown and unthinkable to the New Testament faith.
One of the detriments to living in an entertainment culture is that we are bombarded with de-contextualized information about which we are expected to do nothing. This creates what some have called a “Low-Information-to-Action-Ratio” (remarkably the acronym for this syndrome is L.I.A.R.!). We get used to doing nothing about the information that is presented to us. But God’s Word calls for a perfect information-to-action-ratio. “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:22) Some churches have even made obedience optional: “You can ask Jesus to be your Savior now,” they will declare, “and later, if you want to, you can make Jesus your Lord.” This teaching is utterly foreign to the New Testament and destructive to the Christian faith. Jesus has called his church to “teach them to obey,” and this, I pledge, we will to do.
A. The church is always only one generation from extinction. We believe in God’s providence that the church’s light may grow dim on the earth, but will never be extinguished. As the Westminster Confession states: “The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth to worship God according to His will.” (XXV.5)
B. But practically speaking, if one generation fails to transmit the faith to the next, then as that failed generation dies away, the church is gone. And the truth is that Europe has largely seen this specter become a reality. On average, less than 10% of Western Europeans attend church even once a month. What is striking is that I have witnessed the numbers of Americans in church likewise plummet in my brief lifetime. Three decades ago, four out of ten Americans were in church on any given Sunday, 40%. That has dropped to less than 20%. Best estimates place about 15% of Americans as a meaningful part of Christian churches.
What’s going on? Part of it is that the statistical figures of Christians in America never were that significant. Certainly many Americans have been influenced by Christianity, but the number of committed followers of Jesus Christ has never been all that high. But another dynamic has arisen over the past few generations which has had a diminishing effect on vital Christianity in our land.
C. It had to do with the manner in which the faith was transferred to the next generation. In the relay race of the Christian church, somebody apparently dropped the baton. God has had a plan to meet this need in existence for thousands of years. It is called the family. From the very beginning, God has called the family to do the heavy lifting when it comes to teaching the faith to the next generation. But in recent generations, this God-given responsibility has been increasingly given over to the church, a practice which is clearly unbiblical and which has had disastrous consequences.
I. GOD’S PATTERN FOR A STRONG CHURCH.
A. Come with me as we trace God’s plan for creating a strong church. In what we call the “Great Commission,” our Lord Jesus Christ left these instructions for church advancement: “18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
His command is for the church to make disciples, literally students, of all nations by baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that he commanded. You cannot miss the emphasis on Christian nurture, that is teaching the disciples or students the treasures of Christ’s doctrine, along with the call to obey him. And who is to accomplish the teaching? The leadership of the church, those with the spiritual gifts of teaching, especially the elders of the church.
B. And this is, in fact, what the church began to do a short time later as the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church on the Day of Pentecost, recorded in Acts 2. As Peter preached the good news to the gathered crowd, the Holy Spirit gave the gift of repentance unto life, and over 3,000 were added to the church in one day. So what did they immediately begin to do? The Apostles began to teach “them to observe everything” Jesus had commanded them, just as he had called them to do. Acts 2:42 tells us: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” So they heard the truth and began to practice the faith. They immediately commenced the work of making disciples of all nations by baptizing those who believed and teaching them the faith.
That was the first generation in the church. But what about the next generation? Did they simply wait for the children to grow up as untaught pagans, and then try to evangelize them? Did they instruct their parents to turn them over to the church for Sunday School, for children’s church and youth group? Not exactly.
C. Here’s what the Apostle Paul writes to Christian parents regarding the spiritual nurture and training of their children in the faith: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4) Fathers. The spiritual teacher in the home, the one who is charged with bringing up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, is the father of the household. What about the youth pastor? What youth pastor?
You mean the father was to shoulder the responsibility on his own? Mostly, yes. They parents did, of course, bring their children to worship where they heard the Word of God explained and preached to them. But the father was his children’s primary pastor and teacher.
D. Where did the Apostles get this notion? The fact is that this was God’s plan all along. Go way back to the beginnings of Israel. The book of Deuteronomy was God’s instruction for covenant life in the Promised Land. The plan was for countless generations to be raised up and to grow mighty in that good land. But how was the faith to be transmitted to each new generation? It was to be accomplished by the parents. True, each community was to have Levites or pastors who would instruct the people and lead them in worship. But it was primarily the parents who were to learn from them and then translate and transmit the truth to their children.
After God repeated the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5, we read this in the next chapter: “1 Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.” Notice the clear emphasis on the succeeding generations learning to fear the Lord by learning his commandments. But how were they to be taught? “6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children….” How, by hosting Sunday Schools and children’s church and youth groups? No, “…and [you] shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
II. SPIRITUAL CHILD NEGLECT.
A. So when the Apostles charged the fathers, not the church, with the responsibility for the spiritual training of their children, they did not pluck this idea from the air. This was God’s plan from the beginning. Can parents abdicate this plan and simply turn their children over to children’s church and youth pastors? Apparently not. There is certainly no New Testament warrant for doing so. And the results of doing so as we have been doing for the past few generations, are now becoming clear. The faith is not being transmitted. There is now whole scale abandonment of the church by the succeeding generations. The church, first in Western Europe and now in North America, is in freefall.
B. In his message titled, “Feminism, Youth Culture, and the History of the Sunday School Movement,” Pastor Doug Phillips, director of Vision Forum Ministries, explains the historic foundations of what he calls some of our most popular extra-biblical, family-fragmenting, modern church traditions. He also exposes the theological presuppositions behind practices widely embraced by the modern church. He notes that there have been two competing models of education in the church: the relationship-based vision of Hebrew, covenantal discipleship, and the efficiency model stemming from the Greek emphasis on youth and the Platonic ideal of separating children from their parents.
He draws a distinction between the early, American Puritan vision for family-integrated Sunday training and the Sunday school as a family-fragmenting and evolutionary theory-influenced late nineteenth century proto-feminist movement. The Sunday School Movement, he says, was a well-intentioned “Social Gospel” outreach to children without Christian parents. But in its present form it has become an unfortunate substitute for father-directed discipleship of the children of Christian parents.
Scholar Otto Scott traces the evolution of this secular humanistic separation of ages in the church as the church copied the culture. “Elementary school children were segregated from secondary schools along the lines of [humanistic] ‘observations.’ Twelve was the age of the break. The new fashion spread even into religion, and the clergy began to aim different lessons at special age groups: the Bible was too much for the young...There are many variations of this development — from youth gangs to the forced retirement. In fact, we have almost achieved a society nearly completely segregated by age in which the generations have been narrowed from the traditional thirty years to far fewer. Age now separates us more than ever before in any society; persons raised only a few decades apart find one another nearly incomprehensible.”
C. Not only are the generations more and more fragmented by this process, the faith which was to be transmitted from one generation to the next through the Christian home has, in fact, largely been lost. And, due to younger people having less and less contact with responsible, adult role models in the church, a kind of immaturity and irresponsibility has been unwittingly reinforced by the church. Instead of interacting with adults (or their parents, for that matter) on weighty matters of spiritual substance the average, churched, young person today will more likely be found at the youth-group-sponsored Jello Fight Night (I did not make this up).
III. RESTORING GOD’S PATTERN.
A. So what do we do? Do we insist the church quit holding Sunday School or Catechism classes? Not at all. Rather, we reassert the parents’ primary role in the spiritual nurture and training of their children. And we continue to stress the church’s teaching ministry—to adults, to parents and grandparents, so that they will be fully equipped for to fulfill God’s calling to teach and train their children in the faith. If anything, adult education in the church is far more crucial than children’s education.
B. What has gone wrong? Why have parents so quickly and cheerfully abandoned their responsibility to their children? Perhaps we should look again at that foundational text from Deuteronomy 6: “6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children….” Did you spot the problem? To the parents, God says, “these words…shall be on your heart.” But what if they aren’t on the parents’ hearts? What if the parents are unconcerned about spiritual concerns? It takes an adult to make an adult. It takes disciples to make disciples. If the parents aren’t following Christ, why would we expect any success in training their children to do so? No matter how much such hypocritical parents take their children to church or make them go to Sunday School or youth group, all the while such parents are loudly announcing: “This is not real. We are just pretending for appearances sake. You don’t really have to take this to heart because we certainly don’t. We too wish we didn’t have to be Christians.”
C. So it begins with the parents. It takes a disciple to make a disciple.
1. It begins with adult education in the church. The new believers in Jerusalem gathered daily for the apostles’ teaching and to practice the faith, daily. It begins with adult education in the church. If anything, adult Sunday school is far more important than children’s Sunday school or youth group. Dads and Moms must master the faith and have it in their hearts so they can teach and model it for their children.
2. It continues with limited, intentional training of young people in Bible Study and Catechism. As an assistant to the parents, the wise church will use the gifts and skills of mature Christians who are able to teach the faith, Bible study and Bible doctrine. So, yes, these children and youth classes do have a place, as a supplement what Dad and Mom are doing in the home.
3. Intergenerational studies like we have in the summers are a great step in the right direction.
4. Small groups in the church which include whole families.
A combination. Yes, allow gifted adults in the church to teach and train children in the Bible. We have a great curriculum in the Great Commission educational materials. A step in the right direction is what we do in the summers, our intergenerational studies which keep the generations together and invite adults and young people to study and apply the Scriptures together.
And formal catech
Episcopal Church researcher, Kirk Hadaway, and Penny Marler of Samford University concludes the actual number is much less than that. They did a "count-based" estimate of church attendance -- in other words, actual attendance figures -- and concluded that only about 20 percent of Americans go to a church on Sunday.
NURTURE THROUGH FAMILIES, NOT PROGRAMS
Jesus Christ calls his church to make disciples of all nations by teaching the baptized (Matthew 28:19-20). So the teaching ministry of the church is essential, not optional. To this end, I pledge that our church will be a “teaching church,” that we will devote the majority of our time and energy to explaining and applying God’s Word, the holy and inerrant Scriptures, the whole counsel of God. Mission first requires a message, so teaching must come before action. I am convinced that the gospel alone is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Romans 1:16-17), so teaching and proclaiming God’s Word is our main mission.
At the same time, I believe that God has called parents, primarily fathers, to teach and train their sons and daughters in the faith, in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4) Sadly, many parents in North American churches today have abdicated this role, turning their children over to the church. And many churches have foolishly assumed the role of surrogate, spiritual parents. The church should not raise your children in the Lord for you. God entrusted them to you, not to the church. So our church will not provide amusing programs for your children nor turn them over to youth pastors to perpetuate their spiritual immaturity. I believe that Dad is to be his children’s “youth pastor,” and that if Dad is absent, then some other mature fathers or men in the congregation should fill in. I believe parents are to raise their children in the Lord, and our church will train and equip parents to that end.
How Many Americans Attend Church Each Week?
How many Americans go to church regularly?
If you listen to the answers provided by major opinion research firms, the answer usually hovers around 40%. (National Opinion Research Center: 38%; Institute for Social Research’s World Values: 44%; Barna: 41%; National Election Studies: 40%; Gallup: 41%.)
But in recent years this consensus has been challenged. It seems that it’s more accurate to say that 40% of Americans claim to attend church regularly.
In 1998, sociologist Stanley Presser at the University of Michigan—whose “research focuses on questionnaire design and testing, the accuracy of survey responses, and ethical issues stemming from the use of human subjects”—co-authored a study entitled: Data Collection Mode and Social Desirability Bias in Self-Reported Religious Attendance, American Sociological Review, v. 63 (1998): 137-145 (with L. Stinson). Comparing diaries with actual attendance, they made the estimate that the actual percentage of Americans attending church from the mid-1960’s to the 90’s was about 26%.
One of the problem comes in how the question is asked in a poll. Different questions yield different results. For example, in a survey you might ask, “What did you do last weekend?” listing for the person a number of possible activities, including church-going. This will yield a very different response than if you asked, “Did you attend church last Sunday?”
One factor is that people often answer according to what they think someone like them wants or ought to do. So people tend to overreport on the number of sexual partners they’ve had and how much money they give to charity, and tend to underreport on illegal drug use and the like. Hence, church attendance is often inflated.
In 1998 C. Kirk Hadaway and P.L. Marler published an article in the Christian Century entitled, Did You Really Go To Church This Week? Behind the Poll Data where they examine many of these factors. The authors focused on individual counties in the US and Canada, surveying actual church/synagogue attendance and comparing it with random surveys they were conducting. They found that actual church attendance was about half the rate indicated by national public opinion polls. Their estimate for US actual church attendance is around 20%.
Dave Olson, director of church planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church, surveying only Christian churches (i.e., evangelical, mainline, and Catholic) has come up with a similar number. The percentage of Americans regularly attending church is 18.7%.
Olson has collected his findings in an eye-opening slide-show entitled Twelve Surprising Facts about the US Church. The 12 points cannot be copied and pasted, so I’ve reprinted them below, along with links to his charts and maps.
1. The percentage of people that attend a Christian church each weekend is far below what pollsters report. (US percentage of population in worship on any given weekend in 2000)
2. The percentage of people attending a Christian church each weekend decreased significantly from 1990-2000. (US worship attendance in 1990 and 2000 by percentage of population)
3. Christian church attendance is between 1 ½ and 2 times higher in the South and the Midwest than it is in the West and the Northeast. (Percentage of population attending a Christian church on any given weekend in 2000)
4. Only one state [Hawaii] saw an increase in the percentage attending church from 1990-2000. [California, Connecticut, Georgia, and Washington were close to keeping up with population growth.] (Increase or decline in percentage of population attending a Christian church on any given weekend 1990–2000)
5. The percentage that attends church on any given weekend is declining in over two thirds of the counties in the United States. [Among the states with the highest percentages of declining counties were Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Carolina.] (US counties: Increase or decline in percentage of population attending a Christian church on any given weekend 1990–2000)
6. Evangelicals, mainliners, and Catholics are strongest in very different regions of the country. (maps for Evangelicals, mainliners, and Catholics)
7. Churches with 50–299 people in attendance are shrinking, while the smallest churches and larger churches are growing. (Decadal growth rate of churches by size category)
8. Established churches, from 40–180 years old, on average decline in attendance. (Yearly attendance growth of existing churches by decade started)
9. The increase in the number of churches is about one eighth of what is needed to keep up with population growth. (Net increase in number of churches in the US between 1990 and 2000)
10. The church-planting rate has been declining throughout the history of our country. (Churches started per 1 million residents)
11. Existing churches are plateauing and new church growth provides less than half of the growth necessary to keep up with population growth. (Attendance growth percentage of Protestant churches 1990–2000)
12. If the present trends continue, the percentage of the population that attends church in 2050 will be almost half of what it is today. (Projected percentage of population attending church on any given weekend)
The History of the Sunday School Movement
By Doug Phillips
At this year’s Third National Conference for Uniting Church and Family, I presented a message entitled: “Feminism, Youth Culture, and the History of the Sunday School Movement.” The first purpose of the talk was to offer perspective concerning the historic foundations of some of our most popular extra-biblical, family-fragmenting, modern church traditions. The second was to encourage believers to be more self-conscious of the theological presuppositions behind practices widely embraced by the modern church.
