In a documentary on the Holocaust, a leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising talked about the bitterness that remains in his soul over how he and his neighbors were treated by the Nazis: “If you could lick my heart,” he says, “it would poison you.”

Researchers are finding that this Holocaust survivor’s sentiment is not necessarily metaphorical. While the biblical practice of forgiveness is usually preached as a Christian obligation, social scientists are discovering that forgiveness may help lead to victims’ emotional and even physical healing and wholeness.

Radhi Al-Mabuk, Robert Enright, and Paul Cardis published a study in 1995 (Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 24, No. 4) examining forgiveness education with college students who judged themselves to be deprived of parental love. The college students who underwent the more rigorous forgiveness program had “improved psychological health,” including improved self-esteem, hope, and lowered trait anxiety.

In a different study in 1997, Enright and Catherine Coyle sought to determine whether men who identified themselves as hurt by an abortion could benefit from a “structured process designed to facilitate forgiveness.”

The processes involve 20 separate steps, including confronting anger, a willingness to consider forgiveness as an option, acceptance of the pain, and the participant realizing that he has needed others’ forgiveness in the past. After leading their subjects through this process, researchers found significant decreases in clients’ anxiety, anger, and grief.

When Lewis Smedes a theologian set out to write a general book on the theological aspect of forgiveness, he soon discovered that “almost everything that was written about forgiveness was about how God forgives sinful people and how they can experience his forgiveness.”

Today’s text said “Whoever’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven them. Whoever’s sins you retain, they have been retained.” John 20:23

At first read this sounds like Jesus is giving the disciples the authority to absolve people of their sins against God. In fact, the practice of confession in the Catholic church is taken from this passage. And yet there is not a single incident in the New Testament of the disciples forgiving people’s sins. John Gill in his commentary on John calls the idea that we would be absolving people of their sins blasphemy.

Instead, what I think that this passage is talking about is the offering of forgiveness to each other for their sins against us or others.

This is a quintessential Christian practice. Jerry Cook thought forgiveness so important to the church he made it one of the three core elements in his book “Love, acceptance and forgiveness.” Jesus made it a central ingredient of the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:23 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared this…

a king decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.[k] 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.

26 “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

28 “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.[l] He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.

29 “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

31 “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

35 “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters[m] from your heart.”

You might be struggling today with forgiving someone. Someone in the church. Someone in your family. A friend. It might be something that happened years ago. Or only moments ago. So we’re going to look at forgiveness today. First we’ll look at a couple myths about what people think forgiveness is. Then what forgiveness actually is. And finally some steps you can take if you are struggling to forgive someone.

Prayer. Lord, you forgave me. You forgive me. You forgave _us_. You forgive _us_. Teach us Lord to forgive each other. To forgive our family. Members of our church. Our friends. Open your word to us Lord. Amen.

Let’s look at what forgiveness isn’t

First, forgiveness is not forgetting. It is instead choosing how to remember.

When I try to think of stories of forgiveness in my life I don’t initially think of the 100′s of times that I forgive in a week or a month. If we were to catalog our lives we would find that we overlook a thousand offenses in our lifetime. But we don’t think of these times when we do an inventory of forgiveness. Instead we think of the worst hurts. If you rehearse these moments you will likely wind up reliving the emotions that accompanied the offense. Why is this? You’ve forgiven this person. You have let go of your need to punish them. And yet you still feel these emotions.

That is because forgiving does not necessarily mean forgetting. Deep hurts can rarely be wiped out of one’s awareness. We need to give ourselves permission that it is ok to still feel things. It doesn’t mean that we haven’t forgiven people. It just means that we really were hurt. When you have an open wound it takes time to heal. And even when it is healed it is likely to leave a scar. Forgiveness doesn’t heal the open wound. And it doesn’t remove the scar. It instead chooses how to remember the story of the pain rather then let the pain dictate our memories.

Secondly, Forgiveness is not condoning a wrong. It is choosing to stop hating.

Forgiveness does not remove the offense. Instead it involves taking the offense seriously, not passing it off as inconsequential or insignificant.

When we forgive someone for a mistake or a deliberate hurt, we still recognize it as such, but instead of lashing out or biting back, we attempt to see beyond it, so as to restore our relationship with the person responsible for it.

Dr. Glen Mack Harnden says that “forgiveness does not preclude the enforcement of healthy and natural consequences on the offender . …Whenever an individual offends another, the offender gives up a certain degree of power in determining his or her own destiny, with the power being given over to the offended.”

Smedes would agree. “Some people view forgiveness as a cheap avoidance of justice, a plastering over of wrong, a sentimental make believe. If forgiveness is a whitewashing of wrong, then it is itself wrong. Nothing that whitewashes evil can be good. It can be good only if it is a redemption from the effects of evil, not a make-believing that the evil never happened.”

Now we’ve seen what forgiveness isn’t. Let’s look at what forgiveness is.

I love this quote from the book Why Forgive.

“Forgiveness is a small, narrow door, and cannot be entered without stooping. But it is a door to peace and happiness.”

Forgiveness is a small narrow door. If forgiveness were easy, none of us would be carrying hard feelings for our friends, church or family. It is a small narrow door.

It cannot be entered without stooping. Forgiveness involves humility. It is acknowledging our own humanity, our own weakness. The small narrow door of forgiveness cannot be entered without stooping.

Lewis Smedes gives a three-part definition of what forgiveness is.

1. “The first thing one does in forgiving is surrender the right to get even with the person who wronged us,” he says.

