The Blessed Hope: Advent Sunday

November 27, 2009 at 3:12 pm · Filed under Christian living, Jesus Christ, The hereafter ·Tagged , ,

 

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Introduction
From the Burial Service of the Church of England (and many other churches):
“… in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Christian has hope when he or she faces death, or bereavement. Paul says although we sorrow we do not grieve as those who have no hope ( 1 Thessalonians 4:18). We have the hope of the resurrection, the hope of eternal life, the hope of the Lord’s return. Last week we were looking at Faith, this week Hope, next week Love. These three last forever, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13: 7.

But what do we mean by hope? The modern idea of hope is, “to wish for, to expect, but without certainty of the fulfillment; to desire very much, but with no real assurance of getting your desire.” In the Bible hope is an indication of certainty. “Hope” in Scripture means “a strong and confident expectation.”

And Christian hope is centered on Christ -  he is our Hope. You could say that Hope is similar to Faith in that they both involve trust. But whereas Faith looks back to what Jesus has done for us on the cross and through his Resurrection, Hope looks forward  to what Jesus is going to do. It anticipates his Return, and the Day of Judgement, and the Resurrection of the Dead. Hope is looking forward to things as yet unseen.  You could describe it as “faith in the future”.

 

Hope in the Bible

Here are some of the things the Bible says about hope:

·  “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”    (Colossians 1:25-27 )

·  “ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope.” ( 1 Timothy 1:1 )

·  “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,  where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf.”  ( Hebrews 6:19 )
As the hymn says:

“We have an anchor that keeps the soul
Steadfast and sure while the billows roll,
Fastened to the Rock which cannot move,
Grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love.”

Christian hope is our secure anchor. This hope  enters through the veil or curtain which separates  this world from the next. It goes right to God’s presence in the inner sanctuary. We may be living in this world but our hope is anchored firmly in the world to come – or rather, in the eternal “now” in which God exists. It is Christian Hope which enables us to look out at the world and view it, to some extent, from the viewpoint of eternity.

As a different hymn says:   “God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year.”

 

Getting ready

Advent Sunday is the first day of our preparation for Christmas (although some people have been preparing for months!) On the one hand we look back and celebrate the coming of Christ into the world as a tiny baby. On the other hand we look forward to the day of his return, his Second Advent, his coming in glory.

Christianity, we must always remember, is a supernatural faith. It’s not just about this world. Yes we must be concerned with the plight of the poor and needy, we must love our neighbour, we have to campaign for social reform, and we are trying to save the planet from ecological disaster. But important as these things are this is only a part of our faith. We are also concerned with getting ready for the world to come.

(There is a tension between these two aspects: we need to keep them in balance. It’s no good giving up our jobs and waiting on a mountain top for the Lord to return. But neither is it any good just busying ourselves with the physical needs around us and ignoring the  spiritual.)
Getting ready for the world to come:

·  “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”  ( 1 Corinthians 15:19 )

·  “While we wait for the blessed hope— the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ,”  (Titus 2:13 )

·  “  And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. …………………Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.     ( 1 John 2:28, 3:2-3 )

 

Of great practical importance

So we see that the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ is of practical importance. Its not just “pie in the sky when you die”. It makes a difference to the way we live our lives. If we are hoping and waiting for him, then we want to be always ready for his return.  We will live our lives in the light of eternity. We will seek to do everything – our work, our leisure activities, our dealings with those around us – for the glory of God.  We will be like the five wise bridesmaids in the parable who had got the oil ready for their lamp so they could go out to greet the bridegroom when he came. ( Matthew 15:1-13 )

Probably we don’t concentrate enough on this doctrine in our preaching. Here are some statistics which show us the importance of this teaching in the Bible:

·  One scholar has estimated that there are 1,845 references to Christ’s second coming in the Old Testament, where 17 books give it prominence.


·  In the 260 chapters of the New Testament, there are 318 references to the second advent of Christ—an amazing 1 out of every 30 verses.

·  Twenty-three of the 27 New Testament books refer to this great event.

·  For every prophecy in the Bible concerning Christ’s first advent, there are 8 which look forward to His second!

( from     http://bible.org/illustrations )

 

That’s how  important this glorious hope is. We’ve got to get ready:

 

·  Because the return of Jesus will be personal – Jesus himself will come back.

·  It will be actual – he will return to earth in his glorified, but still human, body.

·  It will be devastating – to those who have rejected him. They will face eternal death, separation from God forever.

·  It will be glorious for those who hope in him – “the blessed hope— the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.”  ( Titus 2:13 )

Because we believe in the Coming of our Lord Jesus, we Christians have hope, in this otherwise pretty hopeless world.

 

Conclusion

Here is what C S Lewis said in one of his Broadcast Talks during the war:

“Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force,  invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough?

Well,  Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side.

God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over.

God is going to invade,  all right; but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else – something it never entered your head to conceive – comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?

For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There’s no good saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That won’t be the time for choosing – it will be the time when we discover which side we have really chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won’t last for ever. We must take it or leave it.  ( C S Lewis Broadcast Talks )

I don’t think I can do better than end with those word of C S Lewis.

 

 

 

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Three types of faith

November 22, 2009 at 6:00 pm · Filed under Christian living, Jesus Christ ·Tagged , , ,

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 Matthew 8: 1-13, Mark 6: 1-6

“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” ( Luke 17: 6 )

and

“Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” ( Matthew 17: 20 )

These two very similar sayings seem to imply that it’s not the amount of faith that matters so much as the existence of faith. With no faith nothing can be done, but with some faith, however small, great things can be accomplished. True faith will always have its effect and, like a seed it can grow. It is a living thing.

In the ministry of Jesus we can see three different incidents, each of which illustrates a different kind of faith. And also one incident which shows unbelief.

1) Complete faith ( Luke 7: 1-10, Matthew 8: 5-13 )

There was a Roman army officer, a centurion, who lived in Caphernaum. This man had a much-loved and valued servant who was seriously ill. Now the centurion was on friendly terms with the local Jewish community so he asked some of the Jewish leaders to go to Jesus to ask him to heal his servant. This centurion was, of course, a Gentile but he had the most amazing faith. For he sent a message asking Jesus not to bother to come to his house. “I am not worthy for that: just say the word and he will be healed.”

This was tremendous faith, and even Jesus was astonished by it. “I tell you, I have not found faith like this, even in Israel.” None of the Jews had believed in Jesus like this – not even his disciples. But the centurion knew all about authority. He knew that he had authority over his soldiers ( authority which had been delegated to him by Caesar ) and he believed Jesus had a like authority ( from God ) to heal and to save.

Well, he was right and his faith was proved by what happened next. The messenger returned and found that the servant had been healed.

There have been other such people of faith down through history:

George Muller in the C19th. had no money, and yet he founded an orphanage to provide for hundreds of children. He did it all by faith – never asking for money or advertising the need. He and his helpers prayed, and believed, and the money came in – sometimes at the very last minute! As a result of this faith thousands of orphans were given Christian care and upbringing.

In the 1950s David Wilkerson was an ordinary minister of a little country church in the USA. but he felt called by God to go to the big city and to evangelize in the slums of New York. He went among drug pushers, pimps, prostitutes and teenage gangsters who were armed with knives and guns. In his book The Cross and the Switchblade he tells how may of these hardened young men turned to Jesus. They had killed people, they had peddled drugs, they had stolen, they had been involved in the occult – but they were transformed by Jesus Christ. All this came about through David Wilkerson’s faith. Because he believed that God loved these young men and could change them.

People like George Muller and David Wilkerson are a tremendous inspiration and a great challenge to us.

We move on to our second incident in the Gospels:

2) Partial faith ( Mark 1: 40-45, Matthew 8: 1-4 )

Once in Galilee a man with leprosy came to Jesus, got down on his knees and begged him to heal him. “If you are willing you can make me whole!, he said. Jesus was filled with compassion and touched him saying, “I am willing, be whole.” And the man was instantly cured.

This man’s faith was somewhat defective. He was in no doubt that Jesus had the power to heal him, but he wasn’t so sure that Jesus had the will to do it. “If you are willing” – does Jesus really care enough about me to want to heal me?

According to the Law of Moses anyone who touched a leper was unclean. Jesus surely could have avoided contamination and healed this man at a distance ( as he had done with the centurion’s servant ). He could have just given a word of command, but he chose to touch him as well – to show that he really cared, that he did indeed will to heal him.

This man’s faith in Jesus was only partial, but it still had its reward. Are we not sometimes a bit like this man? We doubt God’s love for us even when we believe in his power. Perhaps we think we are not worthy to experience his healing and saving power. “Oh yes Lord, you can help other people but you can’t help me,” is what is in our minds. Jesus shows us by his actions here, that his compassion is endless, that he is always willing to help those who come to him in faith. Even when that faith is partial. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed …”

Our third incident shows another kind of incomplete faith:

3) Wavering faith ( Mark 9:14-29)

It happened just after Jesus had come down the Mountain of Transfiguration with Peter, James and John. They found a large crowd gathered around the remaining disciples and there seemed to be bit of an argument going on.