The talk built upon foundations laid previously in the conference by Dr. Voddie Baucham’s message, “The Centrality of the Home in the Evangelism and Discipleship of the Next Generation,” and my message: “Semper Reformanda: The Reformation Roots of the Movement to Unite Church and Family.”
“Feminism, Youth Culture, and the History of the Sunday School Movement” traces the historic battle between relationship-based discipleship and efficiency models of education. The Hebrew vision of covenantal discipleship was contrasted with the Greek emphasis on youth and the Platonic program to separate children from their parents. Related issues were addressed in the context of Tertullian’s dialogue pertaining to the schools of Jerusalem and Athens.
Distinctions between the early American Puritan vision for family-integrated Sunday training and the Sunday school as a family-fragmenting and evolutionary theory-influenced late nineteenth century proto-feminist movement were examined.
The evolution of the Sunday School Movement (SSM) was traced from its early days as a well-intentioned “Social Gospel” outreach to children without Christian parents, to its twentieth century manifestation as an unfortunate substitute for father-directed discipleship of the children of Christian parents. I examined the noble vision of Robert Raikes in the late eighteenth century to create a para-church Sunday school movement as an outreach to the illiterate children of chimney sweeps and other socially and economically depressed members of English society. Also discussed were the early family-based “Sunday schools” conducted in northern England in the late eighteenth century.
Those attending the lecture were exposed to the methodological tension between the theology of the spiritual fathers of the Great Awakening, with the “new measures” of Charles Finney, the latter of whom probably did more than any other Christian leader of the nineteenth century to introduce pragmatic and man-centered notions of evangelism into the nineteenth century American church.
The SSM was examined in terms of four historic stages, each of which reflected the changing theology and ethics of its time. By the second or third generation of the SSM, the Sunday school played a key role in the transformation of the local church from the historico-biblical, male-taught and male-directed community of faith to a woman’s society. As Robbins has noted in The Church Effeminate (Page 238):
During the 19th century there were three major movements in American Protestant Churches that began the process of feminizing their leadership. The first of these was the Sunday school movement. The second was the foreign missions movement; and the third was the deaconess movement. Before the last quarter of the 18th century, Sunday schools did not exist, missionaries were men, and there was no such office as deaconess. During the 19th century the feminists, many of whom were not women and most of who were moderate by today’s standards, began their drive to control the churches. The drive began first with the Sunday school movement.
By the twentieth century, the SSM would go through its most revolutionary transformation. Having accepted the myth of methodological neutrality, the diminished role of fathers, the delegation of children to the state, and the feminized model of church life presented in the prior generation, the SSM of the American church was now ready for its most revolutionary transformation. Influenced by the educational methodology of evolutionary humanists like Darwin, Haeckel, Hall, and Dewey, the Evangelical church in America adopted the grade-based, age-segregated, adolescent theory-influenced training model of the government school systems, a model self-consciously designed by some of the most vigorous enemies of Christianity in the history of the West. In its final incarnation, the SSM would give birth to two other modern inventions: children’s church, and the church youth group.
As Otto Scott has pointed out in “The Invention of Adolsecence”:
Hall’s work provided a basis for segregating school children by age. Elementary school children were segregated from secondary schools along the lines of his “observations.” Twelve was the age of the break. The new fashion spread even into religion, and the clergy began to aim different lessons at special age groups: the Bible was too much for the young...There are many variations of this development — from youth gangs to the forced retirement. In fact, we have almost achieved a society nearly completely segregated by age in which the generations have been narrowed from the traditional thirty years to far fewer. Age now separates us more than ever before in any society; persons raised only a few decades apart find one another nearly incomprehensible.
I want to encourage anyone who is interested in studying the origin and transformation of one of the most influential movements of the modern church to please consider listening to this tape.
For the rest of the month, the conference CD, “Feminism, Youth Culture, and the History of the Modern Sunday School Movement,” is available for an online gift of any amount to support the work of Vision Forum Ministries.
A. Our greatest priority, our greatest need in life is to worship God. How do I know this? I know this because whenever God appeared to people in the Bible, that’s what they did. They fell down in terror and acknowledged God’s greatness. They got back on track as it were. They immediately knew what they should have been doing all along (worshiping God). Somehow they had become distracted into following other pursuits, but when God appeared they fell down and worshiped.
It’s like the teenager who is home alone all day. Before they leave the house, his parents tell him he must clean up his room. So what does he do? He goes back to bed. Then he gets up and eats breakfast. He may watch television or surf the internet or play video games or text his friends. But suddenly he hears his parents come home, and he runs to his room, frantically cleaning it up. Why? Because that’s what he was supposed to be doing all along. And that’s why the people in the Bible all dropped what they were doing and fell down on their faces whenever God came around. They knew all along they were to be worshiping God. And that’s what we are to be doing as well.
B. As we said last time, worship is a response to God’s glory. The proper response to glory in general is wonder. But the proper response to God’s glory is worship. The Old Testament word translated “glory” means “weighty.” If someone was rich or powerful, the Hebrews would describe him as “weighty.” We do the same thing. We say that something important has “substance.” If it is unimportant we call it “fluff.”
If God is the weightiest of all to you, then you will worship him. But the main problem today is that God is not weighty, not even in our churches. Worship has become about me and my needs. I am most important in worship. I am weighty, while God is virtually weightless.
I. THE REFUSAL TO WORSHIP GOD.
A. The Apostle Paul identifies this human worship, this stubborn refusal to worship God, as the very root of human sin. Every evil springs forth from this root of human worship. Listen to his foundational text from Romans 1: “18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” Where does all this ungodliness and unrighteousness come from? Read on. “19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” We don’t need any special invitation to worship God: his greatness and glory are inescapably evident from what he has created.
But here’s the problem: “21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Verse 21 contains a pretty succinct definition of worship: to “honor him as God” and to “give thanks to him.” But all of these problems of ungodliness and unrighteousness have arisen because, “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.” But these people did not instead worship nothing. As G.K. Chesterton once observed, “When people quit believing in God they do not believe nothing, they believe anything.” And so, “22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”
B. People are compulsive, habitual worshipers. We cannot help it. It is in our DNA. We were created to worship God, but short of that we cannot escape our design for worship. And so we will always worship something. The false gods are virtually unlimited, but the fact is that there is only, truly one false god we serve, and that is self. No wonder Jesus said that before anyone could come after him he must first deny self. Self is the great idol, stretching back all the way to the Garden in the beginning. What was the serpent’s false promise to the woman, “You shall become like God”? Self shall be exalted. Of course we’re talking about the self’s quest for happiness through self promotion, but self is the idol above the altar. Money, sex, and power are common avenues to self-satisfaction, or prestige or pleasure or possessions, but the one, true (false) god is really self.
II. GOD’S REJECTION OF HUMAN WORSHIP.
A. And God’s condemnation of these self worshipers is remarkable. Paul says that their penalty is to get what they want. “24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” Notice that God’s penalty for sin is more sin. But God doesn’t cause the sinner to sin more. He merely removes his restraint. This is what they wanted all along. In mercy God prevents us from reaching the depths of our depravity until we are condemned to hell. But when people fail to worship him and worship self instead, God gives them what they want.
“26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Whoever said that the Bible is not relevant, that it does not speak to our day? When God removes his restraint, not only do people become so morally turned upside down that sexual perversion results, but in the quest for self worship, even the other gender is rejected. The height (or depth, as it were) of self worship is relations with the same sex. The world today calls this “liberation,” but here God calls it “receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
B. And then it all unravels: “28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Paul is not here describing the twenty-first century American culture of the future but the Greco-Roman culture of his present day. But the same process is fast occurring in our day as well.
C. And remarkably it all begins with false worship, with the stubborn refusal to worship God, or as Paul writes, to “honor him as God” and to “give thanks to him.” The result will always be self-worship, because humans are habitual worshipers. Apart from God the void is so great, the emptiness is so horrifying, that we must somehow fill the abyss. We have no life in ourselves, so we will always look to some other for our satisfaction. But make no mistake, my satisfaction is the goal.
III. THE EMPTINESS OF HUMAN WORSHIP.
A. Here’s the problem: in false, human worship, we have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” The immortal, infinite God can utterly satisfy. But mortal, limited man and birds and animals and reptiles can never truly satisfy. They may offer a temporary fix, but they can never quench the thirst.
B. This rejection of the glory of the immortal God for some other supposed source of happiness is to the heart of our fallen human condition. In his book, What’s So Great About Christianity, Dinesh D’Souza takes up the question of why atheism, the belief that there is no God, is so attractive. He notes that many modern atheists attack Christianity by alleging that Christians believe for purely psychological and not rational reasons. He notes Karl Marx’s famous indictment that “religion is the opium of the people.” People turn to religion for the same reason that addicts turn to drugs, to escape a painful reality. He quotes French Atheist Michael Onfray, “God is a fiction invented by men so as not to confront the reality of their condition.” (266)
But if atheists can allege inferior motives for Christian belief, what about the atheists themselves? Is there any hidden benefit to unbelief? Are there ulterior motives for rejecting God’s existence and claims over us? You’d better believe there are. I’m quoting D’Souza here:
“Some atheists even acknowledge that they would prefer a universe in which there were no God, no immortal soul, and no afterlife….On the possibility of life after death, (atheist) H.L. Mencken wrote, “My private inclination is to hope that it is not so.” In God: The Failed Hypothesis, physicist Victor Stenger confesses that not only does he disbelieve in God, he doesn’t like the Christian God: “If he does exist, I personally want nothing to do with him.” And philosopher Thomas Nagel recently confessed to a “fear of religion itself.” As he put it, “I want atheism to be true….It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God….I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” (267)
But why? The atheist universe is a terribly dull and dismal place. We exist for no purpose, we have no future, and there is no justice—none of the wrongs will ever be righted in the next life, because there is no next life. Why hope that something as abysmal as that is true?
In fact, many atheists find this all to be quite liberating. In what way? D’Souza quotes the noted atheist, Aldous Huxley: “I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently I assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption….For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was…liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.” (270)
In other words, “We wanted sexual freedom. We thought that would make us happy. But God and his law stood in the way. So we reasoned God out of existence.” Or, as Paul declared long ago: “21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” It all began with the stubborn refusal to worship God, and replacing self and its happiness on the throne instead.
After citing several other examples, D’Souza charges: “It is chiefly because of sex that most contemporary atheists have chosen to break with Christianity. ‘The worst feature of the Christian religion,’ Bertrand Russell wrote in Why I Am Not a Christian, ‘is its attitude toward sex.’ [Atheist Christopher] Hitchens writes that ‘the divorce between the sexual life and fear…can now at last be attempted on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse.’ When an atheist gives elaborate justification for why God does not exist and why traditional morality is an illusion, he is very likely thinking of [sex]his sex organs. It may well be that if it weren’t for that single commandment against adultery, Western man would still be Christian!” (273)
C. And note once again where it all began—with our stubborn refusal to worship God. Tonight I want to explore three disastrous compromises the evangelical church has made with respect to worship that has led the church today in the direction of self-worship: “worship” that is reinterpreted as entertainment, sentimentalism, and therapy.
CONCLUSION
But once again notice the deadly error of self-worship. Human worship can never satisfy because it cannot offer true life. In human, self-worship, we have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” In human worship we forfeit the true life of the immortal God in exchange for the illusion of life in and through God’s creation, through pleasure and power and prestige, all of which are passing away.
Jesus, the Son of God, bids us come to him in worship. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)
Today, instead of God, people are weighty, especially celebrities. People who are in the news because they hired press agents to keep them in the news are weighty, heavy, important today. That’s what all the TV shows are talking about, and all the newspapers and magazines and radio shows and internet blogs. Celebrities, especially entertainers, are weighty today. That’s what everyone is talking about.
Or things are weighty today: money, cars, property, high tech toys. That’s what everyone is talking about because that’s what everyone is thinking about. And we are so easily duped and fooled into joining them. Because everybody’s constantly talking about celebrities or about things, we think these must be important. We are fooled into joining the herd and following right along with them thinking these are truly weighty.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
I. THE IDOLATRY OF ENTERTAINMENT “WORSHIP.”
II. THE IDOLATRY OF SENTIMENTAL “WORSHIP.”
III. THE IDOLATRY OF THERAPEUTIC “WORSHIP.”
therapy
emotion
A. Well, here we are, the first Sunday in a brand new year, 2011. In fact, this is the first Sunday in a whole new decade, the second decade in the twenty-first century. I don’t know how God reckons time, probably not as we do. God alone knows the first year in which he created all things, so God alone could tell us what year this really is and how many more years we can expect out of this old, broken creation that is passing away and some day will be replaced with a new creation.
But this is traditionally a time for us to pause and to take stock of our lives, to look behind us and see if we need to make any course corrections, and to look ahead to see if we are still on the right path. Last week I was cross-country skiing near my mother’s home in Illinois. There was plenty of snow, so I was just going through a chiseled cornfield. My destination was a thick pine grove I had often seen from the highway, but had never explored up close. The terrain was a bit more rolling with a creek to cross, so my path was not too straight. In fact, since I was the only one who had been in the field, and since I was leaving deep tracks, it was easy to look back and see just how un-straight my course had been. In responding to an obstacle, or when in a valley where I could not see my goal, my path had wandered a bit. And I frequently needed to look up to the goal and re-set my course.
And that’s what I hope to do together with you for the next several weeks. Jesus calls us to follow him. And sometimes if we take our eye off the goal, or if we neglect the path, we can take a wrong turn or two. And if you continue in the wrong direction long enough, you can find yourself far off course. Churches can do the same. If churches begin to follow the drumbeat of their culture instead of the call of Christ in his infallible and inerrant Word, then churches can lose their way as well.
So it’s important for us to keep focusing on the goal. And here on the first Sunday of the new decade, I think it’s wise for us to look up and re-set our course so that together we follow Christ closely and serve a dying world in the power of his Gospel.
And I want to begin with the subject of worship, our greatest priority in this life and in the age to come.
Our catechism correctly tells us that our chief end or highest purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Both of these are primarily accomplished in worship. By worship I do not simply mean a worship service, though that is the main part of it. Worship is first of all to recognize God’s great worth, and then to respond accordingly. Worship includes adoration and praise and thanks, true enough. But if God is holy and we are sinful, then worship acknowledges God’s holiness by confession our sinfulness. And if God is so great that he saves miserable sinners, then the correct response of worship is to trust him completely to save you as a sinner. And if God’s perfect character calls for all creatures to be perfect as well, then living in obedience is a right response of worship. And if God is so great that he alone is the source of all life and every good thing, then asking him, petitioning him for help is an act of worship. And finally, if God is completely wise, and if he offers life through his Word, then hearing his Word and loving his Word is an act of worship.
The various parts of a worship service are sometimes called the “liturgy.” But do you know the origin of that word? It is a compound of two Greek terms “laos” meaning “people” and “ergon” meaning “work.” Liturgy, the practice of worship is really “people work,” the work of God’s people. How very different this is from the common perspective that worship is a show or performance. Most everything these days, education, news reporting, politics, popular discourse, and increasingly now religion, is cast in terms of entertainment—a show. And we know how to respond to a show. We sit back and watch it. We take it in. We let it massage our feelings and provide a little escape from real life. And then we critique it: two stars, thumbs up or thumbs down.
That’s one reason in our worship why we both stand and sit. When you go to a movie, you just sit and take it in. If you stand, people will tell you to get out of the way. But in worship, because we understand that this is people work, because we are not simply passively taking in a show but rather actively participating in a meeting, we most often stand to say or sing our part to God.
So our great priority, your great goal and need in life is to worship God. How do I know this? It’s because whenever God appears to people in the Bible, that’s what they do. They fall down in terror and acknowledge God’s greatness. They get back on track. They immediately know what they should have been doing all along, and that was to worship God. It’s like the teenager who is home alone all day. Before they leave the house, his parents tell him he must clean up his room. So what does he do? He goes back to bed. Then he gets up and eats a bit. He may watch TV or surf the internet or play a video game or text his friends. But suddenly he hears the garage door, and he runs to his room, frantically cleaning it up. Why? Because that’s what he was suppose to be doing all along. And that’s why the people in the Bible all dropped what they were doing and fell down on their faces whenever God came around. They knew all along they were to be worshiping God. And that’s what we are to be doing as well.
John tell us in his Gospel that it’s all about the Word. He introduces us to this remarkable person he calls the Word. The Word is as eternal as God is, in fact the Word was with God in the beginning and the Word is God. All things were made through the Word. This Word has life in himself, and this light is the source of all true life for anyone. And the whole purpose of the Old Testament religion, the only, true, God-given religion up to this time, its whole purpose was simply to point to him.
But even though this Creator-Word came to his own world, his own world rejected him. Yet a few did receive him as one receives a king. A few did believe on him putting all their hope and trust in him, and to them He gave the right to grow up into the spitting image of God. Amazing!
But in the latter verses of this prologue, John declares the full glory of the Word—and invites us to fall down on our faces to worship him.
Worship is a response to God’s glory. The proper response to glory is wonder. But the proper response to God’s glory is worship. The Old Testament word translated “glory” means “weighty.” If someone was rich or powerful, the Hebrews would describe him as “weighty.” We do the same thing. We say that something important has “substance.” If it is unimportant we call it “fluff.” Back in the sixties and seventies, people would say that something significant was “heavy.”
If God is the weightiest of all to you, then you will worship him. But the main problem today is that God is not weighty, even in our churches. Worship has become about me and my needs. I’m most important in worship. I’m weighty, I’m heavy, while God is virtually weightless.
Today, instead of God, people are weighty, especially celebrities. People who are in the news because they hired press agents to keep them in the news are weighty, heavy, important today. That’s what all the TV shows are talking about, and all the newspapers and magazines and radio shows and internet blogs. Celebrities, especially entertainers, are weighty today. That’s what everyone is talking about.
Or things are weighty today: money, cars, property, high tech toys. That’s what everyone is talking about because that’s what everyone is thinking about. And we are so easily duped and fooled into joining them. Because everybody’s constantly talking about celebrities or about things, we think these must be important. We are fooled into joining the herd and following right along with them thinking these are truly weighty.
But this is the first Sunday of the New Year and new decade. Won’t you pause for a moment and consider what is truly weighty? Won’t you take this opportunity to reset your perspective? What is weighty and consequential? What is truly attractive? What offers lasting satisfaction? What brings true wonder?
Is it not things like beauty? Is not something wonderful because it is exceedingly rare? Do we not marvel at great power (not imagined power, but true power)? Are we not amazed at true wisdom, both deep knowledge but also understanding of the better way? And are we not attracted to goodness, examples of mercy, loyalty, faithfulness, and love? John wants us to see all of these in the Word of God. He wants us to take them in with breathtaking wonder. But to do so, we need to follow the liturgy. We cannot simply sit back and take in the show. We must step up and dig in and become active in our pursuit of God’s glory. We must gaze and ponder and focus on the glories of God until we are “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”
This morning, I want to give you only one point from John’s Gospel on the surpassing excellence of the Word. The other three will come this evening. And then next week, we will contrast true worship with today’s wicked substitute—entertainment.
I. WE MUST WORSHIP CHRIST IN HIS PERSON.
A. Jesus Christ is glorious in his person. Who he is is marvelous, wondrous, absolutely unique and incomparable. John tell us that the Word and all he is, his godhood, his power as creator, his eternal life and light, his glory as the one to whom the true religion was given to point him out, all of that became a man. “14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The Word became flesh.
That word, flesh, can have different meanings in the New Testament. Paul uses this term “sarx” to describe sinful human nature. It can also describe a person’s physical nature as in “flesh and blood.” But in this context it does not simply refer to a body, but rather a fully human nature. He became what we are, yet without sin. In the briefest of terms, “the Word became flesh,” John describes this wonder of the virgin conception.
This becomes even more glorious to us today because we know something of the marvelous process of human reproduction. In human reproduction, a woman’s DNA which is composed of two, linked, incredibly complex, complimentary strands containing her whole code for all her physical processes and traits, everything that she is, these two microscopic strands are unzipped, and each half is placed within a single cell. The same process happens in a man, and when these two single cells, one from the man and one from the woman, unite, the strands zip together again, and a new person comes into being and begins to grow. That’s where you came from; that’s where every human being came from.
But John, supplemented by Luke, tells us that Jesus did not originate that way. Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mary contributed her half of the strand of DNA, but God the Father supplied the other through the power of the Holy Spirit. “The Word became flesh.”
Here’s how Luke describes it. When Mary was told about this, she was just as stunned as any of us would be: “34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” Jesus was the Son of Mary and the Son of God.
And this is marvelous! This is the glory of God. This calls for wonder: for praise and adoration, for hymns of joy, for renewing our commitment to this glorious Son of God, born of a woman but conceived by the Holy Spirit, the Word made flesh. But we would completely miss it if we did not slow down, focus our thoughts, and gaze deeply into the glory of God.
When we try to hurry worship, when we do not approach worship with some kind of preparation of our heart attitude, when we come right in from the cold and do our worship duty and then head right back into the cold, we miss the glory of God. We then just go through the motions, and God does not only not accept going through the motions—he positively hates it. Isaiah 29:13-14: “13 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, 14 therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
CONCLUSION
One more illustration from cross-country skiing. I go cross-country skiing mainly because I’m a nature boy at heart, and I love to tramp out in the waste places. I don’t like the fancy groomed trails as much as the lonely places that are seldom seen. I love to go tramping out among the weeds.
Now when you are driving the speed limit on the highway, you may look into the ditch and see all these sticks and leaves and weeds, and they are not very attractive. But when you are out among them going slowly, often falling down and trying to get up among them, you see them up close. And many of those dried, dead weeds are beautiful! I cannot believe the intricacy of design and the wide variety of shapes and sizes. And I would have never seen them at 55 miles an hour.
To worship God rightly, we must slow down, focus our thoughts, and gaze deeply into his glory. And tonight we’ll look more deeply still.
15 ¶ (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.”’) 16 And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
A. If I must, I will beg you. We have come to that difficult time of the year for preachers and for hearers alike—I’m talking about Christmas. It is difficult for preachers because we think we’ve preached it all before and because you think you’ve heard it all before. And it is difficult for hearers for pretty much the same reasons. We come with low expectations
So I will beg you to stay awake. Please do not think that there is nothing new to say or that there is nothing to be gained from the old story of the coming of Christ, and this for two reasons. First, we tend to forget. Oh, we may recall the basic facts of Joseph and Mary and the Angel Gabriel and the shepherds and Magi and so forth. But what we tend to forget in our two dimensional, completely materialistic world is the astonishing, breathtaking wonder of God’s glory and mercy and power in the incarnation, in the Babe that was laid in the manger. But even more, this marvel is so astonishing that we cannot ever grasp the fullness of its wonder. The greatest scholar and the humblest believer alike are reduced to speechless adoration when they stoop to look into this profound mystery.
B. So please, please, please wake yourself up and concentrate all your powers for the next half hour as we shield our eyes and peer into the dazzling brightness of the glory of God.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.
I. IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD….
A. “In the beginning was the Word….” John opens his Gospel with some of the most daring language possible. It is daring because it is so familiar on the one hand, but on the other, he changes the familiar in an astonishing way. Let me illustrate. You finish this common saying:
“A bird in the hand is worth….about a dollar forty-nine a pound.”
Here’s another:
“The land of the free and home of the…racists!”
Here’s another:
“I pledge allegiance to…Satan!”
Now, of course, I don’t mean any of those things. But you do feel the shock value. These are familiar sayings with some warm, emotive value. But there is a terrible, jarring shock at the end, an unexpected twist that strikes us to the core. And that is what John is doing as he begins his Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word….”
B. In John’s day, Jews and Gentiles alike would have been familiar with the first verse in the Bible, the first verse in Genesis. It began, of course, in the original Hebrew and in the Greek translation, with the words “In the beginning….” In fact, in the Hebrew the book of Genesis was simply called “bereshith” or “In the beginning….” So this phrase, “in the beginning,” was very common and well known, along with what always followed it: “God.” “In the beginning, God….”
What’s more, this statement was a central truth that separated Judaism from all the pagan religions that surrounded it. This brief phrase declared that God was eternal, that before the beginning of all things, God was there, and God was absolutely before and above all his creation. This is the creation ex nihilo, that is, God created all things out of nothing and before there was anything else, there was only God. God alone is uncreated and eternally existing. This is to the heart of the genius of the Jewish faith, its absolute monotheism which separated it from all other religions.
C. So imagine beginning a book with those familiar, incomparably important and unique words, “In the beginning…” but then changing that all-important next word! So now it read, “In the beginning was (not God) but the Word.”
Now what is this? Is this some new name or title for God? We sometimes call him “God,” sometimes “the Lord,” sometimes “Almighty.” Are we just using a synonym? No, no, it’s much more than that.
II. THE WORD WAS WITH GOD.
A. Before you had God on the one side in the beginning and all else on the other side of the word “created”: “the heavens and the earth.” But now John has put “the Word” on the God side of this equation, and we’re starting to get nervous. And then John blows it all up because he says “the Word was with God” meaning the Word was not the same as God but was with God on the “before” side of the creation equation. The Word was with God. This requires our thinking about two and not just one. One cannot be with himself alone. You can only be with another. I’ve heard of someone being “beside himself,” but that’s something different.
B. This phrase “In the beginning…” both in the Old Testament and the New points to the eternity of God. Before there was anything else, before there was even a beginning of time, God was there, and the Word was there with him. God is eternal. What does it mean to be eternal? God’s eternity is just one aspect of his infinity or limitlessness. God is not limited by that which normally limits his creatures. For example, he is not limited with respect to space, we would say God is omnipresent or present everywhere. And God is not limited with respect to power, so he is omnipotent or almighty. And God is not limited with in knowledge and so he is omniscient. He is infinite in or unlimited by space, power, and understanding. And infinity with respect to time means that God is eternal. Time is no limit for him. He already knows the end from the beginning. He does not have to wait to see how things will turn out because he is already in the future as well as in the past. We anxiously wait for what is coming tomorrow, but God is already there.
And the Word was also there with God in the beginning. So the Word is also eternal, unlimited by time. And so he could declare twice in the Revelation: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (1:8) and “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (22:13)
C. Where did John get this? Did he somehow discover it? Was it a direct revelation to him, previously unknown in Scripture? No, John got it from the first verses of the Old Testament. In verse 1 of Genesis 1 we are introduced to God the Father. “1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” But of course. God is the most basic truth of the Bible, and the Bible literally begins with God the Father.
But notice verse two. “2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Verse two introduces us to the Spirit of God. God was not alone. The Spirit was also there. And he is the Spirit of God, so the Spirit is also God. And notice verse three. “3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.”
Do you see it? “And God said….” God’s speech is his Word. He was there all the time. Perhaps John was the first to see him that clearly, but the Word was there all along. And what we’ll see next time is that this phrase “And God said…” is repeated over and over again in Genesis 1, that the Word was there at every act of creation; that God created all things through his Word.
But then John drops the bomb that explodes all previous beliefs.