A man in the crowd explained: “Teacher, my son is possessed by an evil spirit which has robbed him of speech and ever so often sends him into a fit. Your disciples have not been able to do anything about it.” When they brought the boy to Jesus, immediately he went into a fit and fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth.

“If you can do anything, take pity on me and help us!” cried the man, in distress. “If you can?”, said Jesus, “Everything is possible to him who believes.” The man immediately said, “I do believe – help me overcome my unbelief!” Jesus rebuked the spirit and delivered the boy.

Now this man had doubted the power of Jesus – he had seen how his disciples had been unable to do anything and he doubted whether Jesus could either. Jesus’ reply to him was intended to inspire faith within the man’s mind. “Yes, the man said, “I do believe” – but at that very moment he was assailed by doubts, his faith ebbed away. “Help me overcome by unbelief!”, he cried. One moment he had faith, the next it had almost gone. It was a wavering faith.

Did this man deserve to have his request answered? Some would say “no”. Some Christians can see no room for doubt at all. Everything has to be black and white. But Jesus saw that, despite the doubt, this man really wanted to believe – was desperate to believe. It is the will that is important, rather than the feelings. He didn’t feel very believing, but he desperately wanted to believe. And his cry for help was answered – his son was cured.

I think most of us are like this man at some time in our lives – we have a wavering faith. I know I have been like that at times. Let us not despair – at the very moment of doubt we can at least cry out, “Lord,help me overcome my unbelief.”

You see, it’s not the amount of faith, nor the depth of faith, nor the breadth of faith that is important – it is the mere existence of faith. Even a tiny bit – a mustard seed bit – can do great things. After all, a mustard seen can sprout and grow into a huge plant.

The question is not, “Is my faith great?” but, “Have I got faith at all in Jesus Christ?”

We can contrast unbelief with faith:

4) Unbelief

On one occasion Jesus returned to his home town of Nazareth and went to the synagogue to teach the people. ( Matthew 13: 54, Mark 6:1 ) Because the people did not believe in him “there he could do no mighty works” ( Mark 6: 5 ) They despised him as the carpenter’s son. They thought they knew all about him and his brothers and sisters. But they had really no idea of who was – the Messiah, God’s Anointed One, the Saviour of the world.

So today, in our post-Christian society people think the know all about the Christian faith and they dismiss it as something unpractical, simplistic and outdated. Just as the people of Nazareth dismissed Jesus 2000 years ago, thinking they knew all about him: so today people dismiss him and refuse to believe in him. But it’s that unbelief that does the harm. How difficult it is to preach the Good News in an atmosphere of unbelief. Even Jesus couldn’t do any great work in Nazareth.

But wherever there is faith in Jesus, however little, then there is hope. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can do great things. May we have such faith today.

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The Golden Psalm

November 16, 2009 at 4:17 pm · Filed under Old testament, Resurrection of Jesus, The hereafter ·Tagged , , , ,

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Reputed tomb of King david

 Psalm 16

“A miktam of David” – well what exactly is a miktam? A footnote to the NIV suggests it is a literary or musical term but no one really knows. One possible meaning of the word is “a hidden treasure” and another is “a golden object”. Thus it has been called the Golden Psalm by some commentators.

And it truly is golden psalm, a real gem which reveals its beauty when it is contemplated. It was used by leaders in the Early Church to teach the Resurrection of Christ.

For example: in Acts 2:25-31 Peter uses this psalm when he speaks to the crowd on the day of Pentecost. He points out that David was speaking prophetically when he wrote this psalm. David says God will save him and will not allow his body to rot in the grave. Peter points out that David did die and his body did decay in the grave. But Jesus Christ did not rot in the grave – his body was raised from the dead, and this psalm speaks prophetically of him.

Also in acts 13: 35 we see Paul using this psalm to speak of Christ’s Resurrection

So we see in this psalm:

1) it applies to David who wrote it

2) it can be applied to Jesus, the Christ, the Son of David.

and also:

3) it can be applied to us a Christians. We are followers of Christ and believers in the God of David.

Let’s look at it now.

 

 

(1) Applied to David

Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge. ( v1 )

It’s all about David’s trust in God to keep him safe from his enemies.

I said to the LORD, You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing. (v2 )

He felt that everything good he had came from God. He was grateful to God for all these things and he delighted in fellowship with God’s people:

As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight. (v3)

At the same time he rejected the worship of false gods. It only leads to trouble, he says:

The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods. (v4a )

Matthew Henry comments: “those who multiply gods multiply griefs to themselves; for whoever thinks one god too little, will find two too many, and yet hundreds will not be enough.”

I will not pour out their libations of blood or take up their names on my lips. (v4b )

“Libations (or drink offerings) of blood” – when the Hebrews made sacrificed to the Lord they offered the blood of sacrificial animals. But they were not allowed to drink the blood – it was offered to God alone. Their drink offerings were of wine.

But when the pagans sacrificed to their gods, they actually drank the blood of the animals. “I will have nothing to do with that,” David says, “I will not even take the names of the pagan gods on my lips.” Then he goes on to contemplate all the good things God has given him:

LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. (v5 )

“Portion” and “cup” refers to food and drink. “Lot” refers to the allocation of land to the various tribes, as does “boundary line” in the next verse. David felt that God had made his lot in life very pleasant, and he was grateful.

I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. (v7-8 )

He feels God is with him, day and night, to guide and to strengthen him for his daily tasks as he reigns over the nation. He also feels that God will preserve his body from illness and death. and he hints at eternal life.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (v9-11 )

When I read these words I wonder at what some Biblical commentators mean, when they claim that the ancient Hebrews had no conception of the after-life. We are told that it was only at a much later period that they believed in Paradise.

Well here, in this psalm, David says he will experience eternal pleasures with God after he dies. (No doubt these scholars would say that this psalm was not written by David, but by a latter writer in the time of the Exile.)

However, I believe it was written by David and that he did believe in the after-life. It may be true that generally the Hebrews did not have any very clear conception of the life of heaven. But obviously David did – he just could not believe that this wonderful fellowship with God would come to an end at his death. He didn’t see how God would abandon his soul to Sheol, the abode of the dead.

 

 

(2) Applied to Christ

As I said earlier, the first Christians saw this psalm as very much a prophecy of the Resurrection of Christ. His body was not abandoned to the grave – he lay there for two days, and on the third day he rose from the dead. Peter pointed out to his audience of Jews in Jerusalem that the tomb of David was nearby. They could go and see it if they wanted to. David’s bones were still in his tomb, but the tomb of Jesus was empty.

The empty tomb – this is the central fact of the Christian faith. Our faith stands or fails on this fact. Be assured, the body of Jesus will never be found by archaeologists for that body was raised up and ascended to heaven. Jesus is alive and he brings eternal life to all who belive in him and trust in him.

 

 

(3) Applied to Believers

And so now we consider what the psalm has to say to us:

God, the source of good

Like David we can say to god, “Apart from you I have no good thing.” everything good we enjoy – health, friends, family, food and drink, homes – comes from God. And also, there is no good thing in us apart from God. He is the source of our faith, our hope and our love.

Fellowship of the Saints

Like David we delight in the saints who are on the earth. Just as there are saints in heaven, so there also are saints on earth. You will recall the other week we were saying that “saint” is simply the New Testament word for a true Christian. Like David we delight in the company of such people. We receive a blessing from being with them. Hence the need to meet with other believers for worship and prayer and fellowship.

Turn from false gods

Like David we turn our backs on idolatry in all its forms. A false god is not just a pagan deity such as Baal of Moloch. No, anything other than God himself which becomes an object of worship is a false god. So you can make a god of your job, your family, your possessions, your hobbies, your sports, your music, your art, your science.

Thankfulness

Like David we are thankful to God and we appreciate that the lines have fallen for us in pleasant places. Here in Brecon we are in a magnificent part of the country, surrounded by natural beauty. We have a great environment – a goodly heritage.

And what about our moral and social heritage, our traditions of justice and democracy, freedom of speech and of worship? And what about our Christian heritage of worship and teaching, which goes right back to Saint David and includes all the great reformers and preachers of the past. We have goodly heritage and we thank God for it.

God our help

Like David we praise God who guides us in our lives and helps us to make the right decisions. He protects and upholds us so that we are not devastated by life’s storms.

Eternal life

Like David we believe in the life of the world to come. This indeed is really what our faith is all about.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3: 16 )

We can say, “Thank you Lord that because of Jesus we know you will not abandon us to the world of the dead when we have come to the end of our earthly life”.

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (v11 ).