III. THE WORD WAS GOD.
“1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
A. If the first part got our attention, and the second part started to make us nervous, the third drops us in our tracks. “The Word was God.” This is a literal translation of the Greek except for the word order. Most literally, John says “God was the Word.”
B. Though it really shouldn’t be, this is one of the most hotly debated statements in Scripture. It is debated not because its meaning is doubtful but because it is denied. The group known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses deny that Jesus is God in the same way that the Father is God. They want to make Jesus to be a created being, the first and most glorious created being, but a being that God made. So this text which declares that the Word is God is a problem for them. And they solve their problem by re-translating it. In their New World translation of the Bible, they render this phrase as “and the Word was a god.” They do this because they note that there is no definite article before the word God. Literally it says, “and God was the Word.” So they, they assert, since it does not say “the God was the Word,” they should insert an indefinite article and render it “a god was the Word.” The Word was a god but not the God.
And virtually all scholars point out that this is a basic error in translation, treating Greek as though it were English. John was not saying that the Word was “a god” for that would mean there are many gods. And John does not say that “the Word was the God,” because that would exclude all others. Donald Trump sometimes calls himself “the Donald” implying that he is the only Donald or the only Donald that really matters. Nor does John say that the Word was divine, for that would be too weak. Rather, he says the only thing he can say to explain this truth, that the Word was God.
Let me illustrate. There is a Disney character named “Mickey.” What kind of being is he supposed to be? You could say, “a mouse,” but when we are talking about a category and not just a member of a category, we would say he is “mouse.” Or suppose a crime scene investigator detects a drop of blood on the floor. He runs some tests on it. His supervisor asks what kind of blood it is. He does not say this drop of blood is “a human” but simply “human.”
C. John introduces us to the Word. He was there in the beginning before the creation. And he was with God, so God was not alone in the beginning. So now, with baited breath, we are wondering who this Word is. What kind of being is not created and is as eternal as God? He could not say that he was “a god” because this would imply there are many gods. But neither could he say that he was “the God” because that would imply that he is uniquely God to the exclusion of all others. Nor could he say that the Word was merely divine. So he says the only thing he can say and that with emphasis: “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (or GOD was the Word).”
CONCLUSION
Here’s what happens in the rest of the Gospel of John. John first introduces the Word in all his glory as the Son of God who became flesh and dwelt among us. And then the Word in flesh begins to say and do these astonishing things. And the people around him all have trouble coming to terms with who he is. Some reject him outright. They already have their ways, plans, hopes, and dreams, and they cannot see how he could possibly fit into them. To them he is an unwelcome intrusion.
The majority are intrigued by his words and deeds. And they want to use him to accomplish their goals. They refuse to take him on his own terms, but instead try to fit him into their plans. They want to tap into his power or take some of his gifts or even make him their leader if he will lead them where they already want to go. But the Word of God came to do the Father’s will, not their will, and the majority wind up rejecting him as well.
But there are a few who receive him as he is; who forsake their goals and plans to follow his agenda instead. They recognize that he is God who has come in love to save them from the true troubles they didn’t really know they had. And so they simply surrender to him. They believe on him, forfeiting their lives, and finding true life in the Son of God. In fact, that’s the purpose of the whole book, the Gospel of John. John explains his goal near the end of his brief book: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
What is often missed is that this is also John’s testimony. He says, “I was one of those eyewitnesses. I too struggled to believe because it was so incredible that the eternal Word of God became a man and dwelt among us. But I believe he is the Christ. So I threw away my life and found true life in him. And I urge you to do the same.”
And Christ calls to you as well: “Come lose your life in following me, and you will find true life in me.”
A brother and sister from west London found an old vase while cleaning out their parents’ home and hired Bainbridge, an auction house, to sell it. They discovered it was valued at nearly $2 million. But after 30 minutes of spirited bidding at an auction last week, the 18th-century Qing Dynasty vase went to a buyer from China for over $69.5 million, the most ever paid at auction for a Chinese antiquity. “They had no idea what they had,” said a Bainbridge spokeswoman. When the final bid was official, “the sisters had to go out of the room and have a breath of fresh air.” (The Week, November 26, 2010)
$69.5 million is chump change compared to the eternal riches in glory in Christ. Even more, we have no idea what we have in Christ. We should always need a breath of fresh air when we remember what is promised us in Christ.
If you know who he is and what he has done it will change your life.
Of course God is infinite in all his being and ways
“
n fact, the
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.
Okay, class, finish the verse… “In the beginning…” They would automatically say, “God,” either Elohim or Theos. But John fools them and says “the Word” or ho logos.
Where did John get this? From Genesis 1. Just keep reading. IN the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but “The spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” And then we read, “And God said.” Every time we find that God said so we would have to admit that the Word was present at every act of creation, and that the Word was truly the agent through which God created all things. What John helps us see is that the Word is personal.
The Word (define)
was with God (explain)
John gives the astonishing glory and identity of the Word, and then lets us know that everyone around him had trouble grasping how truly great he is, but that we must keep on thinking and reading and pondering and believing until we come to the astonishing realization.
The book of signs shows us that he is indeed the Christ, the Son of God. And then the book of woes shows us what he came to do.
Your problem is not that you don’t make enough money or that you married the wrong person or that you need to be smarter or better looking or have a better sense of humor or that you need to lose a few pounds or get in better shape. You just do not realize how great is the Son of God.
I know that because the Son of God said that. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.
You just do not yet grasp how truly great he is.
A. We’ve reached the end of this longest chapter in the Bible, the longest psalm in the Psalter. I got to thinking last week as Dr. Powers read the shortest psalm, Psalm 117, we could have saved a lot of time looking at that text rather than the 22 weeks we spent on this longest psalm. Perhaps we’ll dig into that shortest psalm in the future.
B. But I find it comforting to note that this last section of this longest psalm was probably composed at the end of the writer’s life. Some have proposed that this long psalm was written by a single man over the course of his life, reflecting on the wonder of God’s Word every step of the way, and that that writer was in fact King David who composed so many other of the psalms. This suggestion has much to commend itself. The early portion of the psalm certainly does reflect the questions of a young man: “How can a young man keep his way pure?” (119:9). And the middle verses show the concerns of someone heavy in the midst of the battle, with a special focus on “adversaries.” And here at the end we see him dealing with the perplexities that come in the later years. It certainly fits the course of one life, and the facts of King David’s life as we know them.
Without being morbid, I’ve been thinking much about the end. Psalm 90 commands us to “number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” and I intend to do so. I have found that age 51 you’re not 18 any more. Simple movement is sometimes painful. I have suffered some physical problems that the doctors don’t seem too concerned about, partly because they cannot fix them and partly because, well, I’m 51. I have discovered the joys of an “over-50 softball game” where the players smell more of “Icy Hot” than they do of sweat or cologne.
But I’ve also watched my dad, at 87, fearful of losing strength, then privilege, then freedom, then sanity. I’ve sat with him many times reminiscing, but also trying to coax him back to reality, with increasing failure, and I know that’s all probably coming for me, and for you.
C. So here in this psalm I’m curious about what concerns a faithful man like David at the end of his admittedly illustrious life. Second Samuel tells us that at the end of David’s life, they had to find two young women to lie on either side of him at night to serve as human hot water bottles. Not much of a glorious end, this great champion of God a feeble old man who couldn’t keep warm at night. What was going through his mind? What concerned him most of all as he revealed his soul at the end of this psalm of his life-testimony?
D. He was thinking about salvation. He was concerned about how he would make it. “174 I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight.” Utmost in his mind was his apprehension about salvation, about making it, at the end of his life: “176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep….” And in this last section of the psalm, he speaks to us of the SALVATION OF THE WORD.
The Word saves us first as
I. THE WORD OF WISDOM.
A. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. But not right away. Before death there are other wages we are paid for our sins. One paycheck made out to us for our sins is misery. But another is stupidity. Sin makes us dumb, not so much intellectually, but morally stupid: dim-witted, dense, and dull.
When I was a kid I watched a lot of television. But one show I could not abide was the Lucille Ball show. I didn’t really care for the actress, but I even less liked the plot. Because the plot of most every show that I watched was this: Lucy got herself into some predicament, usually out of her stupidity. And then she had a choice to make. And she would invariably make the obviously stupider choice. And I had no patience for that.
B. But even worse, as a pastor, I see people making choices today that would have made Lucy look as wise as Solomon. We are surrounded by sinners who keep making these morally stupid, life-destroying choices. And then we watch as their lives fall apart. And I cannot decide if it is more frustrating or heart-breaking, but it is certainly both. And then I realize that I am often one of the ones making those dumb choices. “176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep….” The wages of sin is stupidity first, and then death.
C. And God’s Word saves us from much of this grief, if we will only believe him. “169 Let my cry come before you, O LORD; give me understanding according to your word!” Why does he cry to the Lord for understanding according to his Word? Because he has lacked understanding and that’s why he went astray like a lost sheep. He remembers with gladness the wisdom of the Word and the many ways it has kept him on the safe path over the years: “171 My lips will pour forth praise, for you teach me your statutes. 172 My tongue will sing of your word, for all your commandments are right.”
Can we just be honest for a moment? Many professing Christians, especially those who grew up in the church, seem to think that the purpose of God’s Word is to inhibit their happiness. And I think that includes some of you. The Word of God is thought to be like a high school principle. Just when we’re having fun, here it comes, and “Bam!” the fun is over.
But let me show you something else I’ve seen. Here’s a guy who ran from the Word because he hated its restrictions. And so in the pursuit of his carefree, self-centered, pleasure-oriented life, he lost his marriage, his children shunned him, he was abandoned by his “friends,” and finally at the end he was left all alone with only his regrets as his constant tormentors. And on top of that, he bore the guilt of all those he’d influenced to do the same, who were likewise perishing in their bitter regrets. God’s Word saves us from our stupidity. “I have gone astray like a lost sheep….”
That was good news. This is better. For the Word is also
II. THE WORD OF PROMISE.
A. If we have all gone astray like a lost sheep, then it remains how we can be saved? How can we be forgiven and reconciled to God? No amount of Bible learning or careful living can atone for our sins. That’s what we saw with Martin Luther, who took every remedy the church had to offer and not only became a monk and performed all the good works of the monks, but also confessed every sin he had committed and a few he hadn’t. And he still knew himself to be damned. That’s what the Apostle Paul before him also found, who declared in Philippians 3: “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” In Galatians 3:11, he wrote: “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
B. God’s Law was never intended to be the way of salvation, because no one can keep it. We are not saved by the Law, but the Word of God saves us by declaring to us God’s promise of salvation. So the psalmist says in verse 170: “Let my plea come before you; deliver me according to your word.” That’s something very different from the previous verse. That is not saying, “Save me by making me wise so that I don’t make dumb choices.” Rather, this speaks of God’s Word of promise.
C. This is the good news of the Gospel. This is the promise that God would save sinners by somehow making a provision to take away our sins. It was first announced in Genesis 3 where the woman was promised that her Seed would crush the serpent’s head. That Seed of the woman was Jesus Christ. But it was also promised in the form of bloody sacrifices offered to cover sins. If a Jew deliberately sinned, he was required to bring a spotless lamb which would be slain and its blood sprinkled on the altar. Its blood covered sins. But it was just a promise of a future reality. And that reality came in Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
You could not possibly pay the penalty for your many sins, not even for one of your sins. But God saves us by his Word of promise. Jesus paid the way. His blood shed on the cross was accepted by God as an atoning sacrifice. “I have gone astray like a lost sheep….”
That was better, but Beloved, this is best of all. God’s saving Word is
III. THE WORD OF COVENANT FAITHFULNESS.
A. God’s Word even saves Christians. What do I mean? Well, here we are at the end of this psalmist’s life, probably King David. But what do we find? Do we find this glowing testimony of his determined obedience? No. Do we find the assertion that, though others have fallen, he has stood firm? No. Do we find his bold declaration that finally toward the end of his life when he should know better he did know better and he finally got his life together? No. Rather, we find a simple confession of sin: “176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep….” B. Do you think that when he confessed this sin and straying at the end of his life he was not yet a believer? No, he clearly was a believer as he testifies in all the other 21 sections of this psalm. He was a believer.
But he was still stupid! He still made dumb decisions, unbelievably foolish failures. He still needed the Word of wisdom to give him understanding so that he didn’t trip up so much.
And he still needed the Word of promise. He needed God’s promise of salvation to assure him that, yes, this sin also was covered by the blood of the lamb, who would eventually be revealed as his own descendant, Jesus, the Son of David, the true Lamb of God.
C. And he needed one thing more. He needed the Word of God’s covenant faithfulness. He needed the assurance that God was not going to quit on him, that he would sometime reach the threshold of spiritual stupidity, and God would finally say, “That’s enough. I can’t bear to stand by this sinner anymore.” He needed the Word to assure him that he was the Lord’s and the Lord was his, forever, no matter what.
Beloved, when you come to Christ, when you commit your life to Christ, do you understand that he also commits his life to you? He who gave his life to save you also lives forever to save you. That love that kept him nailed to the cross to the end so that he could declare, “It is finished,” will never by finished with you. Jesus says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” What part of never do you not understand?
“What if I slip up?” “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
“What if I stumble and fall…hard?” “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
“What if my heart grows cold and my grip grows weak and my mind grows forgetful, and I scarcely care at all?” “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
D. How can we know this is true? How can we be sure? By the last half of the last verse. The first half we’ve heard: “176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep….” But notice what he asks: “seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.” You recognize the image, don’t you? Jesus explained it. He said in Luke 15: “4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” Can’t you see him, the Shepherd, out on the mountainside, as darkness is falling, searching everywhere. Here’s a ravine, there’s a thicket. All the while he is listening, “Is that the wind? No, it’s my beloved sheep calling for me, crying out in his distress!” He’s stuck. He’s weary and worn out, he cannot make it home. “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.” I don’t forget your wisdom. I don’t forget your promised salvation. And most of all, I don’t forget your pledge to be my God and never to leave me nor forsake me. God has promised to seek his lost sheep who have gone astray.
CONCLUSION
All of this is either good, better, or best. And what do you need today?
Is it that Word of wisdom? Do you need to surrender to Christ and embrace his way as the only way to leave a life of misery and find joy in obedient service? What’s stopping you? Will you believe the vain promise of the world, but doubt the solemn pledge of almighty God your Maker?
Or is it that Word of promise? Perhaps for you this is the day of salvation. Perhaps you have kept Christ at arm’s length, but now it all comes clear. You need the blood of God’s holy Lamb to cover the stain of your sins. You need Christ, to fall onto him and find forgiveness and reconciliation in his unfailing love.
Or is it the Word of his covenant faithfulness? Are you already a believer, but you hang your head because you don’t dare look up to heaven as you say, “It’s me, Lord, once again. “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.” “174 I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight.”
Hear his glad good news. “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Jesus said, “28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
169 Let my cry come before you, O LORD; give me understanding according to your word! 170 Let my plea come before you; deliver me according to your word.
171 ¶ My lips will pour forth praise, for you teach me your statutes.
172 ¶ My tongue will sing of your word, for all your commandments are right.
173 ¶ Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts. 174 I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight.
175 ¶ Let my soul live and praise you, and let your rules help me.
176 ¶ I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.
“The salvation of the Word is complete. It is a seeking love, even when ‘I have gone astray like a lost sheep.’ In such times I can pray, ‘seek your servant,’ because, by God’s grace I am in a right relationship with him.
His cry at the beginning is for understanding according to God’s Word. Apparently this lack of understanding has led him ‘astray like a lost sheep.’ This is a cry from a believer, one who is definitely in a covenant relationship with God.
The surprise of this section comes at the end. It reminds me of Romans 7—‘who will deliver me from this body of death?’ This section is really a set up. Let my cry come before you (169), ‘deliver me’ (170). (This section is in synonymous parallelism, 169-170, 171-172, 173-174. But 175-6 are not parallel, and the surprise comes in the breaking of the pattern). The need for deliverance is from myself and my tendency to wander and go astray! The great enemy from which I need deliverance most of all is the flesh. ‘So I find it to be a law that when I want to do, evil lies close at hand.’ (Rom. 7:21) In fact, Romans 8 ends with that great promise, ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ’ (8:35). The threat which led into Romans 8 was the ‘law’ or principle of the flesh waging war against ‘the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.’ (Rom. 7:23) The question that leads into Romans 8 is ‘who will deliver me from this body of death?’ (Rom. 7:24) The answer is Romans 8.
So God’s Word is so great that it will save me from even me! And this hope and assurance we have that this will transpire is God’s faithfulness to his covenant ‘for I do not forget your commandments.’ (176) This last statement says more about God’s keeping more than about my keeping myself. The point of 176a is that I have NOT kept myself.”
A. Today we celebrate a great Christian holiday. I’m not talking about the Lord’s Day, and I’m not talking about Halloween, and I’m not talking about All Hallows Eve, the day before All Saints Day. This day, this very day, October 31, is the closest Protestants come to having their own holiday, because this is Reformation Day. On this day, October 31, 1517, Martin Luther boldly nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in his university town of Wittenberg. These 95 statements were topics for debate. He sought to reform the church from errors he had discovered as he read the Scriptures, especially the New Testament in the original Greek.
Luther had been tormented for much of his young life. He knew himself to be a sinner, damned by the wrath of God. He tried every remedy the church had to offer, even the most extreme self-sacrifice of becoming a monk: poverty, chastity, and obedience. But still his tormented conscience gave him no peace. He knew he was a sinner, but found no way he could do enough good to atone. And then as he read Paul’s letter to the Romans, he suddenly understood that the problem of how guilty sinners could be forgiven was God’s problem. And God solved it by punishing his own, innocent Son, Jesus for the sins of others. That way God was righteous, he did punish sins, only he punished them on Another, so the guilty could go free. Luther said, “Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the “justice of God” had filled me with hate, now it became inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage from Paul became to me a gate to heaven….” (Bainton, 49-50)
B. This recovered truth of the gospel, long buried in medieval superstition and the error of works salvation truly sparked the greatest revival of vital Christianity in the history of the church. It encompassed the rediscovery of the Gospel of grace, the reemployment of the laypeople of the church, and the restoration of the supremacy of Scripture as the Word of God. And when this reformation light burned brightly, the Gospel quickly advanced with power.
C. Today this triple light is growing dim. The Gospel of Grace has largely been replaced with self-help principles of worldly success. The ministry of the laity has been retaken by the professionalization of the pastors. And the supremacy of Scripture as the only Word of God is under assault from every direction, from the inside as well as the outside of the church.
If you study the lives of these original reformers like Luther and Zwingli and Calvin, and if you consider their precursors like Hus and Tyndale and Wycliffe, and if you look at their successors like Melanchthon and Bullinger and Bucer and Beza, you will quickly see the need for courage. All of them put their lives on the line and were literally threatened with death, and some of them were martyred for their faith. Facing scorn, imprisonment, death, and damnation is no small thing. Great is the need for courage.
I. THE NEED FOR COURAGE.
A. Our text demonstrates this need for courage. The first line reveals our desperate situation: “161 Princes persecute me without cause….” That is a frightful situation. Because they are princes, they have the authority to harm you. And because they persecute without cause, there is no way to convince them to stop. This is a malevolent power that cannot be reasoned with. And, in truth, every believer faces the enemy, Satan, who is a malevolent power that cannot be reasoned with. Satan will incite those under his influence, and they will oppose you. And you can expect this opposition to increase the more faithful and the more strategic you are to God’s kingdom. This is why every Christian needs courage. We live in a hostile world, under the domination of the evil one who especially targets God’s people for destruction: a viciously malevolent power that cannot be reasoned with.
B. That’s why Peter urges believers not to be surprised when they suffer his adversity. It is to be expected. (1 Peter 4:12) “12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” When those fiery trails come, and they must surely come if we are faithful to Christ, then we will need courage to stand firm.
Luther would have been fine if he’d just kept his mouth shut. If he’d only written those 95 theses in his private journal and left it at that, he would have passed his days in quietness, a respected and honored professor in the university. But if he had, then we would still be trying to earn our salvation, groveling before the unchecked power of Rome, and thinking that by our penance and prayers we were paying our own way. The kindness of our Savior and the glory of his Gospel would still be hidden from us as we perished in our sins. Don’t be surprised at painful opposition.
C. And don’t be deceived, either. John Calvin, another of the reformers, notes this on our text: “We are prone to fall into despair when princes who are armed with power to overwhelm us are hostile to and molest us. The evil is also aggravated from the consideration that it is the very persons who ought to be as bucklers to defend us, who employ their strength in hurting us. Yea, when the afflicted are stricken by those in high places, they in a manner think that the hand of God is against them.” This is not God’s opposition; it comes ultimately from the malevolent power that cannot be reasoned with, from Satan. So we need much courage.
II. THE QUALITY OF COURAGE.
A. Courage resides largely in the affections. We see this in the second half of this verse: “161 Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words.” Make no mistake: these unprovoked princes, these malevolent powers that cannot be reasoned with are a big deal. But the psalmist tells us that God’s Word is a bigger deal! And that’s the true key to courage. When God’s Word is the biggest deal of all, then you are fearless. To use a negative example, here’s a bank executive who boldly robs his own bank in broad daylight. Why would he be so fearless as to rob his own bank? Because the kidnappers are holding his family, and he fears their loss more than he fears the guards, the police, or even prison. They are more precious to him than his own life and liberty, and so he has no fear.
B. But God’s Word is altogether positive. Long Luther suffered the anguish of knowing he was damned for his sins. Long he searched for some help, some salvation, anything that could rescue him from the horrors of hell. Salvation would be of greater value to him than any treasure. And when he simply heard God’s promise, the Word’s sweet gospel pledge of Christ, not as his judge but as his Friend, and Substitute, and Savior, he had found his soul’s desire. Now this Gospel and the Word of God that proclaimed it became the biggest deal of all, and all else was small, inconsequential, irrelevant by comparison.
When he was on trial for his bold declaration of the Gospel and his fierce critique of the medieval church that first obscured it and then denied that Gospel, he was urged to recant, to give it up, on pain of death. His response, though he was tormented by their threats, was bold, truly courageous: “Since then your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convinced by Scriptures and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me, Amen. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”
C. His fear of God and his love for the Gospel and the Word that announced it overcame his fear of those who threatened his life and threatened to damn his soul in hell. Courage resides largely in the affections, fearing God more than we fear others, loving his promise more than we love life itself. You can hear the “affection” words in our text as an expression of the Psalmist’s confidence: “my heart stands in awe of your words. 162 I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. 163 I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law.”
III. THE SOURCE OF COURAGE.
That means that the Word of God, this priceless prize, is the source of true courage. That’s what Luther found: “my conscience is captive to the Word of God.” How could he deny the Word which brought him true life? For him the Word of God was a love greater than any threatened loss, a treasure beyond all bounty. And the psalmist agrees: “165 Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.”
It was there all the time. You may not have recognized its true worth, but there it is, the living Word of God. Do you see it? Do you know its value? Do you love it?
A. You must see it. If the Word of God is not the biggest of all to you, then you will always be at the mercy of whatever can convince you it is bigger. It may be the specter of failure that drives you to achieve, to waste your life chasing worldly success that is passing away. It may be the fear of loneliness, or the hot shame of ridicule that steals your soul from God and impels you into compromise. The Word of God must always be bigger to you. You must love the Word and hate falsehood above all, rejoice in the Word “like one who finds great spoil,” and hope in the Word continually with unshakable confidence. You must exalt the Word of God to the highest place, or something else will take its place in your heart, and you will fall.
B. And you must praise it. “164 Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules.” Seven is the number of completion, and so he means that he praises God continually, all through the day, for his righteous rules. Seven times a day. Have you praised God even seven times in your life for his righteous rules? I think he means us to follow him in this and to make this our intentional, habitual practice. One of the ways we exalt the Word of God into the first place, the highest place in our hearts, is to praise God for his Word continually. It is actively to consider the rightness of his law, to delight in the sweetness of his promise, to meditate on the surpassing glory of his gospel, and then to praise him: “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules.” If you praise anything long enough, you will begin to love it. How much more when we praise that which is truly praiseworthy, above all else.
C. And you must use it. You must put God’s Word into practice. “165 Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.” This great peace comes from loving God’s law and living God’s law. So he says in verse 166: “I hope for your salvation, O LORD, and I do your commandments.” He keeps God’s commands, which means he obeys them: “167 My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly. 168 I keep your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before you.” And as we obey God’s Word, as his truth convinces our minds and captivates our affections, and controls our actions, we will see even more of the glory of the Word in the beauty of a transformed life.
CONCLUSION
It is a strange irony that those who cave before the threat of opposition and scorn, before the tyrant who intimidates them, do not fear too much, but too little. Or, more properly, their fear is misplaced. They fear that which is small and unimportant because they do not fear that which truly substantial and significant.
Luther had long faced the fear of God’s judgment, of his condemnation to hell for his sins, and found full relief in the Gospel. But when he proclaimed this freedom from sin, he fell under the wrath of the established church. In 1520 he was pressing forward in prosecuting his case for the
Gospel and facing the wrath of the greatest power in all Europe. A friend wrote him, fearful that he would retreat before the threat. To which he replied:
“You ask how I am getting on. I do not know. Satan was never so furious against me. I can say this, that I have never sought goods, honor, and glory, and I am not cast down by the hostility of the masses. But, and this may surprise you, I am scarcely able to resist the smallest wave of inner despair (he was speaking of the fear of God’s judgment here), and that is why the least tremor of this kind expels the greatest of the other sort. You need not fear that I shall desert the standards.”
Roland Baintain, Luther’s biographer, writes: “The most intrepid revolutionary is the one who has a fear greater than anything his opponents can inflict upon him. Luther, who had so trembled before the face of God, had no fear before the face of men.”
Luther stood upon the Scriptures alone: “The world is conquered by the Word, and by the Word the Church is served and rebuilt. As Antichrist arose without the hand of man, so without the hand of man will he fall.” He will fall by the Word of God.
It is the Word of God. It is the Word that declares our need and strikes us down with the law. And it is the word of God that announces the good hope of forgiveness by the blood and righteousness of Christ.
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still
His kingdom is forever.
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Courage of the Word
161 Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words.
162 ¶ I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.
163 ¶ I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law.
164 ¶ Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules.
165 ¶ Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.
166 ¶ I hope for your salvation, O LORD, and I do your commandments.
167 ¶ My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly. 168 I keep your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before you.
Reformation Day
The Word as the ____ principle of the Reformation.
Calvin
“We are prone to fall into despair when princes who are armed with power to overwhelm us are hostile to and molest us. The evil is also aggravated from the consideration that it is the very persons who ought to be as bucklers to defend us, who employ their strength in hurting us. Yea, when the afflicted are stricken by those in high places, they in a manner think that the hand of God is against them.”
Thinking the law is a restraint to keep you from happiness. Whatever you believe will bring you true happiness will be your master. It will lead you by the nose, it will promise you contentment and peace, true life, and it will lie. It will always break its promise, and you will die in misery and despair. Why, because
A. When I was in seminary and working with middle school students, I noticed a refrain that often came to their lips: “That’s not fair.” I heard it so often that I began to take notice of when and under what circumstances this mantra was being invoked. And in many of the cases, no true injustice had occurred. What prompted the phrase most often was when a situation occurred that they did not like or that in some way was to their disadvantage. When I pointed this fact out to one of the more mature boys who had just invoked this protest, he quickly admitted, “You’re right. It was fair. We just say that when we don’t like something.”
The psalmist does something similar in our text for this morning. He calls out to God about the wicked who are afflicting him, and he asks God to intervene. And the basis of his request is simply this: he loves God’s precepts and does not swerve from his testimonies, but these many adversaries do not keep God’s commands. In other words, God should judge between them and save him from their schemes because he is more righteous than they. He deserves to be delivered. “I have kept your law and they haven’t. This is not fair. I deserve better than this.”