 

As it says in the old Catechism, and also in the Confession of Faith: “The chief end of Man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”

 

 

 

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“For all the Saints”

October 31, 2009 at 4:12 pm · Filed under Christian living, New Testament, The Church ·Tagged , , ,

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 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus”. ( Ephesians 1:1)

What kind of picture does the word “saint” conjure up in your mind? Is it a plaster statue of the Madonna? Is it a picture in a stained-glass window? One little girl was asked what a saint was. She replied: “Someone with light shining through them.” That girl was thinking of the light shining through the figures of saints in the stained-glass windows in her church. But you know, it’s not a bad answer, is it? A saint is a person through whom the light of God shines. But should we restrict this term for particularly famous or holy persons, renowned for their good deeds, or the simplicity of their life? Should we only use it of people like Mother Teresa and Francis of Assisi? Should it be reserved for those who practiced great austerity and asceticism – people like Saint David who lived on herbs and cold water and spent hours up to his neck in icy cold water while he prayed.

Today is All Saints Day – a day of great importance to Anglicans, and even more so to Roman Catholics. But what does it mean to Non-conformists like us? What is a “saint” in Biblical terms?

Our text makes it plain and clears away any misconceptions: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus”. ( Ephesians 1:1)

 

 

A Saint is a Christian Believer

A saint is not just a particularly special, or holy, or famous Christian. A saint is anyone who is faithful in Christ Jesus. The Greek word used for “faithful” also means “believing” – so we could also say a Saint is a Believer in Jesus Christ. Paul writes to all the believers in Ephesus and calls them “saints”.

We find this view of sainthood in the other New Testament Epistles:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, …. to all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints. (Romans 1: 7)

To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, (1 Corinthians 1:2)

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia. (2 Corinthians 1;1)

To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi. (Philippians 1:1 )

From these and other texts we see that:

  • A saint is faithful and believing
  • A saint is holy and sanctified
  • A saint is called by God

A saint is not a special Christian, but any true Christian. This one of the great truths rediscovered at the Reformation – we are all saints, and our sins are forgiven by the grace of God alone.

 

 

Mediaeval misconceptions

In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic church developed a particular doctrine of sainthood which still persists today in some circles. The idea was that some people were so holy that when they died they went straight to Heaven instead of going to Purgatory.

(Of course, the doctrine of Purgatory is not found in the Bible. We are all sinners but our sins are cleansed by the blood of Christ. We will not need to spend centuries in Purgatory to atone for our sins before we will be allowed into Heaven.)

Anyway, back to the saints. These particularly holy people were thought to be much closer to God than the rest of us. And, just as you might ask another Christian to pray for you, so you might ask one of the “Saints” – even after their death – to intercede on your behalf. Obviously if you believed the Saint was already in heaven then you would think that he or she was much closer to God.

So people were encouraged by the Church to ask the Saints to plead on their behalf before the throne of God. To this day many people pray to the Saints. Some even write letters to them (which seems to me a bit like children writing letters to Santa Claus!)

Now none of this has any Biblical justification – for we are all saints anyway, if we are faithful to Jesus. We all have direct access to God through his Son.

(And there is no such place as Purgatory. Protestants hold varied views about what happens in the “intermediate state” ( the time between death and the final judgement) but none believe in Purgatory. Some hold the view that the soul goes immediately to Heaven to be united with a new resurrection body after the Last Judgement. Others think that death is like a “sleep of the soul” – we shall rest in the Lord, and on the Day of Resurrection be raised up with new bodies. If you hold the first view, then it is just possible that you might think you could pray to the Saints – to communicate with the souls of the departed in Heaven and ask them to intercede on your behalf.

But remember, in both the Old and New Testaments, God has warned us of the danger of spiritualism. We are not, in any way, to attempt to communicate with the dead. To my mind praying to the Saints comes perilously close to this.)

But I digress – all believers are saints, and share in the privilege of belonging to Gods people. What then can we say of God’s saints?

 

 

Faithful and believing

As I said earlier, the same Greek word ( pistis) is used for both “faithful” and “believing”. So we can say of God that he is faithful, he is reliable, he is our Rock in whom we trust. And you can say that the believer, in trusting in Christ, also becomes faithful to him. In other words, becomes more like God. So we have a mutual relationship of trust and love. If we are true Christians, then our relationship with God is based on personal trust in Jesus. It’s not just knowing the facts about Jesus, but knowing him as Saviour.

 

 

Holy and sanctified

“Holy” means “set apart” – like God himself. A saint is “set apart” from sin, from all that is anti-God, from hatred, from greed, from impurity. A saint is one who seeks to live by God’s laws.

“Well,” you may say, “we all fail don’t we, which one of us can claim to be without sin?”

We all fail, yes, but we can all be cleansed by the Blood of Christ. After all, a saint is simply a sinner who has repented and asked for God’s forgiveness. A saint is a sinner who has been made new, born again.

 

 

Called by God

A saint is called of God. Have you heard the call of God? Have you heard a call to personal repentance and faith in Jesus? You can be a nominal Christian because you were brought up in the Church, or because your parents were Christian, or because you are a church member. But that doesn’t make you a saint – a Christian in the true sense. One becomes a Christian, or a saint, when one hears the call of God and responds to it.

Perhaps some might say, “I have never heard the call of God.” Then I would say, “You are hearing it now, through this sermon!” Everyone here, in this church has heard, or is hearing, the call of God.

 How are we going to respond? Is it, “Yes, Lord, I am a sinner, but I want to be a saint”, or is it, “No, Jesus, I am not interested in religious things, I want to stay the same.”

How sad it is when people respond in the second way. They are condemning themselves to an eternity away from God, unless they repent before it’s too late.

 

 

May we all be true saints of God:

  •  faithful and believing ·
  • holy and sanctified 
  •  called by the Lord, and responding to the call.

May it be said of us that we are “saints” – people through whom the light of God shines. Jesus said: “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” ( Matthew 5:16 )

 

 

 

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Fallen Angels

October 22, 2009 at 9:45 pm · Filed under New Testament, Old testament, evil ·Tagged , , ,

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Satan cast out of heaven by   Gustave Doré

 

Introduction

 
Last week we were thinking about angels. Yes, they do exist! They are real spiritual beings who surround the throne of God and are his messengers for mankind. Billy Graham refers to then as “God’s Secret Agents” in the world. But if this is the case, why then is there so much evil in the world? Why do ( to quote the poet Burns) “the best laid plans of mice, and men, gang aft agley” ?

Why is it that all the best utopian schemes to eradicate poverty, and to usher in world peace, and all the political solutions to the world’s problems fail, time and again? Why are we humans so ineffective at doing good?

Partly, we must admit, it’s our own fault. It’s the inherent selfishness and sin of mankind. But I think it goes further than that. Why, for example, does evil sometimes take such a personal and vindictive form? How can we understand such a man as Hitler, who had an insane hatred of the Jews?

The Bible writers ( the Prophets, and Evangelists, and Apostles ) and even Jesus himself, would answer that Satan and the fallen angels are behind all this. Evil is not just the absence of good. There is more to it than just the forces of decay and dissolution at work in the universe. 

No, evil is personal, and it is anti-God. There is an extremely powerful, malign being who hates God and his people and who does all in his power to thwart God’s purposes in the world. More than that, there are millions of such beings – devils, demons, evil spirits, fallen angels – call them what you will.

What then are these fallen angels? And since we are coming up to Hallowe’en, when many people will be concentrating on the occult, it might be a good thing now for us to think about them. After all, you have to know your enemy.

The Fallen Angels: their origin

Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve in Eden were tempted by the Serpent. Other passages of the Bible indicate that the Serpent is Satan. But how did Satan get there? Was not everything “good” when God created it? How did evil originate,  and how did Satan become evil?

Now we can not be dogmatic about this, but it seems obvious that if God created beings who could love him of their own free will then he would also have to allow the possibility of their not loving him. If they really are to love him freely they they also have the choice of rejecting him. He did not create them as robots.

This theme of the fall and rebellion of Satan and his followers is dealt with great poetic genius by Milton in Paradise Lost. It may read a bit like mythology in Milton but this idea is found in Scripture – the idea that some of the angels became evil.

For example

God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment. ( 2 Peter 2:4 )

and

The angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;
( Jude 6 )

Nothing is said about what their sin actually was, but it is likely that they exalted themselves against God and aspired to the supreme authority. Satan, when he wanted to tempt Adam and Eve, used the same lure of selfish ambition and pride.

 

Their leader: the Devil

He appears in Scripture as the recognized head of the fallen angels. It seems that he was originally one of the highest princes of the angelic world. Perhaps he was the chief of all the angels. So when Satan led the rebellion against God, then Michael would have been promoted to Archangel ( see Revelation 12:7-12).

What titles are given to the Devil in Scripture?

Satan
This comes from the Hebrew “shatan”, which means “adversary”. This title emphasizes the fact that he is  the enemy of God and Man. That is why he caused the Fall of Man. That is why he attacked Jesus at the start of his ministry.

Apollyon
This comes from a Hebrew word meaning “destroyer”. Because he seeks to spoil all that is good and to destroy God’s works.

The Devil
This comes from the Greek word “diabolos”, which means “accuser” or “slanderer”. What the Devil does is, firstly to  tempt us to sin, and then secondly to accuse us of sinning! So we are tempted to wallow in our sins and to give up trying to be good. “May as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb”.