Protestants, especially of the Reformed persuasion like us, tend to be a bit shocked by this language. We Reformed are very careful not to go to God and ask for what we deserve, because we know what we deserve: death and hell for our many sins. So we go to God always pleading grace. We also have come to know God’s wonderful mercy in Christ who willingly took what we deserve upon himself on the cross—our guilt, shame, death, grave, and hell for us—so that we might escape. This is grace: God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense, and it is always on the basis God’s amazing grace that we come to him for anything.
This is a glorious truth, the beginning of hope, brimming with life. But it may also tend to lead us into a false humility, when God’s grace in Christ ought to lead us into a holy boldness on our part. If we are not overflowing with this solid confidence, if we are not courageous, perhaps even a little audacious in our faith, then we have perhaps not gotten it quite right.
Like every other truly good thing, it is the Word of God that is the source of this living hope, this holy boldness. It is the acquittal of the Word that we read of this morning that puts and end to our timidity and fear and gives us life and conviction and confidence in every fiber of our being. That’s because…
I. THE WORD ACQUITS US BEFORE GOD.
A. An acquittal is a very good thing if you are a defendant. If you go to trial and the jury returns a verdict of “not guilty,” then you are free. You have nothing more to fear from the police or from the prosecutor or from the jailer or executioner. They cannot touch you because you have been officially acquitted, declared not guilty.
So when the psalmist calls out to God for deliverance, it is on the basis of his acquittal that he dares to ask for help. “153 Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law.” From that verse alone, it may sound like he’s saying, “I’ve been a very good boy, so you should help me out here. He’s not approaching God like he’s Santa Claus, saying “Check your list, check it twice, you will find I’m not naughty but nice, and so on this basis I deserve a stocking full of goodies and not a lump of coal.” I may appear that he’s saying that, until we remember that God’s “Law,” his torah, did not only include commands, but also the sacrificial system by which the sinner might be forgiven. And this is quite plain from what he says next: “154 Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise!” So we see there what he’s hoping in, and it’s not his good behavior. He knows his life flows from God’s promise.
And this is emphasized even more in the last two verses of this section: “159 Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love. 160 The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.” So he’s hoping in God’s steadfast love which would not be required if he had earned God’s favor by his superior performance.
His confidence, his boldness before God so that he could so audaciously say to God twice: “Look!” or similarly, “Consider!” this confidence is based on God’s promise and steadfast love. He could nearly command God to pay attention to his situation: “Look!” “Consider!” But he does so, not because he himself is so good and holy and deserving, but because God has promised him life out of his steadfast love, and God’s Word endures forever.
We are familiar with Paul’s declaration in Ephesians 2 that we are saved by grace, God’s undeserved and unearned favor toward us, and that this is simply appropriated by faith, by believing and trusting God’s promise in Christ. And in that context Paul says, quite correctly, that no one may…boast. No one may boast of self-salvation, because the only way we can be saved is by helplessly receiving God’s free gift of eternal life in Christ. That truly would be stupidity and arrogance if we went about boasting of how we were so good that even a holy God had to accept us.
But even though we do not boast in our own goodness or power, that does not mean we should not boast. And that’s something that I think we may have forgotten. In Paul’s letter we call 2 Corinthians, Paul commands that we boast in two things. We must boast in the Lord, and we must boast in our weaknesses which all the more demonstrate his power and mercy.
I think we have underestimated the surpassing glory of our salvation in Christ. We do not grasp the greatness of the Gospel, probably because we do not grasp the greatness of God. The Spirit we have received in Jesus Christ does not lead us again to fear, it is not a spirit of timidity, Paul declares, in Romans 8, but a Spirit of adoption, by which we cry, “Abba, Father.” The true response of faith is not of groveling, hesitation, fear, or inactivity, but of sonship, boldness, joy, and great energy! The man who in Jesus’ parable who hid his talent in the ground did so because he feared his master as a hard and exacting man. He did not know that his lord was filled with generosity, kindness, and love.
We rest in his promise. God is honored when we take him at his Word and then move forward in confident hope. God is glorified by those who believe his promise in Christ and who then boast about him to others.
There’s an old story about a soldier who was found guilty of cowardice and desertion and sentenced to death. The crime was so serious that the emperor himself appeared to witness his execution. The emperor asked the condemned man if he had any last words, but he was too choked up to speak. So the emperor order that water be brought to him, but the man was shaking so badly that he almost spilled it. The emperor assured him, “Be not afraid. Not a hair of your head will be harmed until you have finished your drink.” With that the doomed man cast the water to the ground. He would not drink it, so, according to the emperor’s word, he could not be touched. The emperor was pleased that man so trusted his word that he not only forgave him, but promoted him to the rank of general.
God is honored when we simply take him at his Word. He has promised forgiveness, reconciliation, salvation, and adoption to all who simply trust his Son to save you. Are you trusting Christ? Then stop cowering, put away your false humility, cast down your fear, and rise up to serve your king. You cannot fail. He is for you. Boast in his kindness and love, his almighty power to save through the precious blood of the Son of God. Rise up and fear no more.
II. THE WORD ACQUITS US BEFORE OTHERS.
But the psalmist also faces the problem of his persecutors and adversaries. We know that the basis for his calling out to God for help is according to God’s promise and not according to his self-righteousness. He does not ask God to give him what he deserves for his sins. Rather, he trusts God’s promise of salvation, of the sacrifice lamb, of the blood that covers his guilt according to God’s steadfast love. He doesn’t know the full story, but he’s trusting in Christ.
But with regard to his adversaries, he can once again turn to God’s Word for acquittal, for being exonerated before them. He speaks of this in verses 155-158: “155 Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes. 156 Great is your mercy, O LORD; give me life according to your rules. 157 Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies. 158 I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands.”
He said, “I plead my cause against those who afflict me. I have followed your statutes, but they haven’t. I have done right by them, but they are being unfair to me. They are returning evil for good. And so I ask that you judge between us and come to my aid against them.”
Here’s a fifth-grader being picked on by the bullies in school. He honestly has done nothing to provoke them. He has always treated them with fairness and respect. But because he’s smaller, or because he’s different, or because he trusts Christ, or because they can get away with it, they pick on him mercilessly. And they are too clever to get caught. So it goes on each day.
Does he have a right to say to God, “I’m innocent; I have done nothing to these people, yet they hate me without cause; judge between us and grant me justice; I don’t deserve this mistreatment”? Yes, he does. The Word acquits us before others, but not in the same way that it acquits us before God. Trusting God’s promise acquits us before God, but obeying his commands acquits us before others.
In such conflicts there is often someone who is in the right and someone who is in the wrong. We sometimes forget this. We think that to resolve such disputes both sides need to admit what they did wrong and then they shake hands and forgive each other, and it’s all over. The reason we fall into this error is that we mistakenly believe that all people are basically good and want to do the right thing and that all disputes are really misunderstandings between good people. “Nobody’s perfect, everybody makes mistakes, so if there is conflict, both are always at fault and it’s just a little misunderstanding.”
But that’s not what God’s Word teaches us. Though this is sometimes the case, more often there is a clear line between innocence and guilt. The psalmist could state before God: “they do not seek your statutes….but I do not swerve from your testimonies.” That sounds pretty one-sided to me. I have done what is right, but they haven’t, and I don’t deserve the evil they are committing against me. This is often the case when marriages come apart. She’s been carrying on with several men in town, but somehow her husband is to blame? Or he’s beaten his wife repeatedly, but somehow it’s her fault? Really? Aren’t there some people who are just evil, who are totally at fault, and who are completely guilty for the bad things they do? And if they do them to us, can’t we call out to God for justice? Can’t we expect God to take sides when there is a clear side to take? I think we can. I think we must. There is a right and wrong. God’s Word reveals it. And if you can point to the Word against your adversary and say, “I have kept this, and you have not,” then you can rightly say to God “Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies. 158 I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands.”
CONCLUSION
God’s Word acquits us before others, those who would afflict us and persecute us. So we must be sure that do right to others. When we don’t, when we do offend others, we should apologize and seek their forgiveness. And we should even go beyond treating others fairly. We should love them, truly love them. We should return good for evil. We should pray for those who persecute us, and do good to those who mistreat us. And when we do so, our righteousness will be evident to all.
More importantly, God’s Word acquits us before Him as we boldly trust his promises in Christ and rest in his work instead of our own. The more we trust him, the more boldly we appropriate the benefits of our new relationship with God, the more he is honored. They more we count God as true and trustworthy and faithful to his Word, the more glory he receives.
Several years ago I served on the board of a non-profit agency in the area. One of our affiliates was preparing a request for funding from an extremely wealthy man. And surprisingly one of the words of counsel given to them was that when they approached this wealthy man, they should not ask for too little. It would be considered an insult to ask too little from someone with such great resources.
And how much more is our God honored when we boldly trust him, and boldly boast in him, and boldly ask of him!
1Co 1:31 Therefore, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
2Co 10:17 “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
2Co 11:30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
2Co 12:5 On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.
2Co 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
But even though we are not to boast about ourselves, our goodness or cleverness or power or skill, still we are to boast and boast loudly. We are to do a bit of crowing, of bragging, if you will, in the wisdom, power, and especially kindness of God.
We are not bold enough before God.
The Psalmist
“153 Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. 154 Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise!
155 Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes. 156 Great is your mercy, O LORD; give me life according to your rules. 157 Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies. 158 I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands.
159 Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love. 160 The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.
A. One of the perpetual problems with human language and communication is that over time and through overuse, special words may become devalued, cheapened, and almost emptied of meaning. This most often occurs when we are trying to make comparisons. How do you describe something that is far above average? You may say it is “great,” but then so are Frosted Flakes. Or you may say that it is “super,” but then so is Super Sugar Crisp. Or you may say that it is “totally tubular” or “groovy” or “far out” but everybody would give you funny looks because nobody talks like that any more.
I think I first noticed the problem back in college. I had transferred into the school and volunteered to be part of a special transfer student choir at an evening convocation service. After our first run through the song, which went alright, the student director declared that we were “very excellent.” I didn’t think we were even excellent, let alone “very excellent,” and in fact, I wasn’t even sure it was possible to be “very excellent.” Are there gradations of “excellent”? Could something be only “sort of excellent” or “medium excellent”? But the problem, of course, was that the word excellent had been overused, and so to say that our performance was merely excellent might have been seen as an insult.
B. Advertisers are largely to blame. They keep declaring their average products to be “great,” “fabulous,” or “outstanding” and we are then reluctant to reuse those words for fear that we might be comparing something or someone to toothpaste. A few years back, it was popular to sing the chorus that declared our God to be an “awesome” God. But the word “awesome” recently made the Lake Superior State University’s list of most overused words. So it is now not only as an adjective that is meaningless, it is also annoying. Several years ago the advertisers of an automobile company apparently ran out of words, so they had to borrow one. They showed a German engineer watching a car whiz past and breathlessly whisper, “ausgezeichnet” a word that means nothing in English.
So in all of our descriptions of God’s Word, as I gave titles to the twenty-two sections of Psalm 119, this song of praise for God’s Word, I knew I ran the risk of running out of terms, and I chose to apply a title to this 19th section of our psalm which is definitely overused and devalued: “inspiration.”
To say that the Word of God is inspiring is not saying much. A greeting card may be inspiring, as may be a Youtube video, or even an Adam Sandler movie. The word today simply means that it elicits certain warm and happy feelings. But literally the word means to breath into—in spire. God’s Word is inspired in the sense that God has exhaled it into existence. It is “God-breathed,” Paul explains in 2 Timothy 3:16. Because God has ex-spired the Word, the Word itself is in-spired. And, the Word then has the power to in-spire us, not simply to make us feel warm and happy like comfort food, but actually to breathe something into us, to breathe life into us; to breathe the Spirit of God himself into us.
I. GOD’S WORD IS OUR CONFIDENCE.
God’s Word is inspired, literally breathed-out by God, and so God is near to his Word. The psalmist complains that some enemies have approached him: “150 They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose; they are far from your law. 151 But you are near, O LORD, and all your commandments are true.”
A. Now let’s be sure we get the picture. What do we know about these persecutors? One thing we know is that they are far from God’s law. They have abandoned God’s law, rejected it, and so they follow a different program and path. And that means they are far from God and his purposes. Because they are far from God’s law, they are also far from God himself. But the psalmist says that the Lord is near to him because he counts all God’s commandments to be true. The psalmist is near to God’s commandments, and so God is near to him. The point is that God is near to his Word. If you want to draw close to God, the Word is the place to do so. God is here, so this is where you can find him and draw near to him.
B. We find our comfort in the Scriptures, as does the psalmist: “147 I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words. 148 My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise.” Throughout the centuries and the millennia, God’s people in both the Old Testament and New Testament periods and all the way up to today have consistently witnessed that God’s Word provides great confidence and comfort. Why is this the case?
Well, certainly we would point to the many promises and assurances in the Word. “You are my people, and I am your God.” “I am your shield and deliverer.” “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Who wouldn’t draw strength from these words of hope?
And we could point to the power and love of God on display in his Word. We can marvel at his instantly creating all things by the Word of his power. We can see his electing love for his people, Israel, and for the church. We can note his faithful care even when his people were unfaithful.
And we could point especially to God’s giving his Son, to the miracle of Christmas, the great drama of the cross, the triumph of his resurrection from the dead, his ascension and enthronement, his reign and return.
C. But there is another reason why God’s Word is so comforting to his people. It is because God is in his Word. We meet the living God here today, his living voice, in the Word. This is not a dead, historical voice, not just a tape recording, but a walkie-talkie. God speaks, and he is near. If we can hear his voice, he must be close by. Here’s a young child lost in the dark woods at night. He hears the wind, and the owl in the tree overhead, and the unseen animals scampering about him. He hears the chilling howl of the wolf in the distance. But then he hears something else. It is his father’s voice calling his name. And immediately his countenance changes. He is no longer afraid, but is filled with confident hope. Why? It is not because a mere voice can help you, the vibrations of sound waves, but because his father’s voice means his father is near, and his father can help him.
D. Jesus said in John 15:7: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” That is a marvelous promise, but please notice the implication. Jesus says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you….” Are those two different things, abiding in him and his words abiding in you? Are those two separate activities? Not really. Jesus is explaining the one by the other. How do we abide (live, dwell) in him? By having his words abide (live, dwell) in us. Why is that so? Because Jesus abides in his words. Jesus is in his Word—that’s where we can be sure we will meet him. In fact, this is the only place we can be sure to meet him. The Word is inspired, breathed- out by God, and so it is inspiring—it can breathe life, breathe God, breathe the Lord Jesus Christ into us. We meet him here in the Word.
Do you hug your Bible? I do sometimes. And it’s not because of the soft leather or its malleable pages that conform to my contours. And it has long ago lost its “new Bible” smell. The reason I hug my Bible is because I have so often met the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ in this book, that it has become dear to me, a paradise really. This is my Garden of Eden where I meet with God, almost face-to-face, in the cool of the day. This book is not my God, but it’s where I meet him; it is his words, his voice, where he still speaks today, and so it is divine.
II. GOD’S WORD IS OUR GOAL.
Now if God’s Word is our great confidence, then it follows that God’s Word is also our goal. If God’s Word is our only comfort, then we must, at all costs, stay true to his Word.
A. This section of Psalm 119 like so many others has an air of true desperation to it. You can hear the anxiousness in his pleas. “145 With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O LORD! I will keep your statutes…. (He is completely consumed with this) 147 I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words. 148 My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, (which may mean that he has not slept) that I may meditate on your promise.”
But it is instructive to note what has him so vexed. “150 They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose; they are far from your law.” They are persecuting him, taunting him, oppressing him to do something. What is it? He says that they have an “evil purpose,” and ordinarily that “evil purpose” refers to idolatry or immorality. They are persecuting him, taunting him because he is faithful to God and he obeys God’s Word, and they are trying to get him to join them in their wickedness, to plunge with them into evil. And that agrees with verse 146: “146 I call to you; save me, that I may observe your testimonies.” He is pleading with God for deliverance SO THAT he may keep God’s Law. That means that the danger, the threat, is that he is being tempted in some way to depart from God’s Law. And if he does that, he loses his comfort and confidence—he loses God. If God is in his Word and he abandons the Word, then he abandons God. So God’s Word is not only our confidence—it is also our goal. And that is the most pressing threat that we likewise face today. God’s Word is our only confidence, and if we lose the Word, we lose all.
How might we be tempted to compromise the Word of God today?
1. We are strongly pressured to count the Bible as untrue, or at least partly untrue, and so partly in error. We are constantly told that “the Bible is an old book, the mixed opinions of religious people who had some good ideas perhaps, but were also the victims of the prejudices and limitations of their day. So, of course, the Bible cannot be fully trusted.” And I would agree, if that’s all that the Bible is. If it is a merely human book, it will be flawed, perhaps deeply flawed. Even books written today, with all of our knowledge and sophistication and technology, will be ridiculed in the future since our knowledge keeps growing. That’s why we have new editions to textbooks, and that’s why older textbooks seem a bit silly.
But that’s not all the Bible is. It is the very Word of God written. It is his speech, his voice, and as such it cannot err; it is inerrant, and so it is infallible and utterly trustworthy. I am so glad that every officer in the PCA must agree to that truth as his first vow: “1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as originally given, to be the inerrant Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice?” Every pastor, elder, and deacon must answer that question in the affirmative, “I do so believe.” This is an important safeguard from the worldly pressures to forsake the Word. And you should beware churches where the officers will not declare that the Bible is the very Word of God without err, infallible and inerrant.
2. Similarly, we are strongly pressured to count the Bible as outdated. “Certainly there are some good things in the Bible, some enduring principles like ‘love your neighbor’ and so forth. But much of the Bible has been superseded by our superior wisdom and understanding of today.” The social sciences, for example, are often used to trump the Bible. “Those superstitious, unscientific, pre-historics in the Bible thought that homosexually was a sin, so they condemned it,” we are told. “But they also thought that being left-handed was a sin. They didn’t know what science now proves: that homosexuality is perfectly normal, genetic, and so the enlightened Christian must rise above the Bible’s bigotry.” (By the way, the Bible never condemns being left-handed, or my father could never have served as a deacon, and we couldn’t have southpaws playing on the church softball team).
Or we are told that “the Bible was born in a patriarchal society that hated women and so that’s why the Bible allows only men to serve in church office.” And, again, all that would be true, if the Bible were merely human words. And if that’s what you believe, then you may certainly do as you please, but you also forfeit the confidence of the Word because there’s not a lot of true comfort to be found in the Bible if it is just the narrow-minded scratchings of a bunch of bigots.
3. And we are strongly pressured to count the Bible as insufficient for our needs today. As the Cambridge declaration points out, “In practice, the church [today] is guided, far too often, by the culture. Therapeutic technique, marketing strategies, and the beat of the entertainment world often have far more to say about what the church wants, how it functions and what it offers, than does the Word of God…. Scripture must take us beyond our perceived needs to our real needs and liberate us from seeing ourselves through the seductive images, clichés, promises and priorities of mass culture. It is only in the light of God's truth that we understand ourselves aright and see God's provision for our need.”
The Bible is sufficient because it is God’s Word. And we must look to God and listen to his voice, to build our lives, our homes, and his church.
CONCLUSION
I’m reminded of something Vishal Mangalwadi pointed out to us a few years ago during our missions conference. He told us that when he was exploring Christianity, he read the Bible and was struck with the question of who would have wanted it written? The kings were in control of the people, but they certainly wouldn’t have wanted the Bible written because it exposes them as a bunch of self-serving scoundrels. So perhaps it was the priests, the religious people? But no, they were just as bad as the kings. How about the prophets? No, not the prophets. They are exposed as utterly weak and ineffective. They wouldn’t have wanted it written. So, perhaps, it was the common people who rose up to write the Bible? But, no, they were no better. Their most notable characteristic was their unfaithfulness.
And then it dawned on him. The only one who would have wanted this story written and preserved for all to see—was God himself. It must be God’s Word, for only God would have wanted it to be written. And God did cause it to be written, that he might speak to us and call us to faith, and fill us with Christ, as we are filled with his Word.
(
Kings? Priests? Prophets? People? Only God.
145 With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O LORD! I will keep your statutes. 146 I call to you; save me, that I may observe your testimonies.
147 ¶ I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words. 148 My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise.
149 ¶ Hear my voice according to your steadfast love; O LORD, according to your justice give me life.
150 ¶ They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose; they are far from your law. 151 But you are near, O LORD, and all your commandments are true.
152 ¶ Long have I known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever.
God is near his Word.
A. This may be the most difficult portion of this marvelous Psalm 119 for us to grasp, not because it is particularly obscure or ambiguous. In an earlier age it would have been readily understood, but we have all been shaped by this world to think in a certain way, and we have been robbed of a category for comprehending this truth. The Word of God is right. It is correct. It is always true and reliable and faithful and trustworthy. The Word of God is right: completely right, absolutely right, always right.
In an earlier age, if someone asked whether a statement was true or not, the answer would have been either “Yes” or “No.” But this is true no more. Now, the universal answer to such questions is “It depends.” Our world has been so overrun by relativism that for most people there is no longer any true truth, that is, truth that is always true at all times and under all circumstances. Instead, there is only “relative truth”: “truths” that may or may not be valid depending on the situation. And we all take this for granted, so we are not really equipped to grasp the notion that something could be right, always right, under all circumstances, to all people, in all places. And yet that is precisely what the Psalmist is claiming for the Word of God. It is right. “137 Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules. 138 You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness.
I. GOD’S WORD IS RIGHT.
A. What I am saying is that the Word of God is intrinsically right and not relatively right. It is always absolutely true. We are not accustomed to such understanding. We change our minds daily. And our laws change each year. Congress is constantly enacting new ones and repealing old ones. It used to be legal, though not very wise, to text while driving, but no more. It used to be right to drive only 55 mph everywhere in the United States, but now it is right to go faster in some places, apparently even as fast as you want in Montana during daylight hours.
Today there is only personal truth, so that something may be right for you but not for me. Or there is situational truth which is exactly as it sounds: it depends on the circumstances. Or there is updated truth: what was once false is now true, and what was once true has now been discarded. Or there is popular truth, truth that is decided by majority vote. A large minority, almost a majority, believe that Barak Obama is a Muslim. Does that mean that if a few more become convinced, then he will actually be a Muslim?
And if, in this highly relativized culture, there was something that was truly right, always right under every circumstance, for all peoples, in all times, even if nobody at all agrees with it, then we would have an anchor. There would be one solid pin upon which to affix everything else that is swirling about in a whirlpool of relativism. That’s what the psalmist is claiming about the Bible, the Word of God. It is right, not relative. It cannot be corrected or amended, because it need not be corrected or amended. With what could you correct it? If all other truth is constantly changing or is valid only according to the circumstances, how could you use that changing truth (we should call it by its right name, “opinion”), how could you use opinion to correct that which is right, intrinsically right?
B. The reason why the Word is right, of course, is because of Whose Word it is. “137 Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules.” Our hope and confidence in the Word of God is due to that fact that the One who spoke it is righteous. How many errors have arisen because of a lack of esteem for the Word of God! And the reason for this, of course, is that I already have my word, and God’s Word is frequently inconvenient. So one of the ways to neutralize the Bible’s inflexible authority is to drag it down from its glory and toss it into the arena of opinion. And once it is brought down to that level, I can then effortlessly ignore its sharp edges.
You’ve heard this many times before. “I know the Bible says this, but….” But? What argument, what evidence, what greater authority could be invoked to overturn the Word of God? When we were in the PCUSA I attended several General Assemblies. The decorum was generally polite. But if some debater rose to speak to a point and quoted the Bible, especially for some conservative cause, he or she would be audibly booed. The sense was that “we all know what the Bible says but let’s discuss the real evidence.” Many churches and denominations, because they use the label “Christian” somewhere in their literature, know that they must somehow deal with the Bible. They must at least to purport to get their ideas from the Bible. But it is often a “Bible” that has been highly edited so that it stays on very safe grounds, usually whatever is politically correct at the moment and agrees with the pre-set agenda. Presently the Bible can say most anything as long as its print is the color “green.”
But the psalmist declares: “140 Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it.” He is not saying, “People have tried it and liked it.” The word “tried” is used to describe the refinement of precious metals. How do you refine silver? You melt it with such heat that all impurities are burned off. “Well tried” silver is pure silver, unalloyed with any impurities. What the psalmist is saying is that God’s Word is absolutely pure, every word of the Lord is sure. We would say the Word of God is inerrant. And the reason is because God himself is inerrant. If God cannot err, then how can his speech err in any way?
C. Again, we are not used to this. There is literally nothing in this world that is right like the Word of God is right. Only the Word of God is fixed and enduring, unchangeable as God is unchangeable. Only the Bible is a solid anchor, a pin upon which to hook our tether so that we are not swept away by whatever prevailing winds happen to be blowing. The truth is that we are in constant motion. Our earth which seems so solid and stable and immovable is constantly rotating on its axis. Do you know how fast we are moving as the earth spins round and round? Just over 1,000 miles an hour. But wait, the earth itself is also revolving around the sun in our solar system making its year-long trek in an elliptical loop around the sun. The earth itself is speeding along at an astonishing 67,000 miles an hour. But wait, the solar system itself, the sun and all its planets, is also in motion, revolving around the galaxy. The whole solar system is hurtling through space going 600,000 miles per hour.
The point is that everything is changing. We are never in the same place for very long, and we will never, ever again be in the place we were at the beginning of this service over a quarter of a million miles ago. Only God’s Word is the same. It is unchanging; it is faithful and true; it is right, because its Author is right. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” Never—the Word of God is right.
II. RESPONDING TO GOD’S RIGHT WORD.
Knowing the Word of God to be the utterly unique and priceless treasure it is, the only anchor in an ever-changing world, how are we to respond? The psalmist’s first response is perhaps surprising.
A. His first reaction is anger. “139 My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words.” When he says that his foes forget God’s words, he does not simply mean that they don’t play by the rules. It’s not as though he has to contend with them according to a code of civility but that they can come at him with their dirty tricks. No, he is consumed with zeal because they forget, they ignore, they discount, disparage, and reject God’s Words. They treat this treasure as though it were trash. And in doing so, they treat the Lord himself with distain, as of no account. He sees the swine trampling the precious pearls, and he cannot contain his fury.
I think we are too angry, and at the same time, not angry enough. We become upset, even enraged at personal slights and insults, or even annoyances and frustrations, as though we and our serenity were of supreme value. And this is something we must learn, with God’s help, to extinguish. We need to take to heart the truth that his world is incurably broken by sin, and as a result will always be frustration and disappointing. We need to learn to accept that and let these things go. Every anger management class should start with an examination of pride, which is the real root of much of our unjust anger.
But at the same time we are consumed with road rage because someone cut us off in traffic, we scarcely bat an eye when people forget, neglect, or ignore the all-precious Word of God. We are too angry, and not angry enough, because we care so much about self, and so little about God’s Word. Do we really love God so little that we can pass a whole day without making the time to listen to his voice in the Word? Do we think so poorly of him that, when he provides opportunities to study his Word with others, we prefer a sitcom or melodrama? I’m almost afraid to say it, but the reason the psalmist is so angry when his foes forget or neglect God’s Word, of course, is because God is so angry when people forget or neglect his Word. It was said of Jesus: “Zeal for your house consumes me.” (John 2:17) It was from God’s house, his Temple, that the Word was to go forth. When Jesus found there, instead, the teachers of Israel more interested in profit than prophecy, he cast them all out in zeal.
But the psalmist’s other response ranges to the far opposite of the spectrum.
B. His other response is affection. So even though, he says, “139 My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words,” he finds that “140 Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it.” He loves it! He has come to realize deep within what a treasure has been entrusted to him in the Word of God—its utter uniqueness and its incomparable value because it is right, intrinsically right, always right.
He recognizes his relative insignificance and unimportance in the world, yet he clings to the Word. “141 I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts.” When St. Athanasius was in conflict with Arius over the doctrine of the Trinity and the full divinity of Christ, he was told at one point that the whole church had sided with Arius against the truth of Scripture. His reply, “Then Athanasius is the church.” That is the power of the eternal word of God: the small and despised cling to its truth, and they are eternal as the Word is eternal.