The Devil is the author of all those guilt feelings which don’t go away, even when we confess our sins. (It is interesting that it is also the work of the Holy Spirit to make us feel guilty – He convicts us of our sins. But when that happens we turn to Jesus and receive forgiveness. On the other hand, the guilt feelings that the Devil produces do not lead to salvation.)

The prince of this world
Or even “the god of  this world” ( 2 Corinthians 4:4)
 This doesn’t mean that Satan is in control of the world – simply that he has power over all who do not submit to God. After all, you don’t actually have to be a Devil-worshipper or Satanist to do the Devil’s work. All you have to do is to fail to love and serve God.

As “prince” or “god” ( note the small “g”) of this world Satan has tremendous power and knowledge, but he is not all-powerful and all-knowing. Only God is. Satan’s power is limited by God and will ultimately serve God’s purposes.

We see this pre-eminently in the events of the Crucifixion. It was Satan who entered into Judas and tempted him to betray Jesus. It was Satan who motivated the enemies of Jesus when they agitated for his death. It was Satan who brought Jesus to the Cross.

But in Gods sublime purpose that very Cross was turned from defeat to victory. Through that Cross Jesus saved the human race, and indeed brought liberation to the whole universe. For all his evil intentions Satan only succeeded in fulfilling God’s plan. How amazing and mind-boggling is that!

 

Fallen angels: their activities

It is instructive to contrast the good and bad angels.

  • The good ones perpetually praise God, the bad ones perpetually curse him
  • The good ones fight God’s battles, the bad ones oppose God.
  • The good angels carry God’s messages, the bad ones try to deceive God’s people.
  • The good protect God’s people, the bad bring harm on God’s people.

They have many ways of doing these things:

  • Demons can possess people, sometimes causing physical or mental illness.
  • They possess Spiritualist mediums, impersonating the dead in order to deceive people. They lead people into occult bondage.
  • They bind and imprison humans with the ropes of fear, despair, discouragement, sorrow, lusts and temptations.

All these are ways used by the Devil and his angels to destroy God’s work.

 

But we must remember that they are on the run! They are on the losing side, and they know their cause is hopeless. Even though they are chained to hell in pits of darkness ( Jude 6). As Calvin said, “Though as spirits they are not limited to one place, they drag their chains wherever they go.”

 

Fallen angels:  their downfall

In the Parable of the Strong Man ( Matthew 12:22-29 ) Jesus likened Satan to a tyrant who has to be overcome and bound before his house can be despoiled and his captives released. Jesus himself is the one who binds Satan by his victory on the Cross.

Yes, Satan was mortally wounded at Calvary, but he still thrashes about ( as Michael Green says). He is rather like a conger eel in a fishing boat.  It is dangerous for hours after it has been caught. If you go near it it will bite your foot.

So Satan and his angels refuse to lie down and die. They still seek to harm us. But when, by faith, we stand in the victory of Christ we can bind them. Some people indeed have a special ministry of binding evil spirits and releasing the captives.  But in a sense, all Christians can bind Satan and his cohorts. Whenever we take up the weapons of love and encouragement, of joy and trust in the word of God, whenever we hold up the shield of faith we are binding Satan – we are holding back his evil purposes.
Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.  ( Revelation 12: 12)

He knows he has a lost eternity. He is destined to be cast into the bottomless pit, with all his followers  ( Revelation 20:10).
All this might seem to be a bit scary. The activity of the fallen angels is frantic and their power is great ( for the time being). But we must remember that Christ and his angels have the final victory, and we shall share in that victory if we trust in Jesus.

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Angels

October 22, 2009 at 9:25 pm · Filed under New Testament, Old testament, worship ·Tagged , ,

 

depiction of a seraph from a mediaeval manuscript

“Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Hebrews 1: 14

 The other day I was walking past a little “New Age”-type shop in the town which often has dubious items in its window. (Some weeks ago there was a display of items connected with witchcraft – occult books, magic wands, crystal balls, etc.) What caught my eye the other day a was a display all about angels – or rather “Angel Therapy”. Apparently a lady by the unlikely name of Doreen Virtue has made this her speciality. She has cornered the market on “angels” and has written books about how you can contact your guardian angel and get help from them. You can buy special Angel Cards which are used rather like Tarot cards to tell fortunes.

I know that none of you would ever have anything to do with such occult rubbish as this. Don’t be misled by the word “Angels” – it really has nothing to do with the angels in the Bible, or not with the good ones anyway. (There are, of course, fallen angels or demonic spirits and it is far more likely to be connected with them.)

So realizing that such a thing as “Angel Therapy” is now quite popular in some circles I thought it was a good idea to look once again at what the Bible has to say about angels. (Looking into my sermon records I see it was eleven years ago when we last looked at this topic.)

People sometimes say, “Do you belive in angels?” And I feel like answering, “Yes, I believe in angels – but not necessarily the same as the angels you believe in. I depends what you mean by “angels”.

Well, what does the word “angel” conjure up for you? If you say someone is an angel you mean they are a very good person or a very caring person. Nurses are often called angels. If you say a little girl looks like an angel you probably mean she is pretty and has fair hair. If you say a child is an angel you mean they are well behaved.

For many people angels are confused with fairies. They don’t distinguish between the former which is a powerful spiritual being mentioned in the Bible and the latter which is entirely fictional. They think of some kind of delicate creature, usually female, with wings. Our ideas have been conditioned by illustrations in fairy-tale books, and by Christmas cards as well as by the paintings of the great masters of the renaissance period.

I think we may have to jettison all these ideas and go back to the Bible if we really want to know what angels are. Think for a moment: how would we react if an angel were to appear before us at this moment. Would we say, “Oh how lovely, how cute!” or would we be struck dumb with terror?

I would suggest the latter. Indeed, most times we read about angels in the Bible, the very first thing they have to say is, “Do not be afraid”. In the Bible people are always struck with awe at the appearance of a heavenly spiritual being.

Let’s try to answer some questions about angels:

 

What is an angel?

Our text says that they are ministering spirits sent to help God’s people. They are also described as fellow-servants with us humans ( Revelation 22:8).

The word Angel comes from “Angelos” in Greek, which means simply a messenger. The Hebrew word is Malak, and that also means messenger.

Here is a dictionary definition: “Angel: a messenger of God, familiar with him face to face, and therefore of an order of being higher than that of man.”

Angels are created beings, just as we are, but holy and uncorrupted. They are moral beings – pure spirits who worship God freely. No wonder that people are always terrified when they meet an angel! Angels shine with some of the glory of God himself. They bring to us a touch of his holiness. Sometimes they are called Seraphs or “burning ones” – a reminder to us of the fact that our God is a consuming fire ( Hebrews 12:29).

As purely spiritual beings, angels exist on another plane than ours. They inhabit another spiritual dimension. But Jesus tells us at the Resurrection we shall be like the angels. We shall be raised with a new spiritual body ( 1 Corinthians 15) and we shall share in the incorruptible life of eternity.

 

What do they look like?

Who knows? As purely spiritual beings angels are not visible to us. How they appear to one another we do not know, but when they manifest themselves to us they usually take human form.

Now, if we base our ideas of angels on works of art, or Christmas cards, or children’s nativity plays we might they are delicate, fairy-like, female creatures. (It’s always the little girls who get to play the angels in the nativity play – never the little boys!) But in the Bible, on every occasion the angel appears in the form of a man, with or without wings. In Mark 16:5, for example, we read of a “young man in a white robe” appearing at he tomb of the risen Jesus. On other occasions the angel is always referred to as “he”.

As far as I know ther is only one reference in the Bible to angels taking a female form, and that was in a vision or dream. The prophet Zechariah had a vision of two angelic creatures in the form of women with wings like those of a stork (Zechariah 5:9).

However, although may use a masculine personal pronoun when speaking of an angel but that does not mean they are men. Because angels are without a biological body they do not have a gender – you do not think of them as male or female.

As for the idea of angels having wings, this seems to have come from Isaiah’s vision of the seraphim crying “Holy, holy, holy!”

“I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6:1-3)

It is interesting to note that they had six wings, not two. Why then are angels usually depicted as creatures with two wings?

 

What do angels do?

One of their tasks is to bring messages from God. Sometimes messages of good news and sometimes messages of judgement, or of warning. Sometime it is a summons to action: “Get up, get going!” For example:

· to Gideon: “Arise and go in thy might”.

· to Elijah: “Arise and eat”.

· to Joseph of Nazareth: “Go quickly”.

· to Philip: “Arise and go”.

It’s all a bit monotonous really – but then, a fire alarm is monotonous!

Sometimes the angels help God’s people in times of trouble. For example, when Elijah was worn out and depressed after the contest on Mount Carmel, the Angel of the Lord came and strengthened him.

Some angels watch over Gods people and preserve them from harm. These are known as guardian angels. In Daniel 10 we read that each a nation has its guardian angel. And Jesus refers to the guardian angels of children: “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 18:10 )

According to Hebrews 2, the angels were active in the giving of the Law to Moses.