And just as we are simultaneously too angry and not angry enough, because we are angry about the wrong things, so do we simultaneously love too much and not enough because we love the wrong things. If we are so in love with the things of this world, it will crowd out our love for God and for his Word. John writes in 1 John 2: “15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
I would recommend that we all commit those verses to memory and repeat them every day until we finally believe them. I meet very few people who live like they believe those words. What it means, of course, is that you will finally be stuck forever with what you love the most. In the end, everybody gets the god he worships. If your love, your god, is passing away, then you will too. But because the Word of God is utterly unique because it is always and forever right and true, then “whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
I still see them occasionally, T-shirts that proclaim a person’s true God. “Baseball (or fishing, or golf) is life,” it will say, “all the rest is details.” “Golf is life?” Really?
“Oh, you know what they’re saying.” Yes, I do know what they’re saying. “16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world.”
“142 Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true. 143 Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight. 144 Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.”
CONCLUSION
God is not asking you to clean up your life, or spend less time golfing, or to try to do better, or even to read your Bible more frequently. Rather, God is calling you to surrender your life to his Son, Jesus Christ. The reason you have so little desire for his Word is because you do not really know him. The Word is the voice of the Good Shepherd, and his sheep know him and recognize his voice and love his voice.
In the days of sailing vessels and perilous voyages, sailors would lash themselves to the ship’s deck during the storm. Without the tether, firmly fixed to the ship, the winds and waves would surely wash them away where they would be utterly and forever lost in the unforgiving sea. The ship was their anchor. “What if the ship went down?” you ask. Then they would go down with it. But without the tether and the ship, they would surely be lost.
All these years you may have sat in this church and resisted Christ because you thought he would cramp your style or interfere with your agenda. Listen, he doesn’t want your style or your agenda. He wants you. He gave his blood to save sinners like you, and he wants you to come to him, to fasten your tether on his unchanging, everlasting truth, so that you won’t be swept away and utterly lost into irrelevancy by the storm that is coming. And here’s the point: this ship won’t go down. It cannot go down, because he is the Son of God, and he lives forever in the power of an indestructible life. And his Word is right, always and forever right and trustworthy and sure. “142 Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true.” So you come to Christ today. Give him your worthless life, and find true life in him.
137 ¶ Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules. 138 You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness.
139 ¶ My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words.
140 ¶ Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it.
141 ¶ I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts.
142 ¶ Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true.
143 ¶ Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight. 144 Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.
Costello Space Art
A) The Earth rotates or spins at over 1000 miles per hour, taking 24 hours, our day, to make one rotation.
B) The Earth revolves around our star “The Sun,” at 30 kilometers a second or 67,000 miles per hour, taking one year to make one revolution.
C) Our solar system ( Solar =’s, the sun, --, System =’s, the planets, moons, asteroids and comets) revolves around the galaxy at over 600,000 miles an hour taking 225 million years to make one rotation around the galaxy. Our solar system has made 18 revolutions around the galaxy since its formation four and a half billion years ago.
That is a speed of about 1040 miles/hr (1670 km/hr or 0.5 km/sec). This is calculated by dividing the circumference of the Earth at the equator (about 24,900 miles or 40,070 km) by the number of hours in a day (24). As you move toward either pole, this speed decreases to almost zero (since the circumference of the spinning circle at the extreme latitudes approaches zero).
The Earth orbits, on average, 93 million miles (149,600,000 km) from the Sun (this distance is defined as one Astronomical Unit (AU)), taking one year to complete an orbit. The Earth revolves around the Sun at a speed of about 18.5 miles/sec (30 km/sec).
The sun is about 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is about 80,000 to 120,000 light-years across (and less than 7,000 light-years thick). We are located on on one of its spiral arms, out towards the edge. It takes the sun (and our solar system) roughly 200-250 million years to orbit once around the Milky Way. In this orbit, we (and the rest of the Solar System) are traveling at a velocity of about 155 miles/sec (250 km/sec).
A. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy world of his “Lord of the Rings” series, there are three main races dwelling in Middle Earth. There are, of course, men, but also dwarves and elves. These latter two are almost complete opposites and naturally share some distrust and distaste. But because of a dire threat, a dwarf named Gimli must team up with an elf and others to undertake a perilous quest. Their journey brings them through the mines of Moria, an ancient and glorious stronghold of the dwarves. Gimli is excited to lead the way, but is utterly crushed when he finds that Moria has been overrun by evil creatures, and they must all flee for their lives.
Next they travel through the land of Lothlorien, a stronghold of the elves. Gimli has heard fearful tales of this place and is reluctant to take this route. But then he meets the queen of the elves, Galadriel, and he is stunned, not only by her beauty but by her kindness. She compassionately praises the fairness of Gimli’s lost Moria. Tolkien writes: “She looked upon Gimli, who sat glowering and sad, and she smiled. And the Dwarf, hearing the names given in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding. Wonder came into his face, and then he smiled in answer.
“He rose clumsily and bowed in dwarf-fashion, saying: ‘Yet more fair is the living land of Lorien, and the Lady Galadriel is above all the jewels that lie beneath the earth.’” Later, when they must depart, Galadriel gives each traveler a gift. When she presses Gimli to name the desire of his heart, he finally agrees to one request—a single strand of her hair, which to him would surpass all the gold of the earth. This sudden transformation occurred when he first grasped the beauty and mercy of the queen.
B. And this sudden transformation happens when we grasp the surpassing wonder of the Word of God. “129 Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them.” The psalmist has already declared the Word to be sweeter than honey, more precious than the finest gold. Have you been transformed by the surpassing wonder of the Word? Is it sweet to you, sweeter than any other word? Is it your most precious possession, outshining all the gold of the earth? The surpassing wonder of the Word creates deep affection—strong emotion and passion for the Word. We see these deep affections welling up in the psalmist’s expression. For example, there is a
I. PANTING FOR THE ENLIGHTENING WORD.
“130 The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. 131 I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments.”
A. What this text tells us, among other things, is that the Word of God is intellectually satisfying. It “gives light” and “imparts understanding.” The Word of God truly answers the foundational questions. It unravels the deep mysteries and puzzles of life. It is substance. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. It is able to save because it is not the mere word of men but the very Word of the one, true God, the Maker of all there is. And as such, it is in a class by itself. There is nothing like the Bible, for it bears the supernatural quality of the Word of God.
I’m reading the autobiography of Kerry Livgren, one of the founding members of Kansas, the progressive rock band from the 1970s and 80s. Livgren wrote most of their songs including their two biggest hits, “Carry on My Wayward Son” and their best known, “Dust in the Wind.” What’s fascinating is that when he was writing these lyrics, lyrics which were being memorized and sung repeatedly by millions from my generation, he now admits that he had no idea what he was talking about. Livgren became a Christian in 1979, but prior to this time he had, in his own words, “sampled the wares of a whole cafeteria of religious choices” (103). He was no intellectual lightweight. He had read most of the great philosophers. He had imbibed the best that human thinking could achieve. But through the faithful Christian witness of a singer from another band, Livgren was brought face-to-face with the Bible’s claims. He saw the superiority of the Word of God and put his faith in Jesus Christ.
B. This world already has its own wisdom. It is calculated to dispense with the God of the Bible whom our first parents rejected. This merely human wisdom sets itself up against the wisdom of God. It judges God’s wisdom to be foolishness. And what we must realize is that this human wisdom is default mode for us, and we continually drift back to it without the continual supply of the Word of God.
St. Augustine at first rejected the Word of God. He was looking for the smooth, refined words of human rhetoric and oratory. But when he sickened of these empty, vain, and powerless words of human cleverness, he took up and read again the Word of God, and it broke upon him with power. He surrendered to the Word and became a lifelong servant of the Word.
C. We must consider this a part of true conversion. Coming to faith in Jesus Christ and the regeneration of the Holy Spirit that precedes it, this new birth, must necessarily include an affection for the Word of God. What once must have seemed like a restrictive prison cell or a tiresome burden of obligations, suddenly becomes life and joy. It’s like Gimli in Lothlorien, sad and fearful, until he hears her sweet voice and is arrested by her compassion. So is God’s Word to those who hear the voice of Jesus calling with his promise of new hope and new life. And, for those who believe, it creates a panting, an overwhelming desire for this other-worldly Word from the living God. Nothing from this world truly satisfies. So, empty and drained by the word, the believer pants for the Word.
Is it still to you just a set of restraining rules? Is it still to you only a moral code which you honestly could take or leave? Is it still to you a collection of ancient stories to which you struggle to relate? Do you not in the Scriptures hear the voice of God calling to you as in a garden, undressing your nakedness and shame but also promising you pardon and peace? Then I think you are not yet born again. And you must go prayerfully back to the Word and drink more deeply.
The psalmist also expresses his
II. DESPERATION FOR THE SOUND WORD.
A. The Word of God provides a way. As we have seen, “it is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.” It is a sure way, a sound way. It is a steady path in an utterly perilous world. Those who have come to know God in his Word cling to it with desperation. So the psalmist is anxious to be kept on that straight path: “132 Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name. 133 Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me. 134 Redeem me from man’s oppression, that I may keep your precepts.”
Are you desperate for God’s Word to keep you on that straight path? Do you recognize this world as exceedingly perilous, and that your greatest danger, perhaps your only danger is to let iniquity get dominion over you? The psalmist only prays for deliverance from human oppression “that I may keep your precepts.”
B. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings fantasy is as powerful as it is popular. This is so largely because it describes a quest with the gravest of consequences. This touches a cord deep within us for we know that we are on a similar quest between good and evil with everlasting consequences. Sadly many refuse this quest and settle for wealth or pleasure or vainglory or entertainment or the perpetual vacation of a buffet of ever more intense and ever less satisfying experiences.
C. The peril on the path, of course, is disobedience. “133 Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.” Steady steps are the steps of obedience. Do you pray each day that God would help you carefully obey his commands? Rare is the person today with the clear eye to see that the false step is the step into sin. In fact the intent of such oppression and persecution is to cause the Christian to disobey God’s commands. “134 Redeem me from man’s oppression, that I may keep your precepts.”
Long before Tolkien, John Bunyan wrote of another dangerous journey in his Pilgrim’s Progress. It is an allegory of the Christian’s walk with Christ to the Promised Land, the celestial city of heaven. At one point, the Christian must take a path in the dark of night. To one side is a deep ditch from which escape is impossible, and to the other is a bottomless quagmire. The Christian made his way, his terror rising with every step. “When Christian had travelled in this disconsolate condition some considerable time, he thought he heard the voice of a man, as going before him, saying, Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Psa. 23:4.” It was God’s Word to which he clung with desperation; and it was God’s Word that saw him through.
Do you hear in the Word God’s call to this quest, this journey to flee a doomed age which is passing away and to follow the bleeding tracks of the Savior as he leads you like a faithful Shepherd? And to you cling in desperation to that same Word as your only sound word, your only sure guide on this perilous path?
D. So God’s Word is unique, other-worldly, unlike anything else. The sheer wonder of the Word of God creates deep affection. We see this affection welling up in believers, those who have been awakened by the Spirit of God speaking in the Word of God, the sheep who belong to the Good Shepherd, who hear and recognize his voice in his Word, and who will never follow the stranger. This wonderful Word creates a panting for the Word’s enlightenment, for it is utterly intellectually satisfying. And it creates a desperation for the Word’s sound guidance, for it is the only sure path. It also creates a…
III. GRIEF FOR THE VIOLATED WORD.
A. Not all Christian affections are what we would call positive. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn.” How could it be so in a world that has been broken and fractured by sin, a world that has been overrun by the Evil One? We follow a Savior who wept over his own capital city of Jerusalem because he invited them to come to him and be saved. He proved his compassion and power, his authenticity as the Son of God and Messiah, but they would not. And the Psalmist here expresses his sorrow and anguish because God’s wonderful word is not kept. “135 Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes. 136 My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.”
What grief when that which is most wonderful is counted as nothing! His sorrow flows because “people do not keep” God’s law. Of course they do not obey it, but even worse, they do not keep it in their hearts. They do not treasure it us as the unique and incomparable wonder it is. Do you?
B. Why do his “eyes shed streams of tears”? It might be because these people, his people, forfeit the light and life and comfort of the Word. They still stumble in ignorance and stupidity thinking that by attaining human wisdom they have arrived at true enlightenment, and their darkness is even greater. Or it may be because they travel the perilous path unaided and unguided and the deep ditch or the fathomless quagmire awaits them. It is perhaps out of compassion: his “people perish for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6) because they have rejected the only Word that can saved them.
C. But I think the streams of tears flow for another reason. It is grief for the dishonor it brings to the Word. Because the Word is so incomparably beautiful in itself, its neglect is the greatest outrage.
Gimli the dwarf was arrested, forever transformed by Galadriel’s beauty and compassion. But the time came when he must leave to continue quest. Tolkien writes:
“Gimli wept openly. “I have looked the last upon that which was fairest, he said to … his companion. Henceforward I will call nothing fair unless it be her gift.” He put his hand to his breast.
“Tell me, … why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Glóin!”
The psalmist may love his people and sorrow at their loss through their carelessness to the Word. But he loves the Word even more and cannot bear to see it mistreated so. His highest joy is to “keep” the wonderful Word himself. His deepest dismay is that others do not keep the Word of God. Elsewhere the psalmist writes: “I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.” (138:2) What this means, of course, is that as you treat the Word, so you treat God himself.
CONCLUSION
What I’m asking is whether or not the Word of God has affected you at your deepest level, so that all other voices, all other words always ring a bit hollow and fall short before the wonder of the Word? Can you honestly tell me that the almighty God whom you profess to know and love has spoken, and you can pass by his Word without falling on your face before that Word with fear and trembling? If that is so, then I think your faith is something other than that of the Psalmist.
In 2 Corinthians 5:11, Paul writes, “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.” It is that fear that compels me today to urge you to forsake the foolish fantasy life you have constructed for yourself as a shelter to shut out the Word of the living God, and to give heed to his voice, to throw yourself on Jesus Christ as the only Savior, and to give yourself to him utterly as a living sacrifice.
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