In the Book of Revelation it is the angels who will execute God’s final judgement.

 

How many angels are there?

Perhaps God only knows the answer to that one. There must be far more than we can imagine – Daniel 7: speaks of “myriads upon myriads”. But their number is still finite: only God is infinite.

 

How may different types are there?

Again we do not really know, but we do read of various types of angels in the Bible:

 

Cherubs (or Cherubim)

The image suggested by the word cherub is probably of a chubby, red cheeked child. That is how cherubs are depicted in the paintings of Raphael and other Renaissance artists. This image owes more to the pagan Roman Cupid than to the Bible.

Cherubs in the Bible are very different. They are the angels who guard God’s presence. Two statues of cherubs were placed above the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies.

When Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden cherubim prevented them from returning: “So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” ( Genesis 3:24)

 

Seraphs (or Seraphim)

These seem to have a similar role to cherubim and they also worship God without ceasing.

We have already referred to guardian angels.

 

Destroying angels

At various times in the history of Israel God would bring his judgement upon the nation and send his destroying angel. The Angel of the Lord Very often the angel sent by God is referred to in these terms.

Sometimes the Angel of the Lord even seems to be a manifestation of God himself – a pre-incarnation manifestation of God the Son or an appearance of the Holy Spirit. If this is so then we are not talking of an angel here but of God himself.

 

Angel Gabriel

According to Jewish tradition there are four archangels: Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Uriel. But in the Bible only the first two are named, and only Michael is said to be an Archangel.

 

Archangel Michael

He is the guardian angel of the people of Israel.

Reference is made in several places to various ranks of angels, but we haven’t got time to go into these now.

And then there are the fallen angels: Satan and his demons. This will be the subject of another sermon.

But going back to the good angels:

 

How do they work?

Once again we don’t really know. Often their ministry is secret and invisible. Billy graham has written a book entitled “Angels: God’s Secret Agents”. There are many instances, even today, when people have had food provided apparently miraculously, or have been saved from danger by what seems to be angelic intervention.

Only on occasions of supreme significance in the history of our salvation do angels reveal themselves. For example: in the life of Jesus. Angels ministered at his birth, his temptation, at the Garden of Gethsemane, at the Resurrection and at the Ascension.

 

Why are angels so often unseen?

Perhaps it is because if we could see them we would be tempted to worship them, as John was in the Book of Revelation:

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!” ( Revelation 22:8-9 )

In the Early Church there were some groups who worshipped angels. The Letter to the Hebrews was written to combat this heresy. In it the writer compares Christ to the angels and stresses his superiority over them.

 

Why do people so often misrepresent angels?

Why do they persist in seeing angel as fairy-like creatures? It’s surely because every picture they have seen in the media, in books, in popular art has been influenced by the art of the renaissance. This in turn has come down from images of Greek and Roman Pagan gods in classical art. If people read the Bible they would have a much better idea of what angels are.

 

Conclusion

Why should we think about angels? You might be thinking, “This is all a bit theoretical. What practical help is it to the Christian life?” A great deal, I would say.

Angels are holy and awesome beings who reflect God’s holiness and power. Read all the passages in the Bible about angels and you will inevitably be led to think about God’s holiness and to worship him.

Too often we let our worship sink to the merely human, mundane level. But we don’t just come to church to feel better, or to be entertained, or to meet people. We come to worship and honour God.

Often nowadays, in many churches in Wales, it is a small group of ten or less people gathering to worship. For them it is a great source of encouragement to know that the glory of God in worship does not depend on the number of people attending. However small our congregation we know we are joined by countless millions of angels in our worship of God. Let us be encouraged as we remind ourselves that our faith is not just of this world.

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“The heavens declare”

September 25, 2009 at 7:19 pm · Filed under God the Father, Old testament ·Tagged , , ,

 

Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.           ( Psalm 19 :1 )

Perhaps these words remind you of the famous chorus from Haydn’s Creation. They are from Psalm 19, a great song of praise to God for his creation and for his law. I want us to think about this psalm today.

Now, the psalms are perhaps the greatest example of Hebrew poetry. Even when they are translated into other languages, such as English, we can still hear the poetry in them. How is it possible then to preach a sermon on a psalm?  I’ve always found it difficult and have not often attempted to do so.

This is because the last thing we want to do is to dissect the psalm, to analyze it minutely, to cut the soul out of it. To turn the most beautiful poetry into dry-as-dust precepts and theology. And whatever I say about the psalm will never compare with the sublimity of the original, or even with the English or Welsh translations. The best we can hope to do is to use our imagination a a little,  to see the background of the psalm. What did it mean to the person who wrote it, and what can it mean to us today?

 
A Psalm of David

First  we note that it was written by David. He had been a shepherd boy and had spent a great deal of time out-of-doors. He had looked up to the sky and seen magnificent cloud fortresses illuminated by shafts of light from the Sun. As he settled his sheep in the fold he gazed up at the night sky. He wondered at the stars and moon as he lay down to sleep under the sky.

In the morning he arose and  the Sun’s beams warmed his chilled bones  – bringing new life to him. He meditated on the power and warmth of the Sun. David then led his flock out to the pasture and sat down on a great rock from which he could watch them. Then he took up his harp and sang  a hymn to God. He felt the rock beneath him, solid and dependable, and he realised that God was like that rock. He was reliable – David could trust in him.

He sang, “The Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.  His words and his laws are perfect – they bring joy and life to my soul.” To his mind God’s laws were like the rays of he Sun penetrating everywhere and bringing life. Lighting the path ahead and showing the way. Warming the soul and comforting.

David meditated on his inner life. He realised that he had made mistakes,  and more than that, he had committed sins. God’s Law shone right into his very heart. David prayed that sin would not rule over him.

Once again he took up his harp and he sang a new song to God. He gathered all his thoughts together in the words of this psalm and sang it to the Lord. He ended with these words:
“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer”.

Well, we’ve been using a bit of imagination. I don’t know whether these really were the circumstances in which this psalm was written, but they might have been.

Here is another version of this psalm put into simple English for those who do not speak it as their first language. It can also help us to get a fresh view of the psalm:

 

An EasyEnglish Translation on Psalm 19

           (This is) a song of David for the music leader.

     The heavens are telling us about the glory of God.
     The sky is showing the things that his hands have made.

     One day pours out the story to another day.
     One night tells the next night what it knows.

     (But) they do not use words and have no languages.
     Nobody hears their voice.

     (Yet) what they say goes into all the earth.
     Their words go to the ends of the world.
     God has made a home for the sun (in the sky).

     The sun comes out from his home like a bridegroom.
     He is very happy to run fast, like a very strong man.

     His sunrise is at one end of the heavens.
     He travels in a big circle to the other end.
     Nothing can hide from the heat of the sun.

     The book of the LORD is wonderful.
     It makes people feel alive again.
     We can trust what the LORD tells us.
     He points out the way when we are not sure of it.

     What the LORD tells us to do is always right.
     It makes us feel happy deep down inside us.
     What the LORD commands us is pure.
     It makes our eyes shine with new light.

     The fear of the LORD is a clean fear.
     It will always remain with us.
     Every word that the LORD says is true.
     Every one of them is righteous.

    They are of more value than gold,
     even a lot of pure gold.
     They are sweeter than honey,
     even the best honey that bees make.

     Also, they are a guide to your servant.
     Good things come if he obeys them.

     Who can know when he has made mistakes?
     Forgive me all my secret sins.

     Also, stop your servant from wanting to sin.
     Do not let sin rule over me.
     Then nobody will say that I did wrong.
     I will be clean (because you help me).
     I will not do anything very bad.

     Lord, I want everything that I say to make you happy.
     I want all my thoughts to please you.
     You are my Rock and you are my Redeemer.

 (  For information on this translation see  www.easyenglish.info  )

 

The God of nature and the Lord of Israel

This Psalm divides into two sections. In the first part  ( v1-6) David speaks of the glory of God as shown in the skies. He uses the name  El  for God. This is the general Hebrew word for a god – any god. It could be used of a pagan god. Or it could be used for God himself. ( Just as we use the words “God” and “god” in English.)

But from verse 7 onward the psalm changes gear. David talks about the Law and he refers to God as the Lord. This is the Hebrew name Yahweh ( or Jehovah) – it is the personal name God revealed to Moses from the burning bush. It is God’s covenant name – the name he uses when he is in a relationship with people. Yahweh, Jehovah, The Lord (as we usually translate it in English).

“The heavens declare the glory of God, but God’s Law reveals even more – his personal voice to his chosen people. He introduces himself to them by his first name, as it were.”
(From the Student Bible. Philip Yancy and Tim Stafford.  ISBN 0-340-41078-7 )

 

The glory of God

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
It was true in those days and its even truer today. The more we mere mortals look into the universe the more we are astounded at the immensity and beauty of it all. When we turn our telescopes at the sky we see distant galaxies shining with incandescent gas. We see rings round Saturn and moons orbiting Mars and Jupiter. We see amazing craters on the moon. We marvel at it all and we say, “Truly God is great, who created all this!”

You don’t need to know about the God of the Bible to be able to say that. You might never have seen a  Bible or heard of Jesus but you can still see the evidence for God the Creator. Only fools says there is no God.  ( Psalm 14 )

And the Apostle says: 
“Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities— his eternal power and divine nature— have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”  ( Roman 1:20 )

The heavens declare the glory of God

Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
here is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
(Psalm 19:2-4)

Although there are no audible words their voice is heard in every nation. The Sun, David says, shows God’s glory and its warmth penetrates everywhere. Without the Sun there would be no life on earth.

We talk about solar power as if it were something new. But we’ve all been living off solar power since time began!  If we burn wood in our grate then that  is just solar power stored by a tree. We may burn coal or oil to fire our power stations and use petrol in our cars but these fossil fuels are just solar power which has been stored away for vast periods of time.
We depend on the Sun for physical life and we depend on God’s truth for spiritual life. This is where the psalm changes gear.

 

The Law of the Lord

Yahweh’s Law is what revives the soul. It brings wisdom, joy, illumination. it warns of wrong paths and it shows the right path to take. For David it was the Law of Moses – the first five books of the Bible. That’s all he had. Yet he found that Law was able to bring light and joy to  his soul. We have so much more – the prophets, the psalms, proverbs, historic books – and that’s just the Old Testament. Then on top of that we have the gospels about Jesus and the writings of his Apostles.

The Bible shows us the way to live and it points us to Jesus, our Redeemer

David, as he reflected on God’s Law, became aware of his inward sins. He realised that it’s not just the outward things that matter.

Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
(Psalm 19: 12,13 )

He knew that God was his Rock and Redeemer.

 
Conclusion

What about us?  Do we know God as our Rock, our Redeemer? Do we know Jesus as the Saviour who brought us out of darkness into his marvelous light? He made it possible for our inward sins and faults to be forgiven.
 
If we can say the pagans had no excuse for rejecting the true God, what excuse do we have if we reject God, when we have the full revelation of himself in his Son Jesus. He is our Rock and Redeemer.

(Reflections on David the shepherd boy in this sermon were suggested by EasyEnglish commentary on Psalm 19 .   See    www.easyenglish.info    )

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“If my people”

September 18, 2009 at 7:21 pm · Filed under Christian living, Old testament, Prayer ·Tagged , , ,

2 Chronicles 7:11-22

Do you get depressed about the news – I know I do sometimes. Often it is nothing but a litany of murders, rapes, child abuse, violent robberies, financial scams, cynical exploitation of the poor and weak, marital unfaithfulness, sexual promiscuity, teenage pregnancies, homosexuality, drug abuse, binge drinking. All these things seem to be on the increase – not to mention the economic downturn and the problems of unemployment and debt. All these ills are but symptoms of the malaise of our society and it seems to get worse year by year. Of course, their has always been crime and humans have always been sinful. But there were in place in the past stern codes of morality and standards of behaviour based on the Ten Commandments which helped to hold back the worst effects of sin.

And then the state of the church is not promising. I ask myself, “Will there be a Presbyterian Church of Wales in ten or fifteen years time. I do remember asking this question 20 years ago! Well we are still here – but only just. There has been a steady decline in the membership of our denomination over the last 20 years or so. The fact the the decline is slow must not blind us to the truth that it is happening. Just as the decline of the Roman Empire took place over several centuries, so it is with our church and with our society.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”   ( Matthew  5:13)

If God’s people in the church lose their “saltiness”, what then will be the state of society?

 

Complacency

We might think that just because Wales has a Christian heritage we will never lose our chapels and churches. After all, we are known as the Land of Revivals. God would surely never allow his church to disappear from Wales.  But on what basis do we say this? History  shows us that the churches in Asia Minor ( which were the first Christian churches  outside Palestine and had been established by the Apostle Paul) vanished when Islam took over that area. They had become corrupt and they were not able to stand up to the onslaught of militant Islam. Today in Turkey there are very few native Christians.

The same is true for the churches  of North Africa which were centres of theological scholarship in the time of Saint Augustine. Now they are no more – also destroyed by Islam.  this should be a warning to us in Wales.  Christianity can die out in a country and it will be replaced by something else. In Wales it might be materialistic Atheism that takes over, or New Age spirituality perhaps.

The ancient Israelites had the same kind of  misconception about he Temple and the city of Jerusalem. They thought that because it had been established by God it could never be destroyed. God would surely never allow his Temple to be removed – no matter how badly his people behaved. The prophets spoke out against this complacent attitude, this false hope, but the people took no notice. So it was a severe shock to the nation when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed the Temple and took the people off into exile!

 

God’s promise

Our reading take us a lot further back than those times -  right to the reign of Solomon, to the time when the Temple itself was built.  When the Temple was dedicated Solomon offered a long prayer to God (you can read it in 1 Chronicles chapter six)  in which he prayed that God would bless the nation and make his dwelling  in that place.

When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple.
(2 Chronicles 7:1 )

And God answered. He spoke to Solomon in a vision at night. And God made a promise to Solomon concerning the nation of Israel.  It’s a promise we can also take hold of,  for under the New Covenant all who believe in the Messiah are part of the Israel of God.
 
This was the promise:

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”        (2 Chronicles 7:14 )

I believe this promise from God shows us the way out of our current plight. It shows how God can revive and renew his people. It shows how he can heal our nation and bring us back to himself.

Why do we not see revival in Wales, the Land of Revivals?  Well here, in these verses, we see three conditions for revival. Or rather, three hinderances we must get rid of. The three hinderances are:

  • Pride
  • Prayerlessness
  • Perversity

Let’s look at them:

 
1) Pride

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves.”
(2 Chronicles 7:14 )
 
These people need to become humble. But who are we talking about? Who are God’s people. In the Old Testament they were the people of Israel.  They were called by his name – they were Israel and he was the God of Israel. Their behaviour would reflect for good or bad upon the God of Israel

We also are called by his name. Jesus is the Christ and we are Christians – followers of Jesus  Christ.  And our lives will reflect on Christ himself. People will see the way we live and decide on that basis whether or not they want to have anything to do with Christ.

Yes, we are called by his name and this verse says we must  humble ourselves.

Why is lack of humility – pride – singled out here as the main sin? Pride was the original sin of mankind – and of Satan himself. It was pride that led to the building of the Tower of Babel.  It is pride that separates people from God and from one another. It is pride that lead to wars and strife.

(We are not talking here about the justifiable sense of pride that one might have in one’s country, one’s school or one’s work, but rather the pride of arrogance. The pride that thinks it is better than everyone else. The pride that sets itself against God himself.)

And perhaps spiritual pride is the worst – as with the Pharisees in the time of Jesus who thought they were alright. They prided themselves on their good works – when in fact they were spiritually poor. They were in a worse spiritual state than the very people they despised – the tax gatherers and sinners.

We must turn from that kind of pride and humble ourselves before God.

 
2) Prayerlessness

“and pray and seek my face.”  ( 2 Chronicles 7:14 )

The most important thing of all is our relationship with God. It’s not just a matter of saying prayers, reciting set forms of words. It’s about being open to God and dependant on God, or rather,  realising our dependence on him.

No revival ever came to the Church without a lot of prayer beforehand. People had been praying for decades prior to the 1904 revival that there would be a spiritual awakening in Wales. Evan Roberts, the leader of that revival, himself had spent about ten years in fervent,  persistent  prayer before the revival came.  It wasn’t a matter of his personality and gifts -  it was the working of the Spirit of God.

So God’s people must humble themselves, and pray, and develop their relationship with him, before there can be any revival of the church. And without revival there will be no Christian Church in Wales in 50 years time.

 
3) Perversity

 
 (I’ve chosen this word purely to allow an alliterative scheme! What I am really thinking about is sin.)

“If my people … will seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven  …”   ( 2 Chronicles 7:14 )

God’s people must turn from their wicked ways. Not just the people of the world, but those who are called by his name. This means that we are to live lives which glorify God.

Once again we think of the words of Jesus:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”  ( Matthew  5:13 )

If we are not “salty” then we will not be able to restrain corruption in our society. Ask yourself this question: “Is my life any different from that of any respectable member of society who is not a Christian?”  It ought to be  different. There should be some elements in our life which are only there because we are followers of Jesus. We are called to be more loving, more kind, more generous, more moral, and more honest than the people of the world.

In a sense we are responsible for the state of our nation. Had we shone brighter as  lights, had our salt not lost its savour, our society might not have got into the state it is in now.   In the Old Testament we read of Daniel praying for the nation (Daniel Chapter 9 ). He identifies with the nation completely and confesses the sins committed by the nation  -  sins of idolatry and contempt of God’s laws. Daniel has not committed these sins himself but he confesses them to God on behalf of the nation. Perhaps we need to pray  for our nation in this way.

There are also many sins which can be found among church-going people which are a hindrance to revival coming to the church.  Among them are sexual immorality, dishonesty, and a bitter unforgiving spirit towards others.

 Revivals are always preceded by people putting things right with God and with those around them. Confessing their faults, making reparation when they can, seeking to be reconciled with their neigbour.

 
Conclusion

This verse sets out the conditions for revival, but it also gives promises when these conditions are fulfilled. The promises are of reconciliation and restoration.

 

1) Reconciliation to God

“Then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin …”
 (2 Chronicles 7:14 )

Once we have repented, confessed our sins to God and put our trust in Jesus who died for us, then we know peace with God. Our conscience is clear and our communion with him is restored.

 
2) Restoration of our land

“Then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
 ( 2 Chronicles 7:14 )

God promises to heal our land,  that is, to help to put right our social ills. There is no doubt that past revivals have brought healing to our land. They have always been followed by a wave of social reforms and an increase  in righteousness.

“Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a disgrace to any people.”
( Proverbs 14:34 )

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
( 2 Chronicles 7:14 )

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“No pain, no gain.”

September 11, 2009 at 9:59 pm · Filed under Christian living, Jesus Christ, Sacrifice of Jesus ·Tagged ,

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Mark 8:27-38

A Family Service at the Brecon Presbyterian Church

Talk  (A)
(Illustrated with felt board figures and scene.)

Jesus left Galilee and went to the area known as Caesarea Philippi. It was in Gentile territory – a pagan place. The town had been built in honour of Caesar by Philip, the ruler of that area. It was a place were they worshipped Caesar as a god. It was also been a place where, in the past, people had worshipped the god Ba’al.  As well as this, the Greek god Pan was worshipped here -  he was said to have been born in the area.

As they were going along the road to this place Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”

“Some say you are John the Baptist brought, back to life. Others say Elijah the prophet has returned. Others say you are one of the other prophets who has come back,” they replied.

“Yes, but who do you say I am?” Jesus asked.

Peter said, “You are the Messiah, God’s Anointed One.”
Jesus then told them them to keep this knowledge to themselves for the time being.

 

The Messiah

But who was this Messiah Peter spoke of? The Jews were waiting for him to come. He was the one who was going to solve the nation’s problems. They had been under the rule of foreign powers for centuries but they believed the Messiah was going to come. He would restore the kingdom and bring new life to the nation. This was the hope of the Jewish people at the time of Jesus.

They had all sorts of ideas about what he would be like. But most of them thought of a mighty conqueror who would drive the Romans from the Holy Land and then reign as king in Jerusalem. Then they would defeat all the Gentile nations and rule over them.

No doubt Peter thought in these terms when he said, “You are the Messiah.”

But Jesus’ idea of the Messiah was very different. It was more like the “suffering servant” we read about in Isaiah.

 

Suffering and Sacrifice

Jesus started taking about the Messiah in these terms: “The Son of Man will suffer many things. He will be rejected by the religious leaders and he will be killed. But after three days he will rise again.” All this was very different from Peter’s ideas of the Messiah and Jesus emphasized it a great deal until it was too much for Peter.

“No, Lord, don’t talk like that! These sorts of things wouldn’t happen to the Messiah. You’re not going to be rejected and die.” (Peter  didn’t seem to have cottoned on to the bit about rising from the dead.)

Jesus must have felt then he was being tempted to turn away from the path God had set before him  – the way of the cross. It was just like on that previous occasion when he had been tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Then Satan had proposed ways of avoiding the suffering and sacrifice.

Yes,  it would have been easy for Jesus to do that. People were willing to follow him as a military leader. By using force and supernatural power he could have overthrown the Romans. But his way is not the way of force and military might.

“Get behind me Satan,” he said, “these are not God’s thoughts, but men’s.”

 

Talk (B)

 
Song written by Larry Norman in the 70’s

Some say he was an outlaw that he roamed across the land
With a band of Unschooled ruffians and a few old fisherman.
No one knew just where he came from, or exactly what he’d done.
But they said it must be something bad that kept him on the run.

Some say he was a sorcerer, a man of mystery,
He could walk upon the water, he could make the blind man see.
He conjured wine at weddings and did tricks with fish and bread
And he talked of being born again and raised people from the dead

Some say he was a poet that he would stand upon the hill
And his voice could calm an angry crowd, or make the waves stand still.
He spoke in many parables that few could understand
But the people sat for hours just to listen to this man.

Some say a politician, who spoke of being free
He was followed by the masses on the shores of Galilee.
He spoke out against corruption and he bowed to no decree
They feared his strength and power, so they nailed him to a tree.
Some say he was the Son of God, A man above all.
That he came to be a servant and to set us free from sin And that’s who I believe he was,
because that’s who I believe.

 

Talk (C) 

[Show various crosses - gold necklace, wooden, palm cross, etc.]

Take up your cross

Every day we see crosses all around us. People wear them as jewellery, they hang them on the wall, and they use them as key chains. When you pass by a church, it is not unusual to see a cross on the steeple. We even see many people who wear the cross as a tattoo. What comes to your mind when you see a cross? What does the cross mean to you? Is it just a piece of jewellery or a work of art?

For Jesus the cross was not a piece of jewellery or a work of art. It was the instrument on which he was going to be executed. When he said to his disciples that they would have to take up their cross and follow him they didn’t think he was talking about wearing jewellery or carrying an ornamental wooden cross. He meant that, as his followers, they would have to be prepared to die for their faith, if necessary.

 

Deny yourself

Jesus also talked about denying oneself in order to share  in eternal life. What does this mean? In the Middle Ages people thought it meant becoming a monk, treating yourself harshly, fasting for long periods, whipping your body and wearing hair shirts! But Jesus didn’t mean this. By denying yourself he meant forgetting yourself – letting go of selfishness and thinking about other people. Most of all, thinking about God and what he wants for your life. It’s about submitting to God’s will and living for others.
You know the saying: “If you want JOY in life then put Jesus first, Others second and Yourself last.”  J.O.Y.

If we are going to enter into God’s Kingdom then there are certain things we might have to let go of. Of course, we must renounce sin and turn away from all that we know to be wrong. We have to repent and ask forgiveness for our sins in the name of Jesus. But even after that there may be some things we have to let go of. They are not things that are wrong in themselves; it’s just that they might get in the way of eternal life.

Jesus said: What good is it if someone gains the whole world but loses his soul?    ( v 36)

 if we don’t let go of these things we might miss out on the most important thing of all – a relationship with God and the sure and certain promise of being with him for ever.

This is how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this passage in The Message:

“ … But Peter grabbed him in protest. Turning and seeing his disciples wavering, wondering what to believe, Jesus confronted Peter. “Peter, get out of my way! Satan, get lost! You have no idea how God works! Calling the crowd to join the disciples, he said, “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat;I am. Don’t run from suffering, embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self Help is no help at all. Self Sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for? If any of you are embarrassed over me and the way I’m leading you when you get around your fickle and unfocused friends, know that you’ll be an ever greater embarrassment to the Son of Man when he arrives in all the splendor of God, his Father, with an army of the holy angels.”

 

Choices

It’s true that in life we make all kinds of choices.

  • Will I look for wealth and power: or will I look for ways to help people?
  • Will I care for the people around me: or will I just selfishly seek my own pleasure?
  • Will I concentrate on money, fame or fashion: or will I work hard to develop my talents to use for the benefit of others?

 
At a most basic level it could be a simple as:  ”will I go to church this morning, or will I do something else?” For the grown-ups that “something else” might be playing golf, or washing the car.  For young people it might be going our with your friends. The point is that there will always be clashes in life. We often have to make a choice between one thing and another.  We have to decide our priorities. So, how much priority do we give to following Jesus?

 

Following

Jesus never said it was going to be easy to follow him. In fact he used the most stark image to describe it. “You’ve got to take up your cross”, he said. And he wasn’t thinking of a gold cross, or one ornamented with jewels. He was thinking about the cross carried by the condemned man -  the cross he was going to be crucified on. Some people have literally done that – they have died for their faith in Jesus.

Clarence Jordan was a well known preacher, scholar and farmer in the USA in the mid 20th. century. (He was one of the founders of  Habitat for Humanity.)  Once Jordan was invited to preach at a magnificent church. The pastor showed him everything and pointed to a beautiful cross on the steeple: “That cross alone cost us $10,000.’

Jordan said, “Time was when a Christian could get one of those for free.”

(“A Cloud of Witnesses” by C. Douglas Weaver, Macon GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1993)

It’s unlikely that we will be asked to die for our faith, but we must be prepared to live for it. To give it the top priority in life.

Clarence Jordan also founded a Christian community of both black and white people in South Georgia in the 1940s. This was revolutionary thing to do and the congregation were severely persecuted.  Jordan asked the help of his brother who was a lawyer. “Having political aspirations, the brother refused. Clarence suggested that his brother should go back to the rural church where they had both walked the aisle to accept Christ and explain something. ‘Tell them,’ said Clarence, ‘what you really meant to say was that you ADMIRE Jesus, not that you want to FOLLOW him.’”

(“A Cloud of Witnesses” by C. Douglas Weaver, Macon GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1993)

Do we just admire Jesus, or do we want to follow him?

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“Ephphatha”

September 7, 2009 at 10:29 am · Filed under Christian living, Jesus Christ, New Testament

Mark 7:24-37

Introduction

Today I am going to so something I rarely do – preach from a text, a single verse. Actually it’s really just one word from Mark 7: 34

“Ephphatha”, which means “be opened”.

This is the actual Aramaic word used by Jesus when he healed a deaf man and commanded his lips and mouth to be opened. But I want to apply it to this whole passage in Mark 7: 24 to the end of the chapter. Here we see Jesus going out into Gentile territory and breaking new ground, opening up new groups of people to the Kingdom of God. So it’s all about being open – in contrast to the closed minds of the Pharisees and Scribes. In the previous section they were criticising the disciples of Jesus for not going through the correct procedure before eating their food.

These men thought of religion as something just for the elite. Only for Jews, and only really for those Jews who were wealthy enough to be able to afford to go through elaborate time-consuming rituals. It was partly to get away from such people that Jesus went off to the territory of Tyre and Sidon. He also probably needed to get some rest and relaxation. So he left the country, he went abroad, out of Jewish territory.

Although Tyre and Sidon had originally been included in the land allotted to the tribes of Israel, the fact is that the tribe of Asher had never fully settled their territory. So Tyre and Sidon remained in the hands of the pagan Canaanites. At the time of Jesus it was a very mixed area, both ethnically and religiously. There were a few Jews around, but most people were pagans.

These were the cities of the Phoenicians who were great sailors. They were the first men to steer by the stars. They traded right across the Mediterranean, and even as far as Britain where they came to buy Cornish tin. They built cities in North Africa – most notably, Carthage. The Phoenicians who lived in Tyre and Sidon were known as Syro-phoenicians (that is Syrian Phoenicians) as opposed to the ones from North Africa who were known as the Carthaginians. They were all descendents of the ancient Canaanites and worshipped the god Baal.

(We read quite a lot about them in the Old Testament, in the story of Elijah. Jezebel was a Sidonian princess and worshipper of pagan gods.)

In Phoenicia there were also other tribes and races – Romans, Greeks and Syrians, among others. Two main languages were spoken by the common people – Aramaic (a language related to Hebrew which had been the official language of the old Persian empire) and Greek (which had been the language of the empire of Alexander the Great). Latin was the official language of the Roman authorities. The same situation existed in Palestine and it is very likely that Jesus and his disciples were bilingual in Aramaic and Greek.

 

 

Moving out

Mark tells us that Jesus and his disciples went to the vicinity of Tyre and stayed in a lodging place there. Jesus wanted to be on his own – but soon people heard who he was and started flocking to him. A woman came to him and begged that he would save her daughter from the power of an unclean spirit. We don’t know anything else about the girl. What was her name? How old was she? What form did the demon possession take? How had she come under this evil power? How long had she been in this state? We don’t know these things but we do know that her mother was desperate. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

She was desperate enough to come to this Jewish healer, even though she was just a gentile. “Gentile dogs” is what they were called by most Jews. And to the Jewish way of thinking dogs were unclean animals.

Now we come to the part of the story that causes most problems to modern commentators. It’s just so politically incorrect! Jesus refers to this woman and her daughter as dogs!

“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

It seems so harsh. It makes it appear that Jesus was as narrow minded and judgmental as the Pharisees. But we notice one thing, which is not apparent in the English versions of the Bible.

When he speaks to her, Jesus doesn’t use the normal Greek word for dog, KUON, which just means a cur, any old dog roaming the streets. Instead he uses the diminutive form, KUNARION, a little dog, a pet dog. It’s almost a term of affection.

It is surely significant that Jesus used this word for dog. (By the way, if you are wondering why Jesus should have been speaking Greek, it was because this woman was a Greek-speaker. Although she was Syro-phoenician she didn’t speak Aramaic. Just as you can be of Welsh birth and nationality and yet not be able to speak Welsh. Jesus apparently was bilingual, so he spoke to her in Greek.)

“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

The little pet dogs that lie under the table waiting for the children to drop scraps of food for them. Of course, no orthodox Jew would have such an arrangement in his household. The dogs, if there were any, would have been kept outside. But Jesus is talking to a Gentile woman, and Gentiles didn’t necessarily regard all dogs as unclean.

Jesus is saying, in effect, that he had come to bring God’s help to the Jews first. His mission was to show to the Jews that he was their Messiah. Only after that had happened would the Gentiles be included. Jesus is not excluding the Gentiles, he is just stressing that he is, first and foremost, the Messiah of the Jews.

Also he seems to be testing this woman to see if she really wants to allow God to work in her life. Or is she just looking for a miracle cure for her daughter? There are several other occasions in the gospels when Jesus seemed to go out of his way to put people off following him. He often needed to test their intentions.

But this woman rises to the test:

“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”

 It wasn’t just because of her clever repartee, it was because she showed faith in the God of Israel. She acknowledged that Jesus had come to the Jews first but she also wanted some crumbs to fall for the Gentiles. It’s an amazing combination of humility, boldness and faith.

And because of that faith Jesus performed an amazing miracle. He drove out the demon at a distance, without even meeting the girl. No words of power, no ceremony of exorcism, not even a command to the demon to go. He simply said, “The demon has left your daughter” – and it was so! She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

 

 

Moving back

Jesus stayed in the region of Tyre and Sidon for some time. (One commentator suggests about six months.) Then he returned home to Galilee. On the way home he went into the region of the Decapolis which was on the Gentile shore of Lake Galilee.

The people of this area were also pagan – a mixed population of Syrians and Greeks. But the area was close to Jesus’ home in Caphernaum and the people spoke Aramaic, just as he did.

In one of the villages they brought to him a man who was deaf and who had a speech impediment. Once again, we don’t know anything about this man. We don’t know his name or his age, or how long he had been deaf. Was it from birth? Was he indeed totally deaf or just profoundly deaf? Was his speech impediment a consequence of his being deaf? We don’t know.

This man lived at a time when there was no provision at all for deaf people. No one had yet devised a sign language for the deaf. There was no support, and no cure for his condition. This man was in a desperate plight. The people begged Jesus to lay hands on him, in the hope that it might effect a cure.

So there was this crowds of excited people all around the man – jostling and gesticulating. They grabbed hold of the man and propelled him toward Jesus. The deaf man must have been completely bemused. He didn’t know what was going on, or why they were pushing him toward this stranger! Immediately Jesus grasped the situation. He saw that the man was bewildered. So he led him away from the crowd, to a quiet place.

Now Jesus could have just laid hands on this man and cured him. But he wanted the man first to know what was happening – so that he would have faith in Jesus. So Jesus spoke to the man with signs and gestures:

  •  He placed his fingers in the mans ears, as if to say, “Your hearing will be made whole.”
  •  He touched the man’s tongue with saliva, as if to say, “Your speech will be made perfect.” (In ancient times saliva was believed to have healing properties.)
  • · He looked up to heaven and sighed deeply, as if to say, “God sympathises with your plight. He is going to heal you.”
  • · And then Jesus said the word “Ephphatha”, which means, “Be opened”.

 

Why does Mark record the actual Aramaic word Jesus used? I don’t know, but I can’t think of a better word to use. Just think of these three syllables:

Eph – Pha – Tha.

Each syllable requires moving the lips and the teeth. It must be just about the easiest word in the world to lip-read! So the man saw the word with his eyes. He knew he was being healed, and the next moment he could hear and speak.

At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

 

 Conclusion

“Ephphatha: be opened.”

This word seems to me to be the key to the whole passage. It’s all about openness.

  • Jesus went to Phoenicia and spent time among the Gentiles. He saw them as human beings, with human needs. Despite his words to the women he did not see them as dogs. He was open to them. “Ephphatha: be opened.”
  •  He delivered the little girl from an unclean spirit. Her life was suddenly opened up to all that was good and pure. “Ephphatha: be opened.”
  •  His conversation with the Syro-phoenician woman indicated that the saving power of God was going to be made available to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. Not yet, but after the Resurrection, and after the Day of Pentecost, the Good News was going to go out to every nation. The doors of salvation were going to be opened up to all. “Ephphatha: be opened.”
  •  In the Decapolis, once again Jesus ministered to a Gentile person. He opened up a new life for this man even as his ears and mouth were opened. “Ephphatha: be opened.”

 

And what about us? do we need to open up too?

  •  Surely we need to be open to the fact that God can work in ways we can not imagine, outside our institutional religious structures. That’s just what Jesus was doing in that Gentile territory.
  •  We also need to open up to God himself. We can’t hide anything from him anyway. But he yearns for us to open our hearts to him – to receive the blessings of his Spirit.
  •  Then at last our ears will be open and we will listen to his word. Our mouths will be open and we will proclaim the glory of his name. We will tell others about this Jesus who “has done all things well”.

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