Forgiveness is different from justice. Justice involves reciprocity of some kind. , whereas forgiveness is an unconditional gift given to one who does not deserve it.”

In Matthew 5:38 Jesus said “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Romans 12:19 says Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 Therefore

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he is thirsty, give him a drink.

For in doing so, you will heap coals of fire on his head.”

21 Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This doesn’t mean that forgiveness is a pardon. a pardon is a legal transaction that releases an offender from the consequences of an action, such as a penalty. Forgiveness is instead a personal transaction that releases the one offended from the offense.

2. “Secondly, forgiveness means reinterpreting the person who wronged us in a larger format.” This, Smedes says, is to help us avoid creating a “caricature” of the person who wronged us. “In the act of forgiving, we get a new picture of a needy, weak, complicated, fallible human being like ourselves.”

As I said a moment ago, forgiveness isn’t about forgetting. Instead it Is choosing how you will remember. How you will see the person who wronged you.

3. The third step is “a gradual desire for the welfare of the person who injured you.”

This is probably the hardest part. In the corinthian church there was a member that had caused Paul a lot of grief and a lot of trouble for the church. As a result the church punished him. But the time came when he had repented. Paul said it was not only time to forgive him but it was time to restore him. To wish better for him.

2Corinthians 2:6 6 Most of you opposed him, and that was punishment enough. 7 Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement. 8 So I urge you now to reaffirm your love for him.

In 1990, a young mother of three pleaded for her life after being confronted by an assailant wearing combat fatigues.

“Please don’t shoot me,” she whimpered.

The murderer cold-heartedly fired anyway, killing the woman. The assailant made many mistakes in covering up her crime. She sloppily disposed of her clothing and weapon. Colorado Springs police had her in custody within 24 hours. Shortly thereafter, they also arrested the victim’s husband after determining that the two had an affair.

Sydna Masse was a neighbor of the murdered woman. When she heard about the killing, she responded with hate and rage.

“I had a dead friend and now lived behind three motherless kids. I felt I had every right to hate the murderer who caused this.”

Sydna grew “physically hot” when the murderer’s name—Jennifer—was even mentioned or her picture was flashed on television. “For a while, I couldn’t even read the newspaper articles,” she admits.

Sydna’s hate wasn’t a solitary affair. “The whole city and state hated her,” she says. Jennifer’s life sentence did little to ameliorate Sydna’s passion. “There was no relief in her sentencing. That’s the thing with hatred and bitterness—it eats you alive. Every time I passed the house, I missed Diane and became angry all over again.”

Shortly after Jennifer received her sentence, Sydna began going through a Bible study that included a chapter on forgiveness. Sydna prayerfully asked God whom she needed to forgive, and in her words, “Jennifer’s name came right to my head. I literally did a whiplash and protested, ‘No way I can forgive her. She killed my friend! She killed a mother of three!’”

In spite of her reluctance, Sydna finally acquiesced and wrote a carefully worded letter to Jennifer, expressing her forgiveness. She was caught by surprise by what happened inside her. As soon as Sydna dropped the letter into the mail, “a weight lifted. I felt like I was losing 20 pounds. That’s when I learned that anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness keeps you from experiencing the depths of joy.”

Though Sydna Masse forgave Jennifer for murdering her friend, she did so initially out of a sense of obligation. “What I didn’t expect was what I got in return,” she says today.

“I’m sorry for killing your friend,” Jennifer wrote in response.

When Sydna read the words, “It hit me like a thunderbolt. I didn’t realize I needed to hear that.”

But she did.

As a pen-pal relationship grew, Sydna realized that what she once viewed as an obligation—forgiving Jennifer—ended up ministering to both women in some profound ways.

Sydna began to wish the best for Jennifer. This was a lifechanging stage in her road to forgiveness.

We’ll close with some steps to forgiveness if you are having trouble forgiving someone followed by one last story of forgiveness. I’ve put this sermon up on my website: www.jeffreyclong.com if you’d like to review this list.

1. Don’t deny feelings of hurt, anger, or shame. Rather, acknowledge these feelings and commit yourself to doing something about them.

It is important to not think that in order to forgive you have to bury your feelings. If you had no feelings about it you would have nothing to forgive. Your feelings are an acknowledgement that something terrible has happened

2. Don’t just focus on the person who has harmed you, but identify the specific offensive behavior.

Love the sinner, hate the sin. Don’t just put all your focus on the person. Rather pay attention to what was actually done.

3. Make a conscious decision not to seek revenge or nurse a grudge and decide instead to forgive. This conversion of the heart is a critical stage toward forgiveness.

After the violent death of his sister, a man named Daniel vowed to take revenge. And yet the culprit was never found. But his need for revenge continued. His mother wrote: Over the next two-and-a-half years I saw Daniel go downhill. And then one day I stood alongside his sister’s grave only this time I watched _him_ being lowered into the ground. He had finally taken revenge – on himself. I saw what hatred does: it takes the ultimate toll on one’s mind and body.

The need for revenge takes its ultimate toll not on the offender, but rather on ourselves.

4. Formulate a rationale for forgiving. For example: “By forgiving I can experience inner healing and move on with my life.”

List some of the reasons why you should forgive. What will forgiveness do you for you. For those around you. What will forgiveness do for the offender.

5. Think differently about the offender. Try to see things from the offender’s perspective.

6. Accept the pain you’ve experienced without passing it off to others, including the offender.

7. Choose to extend goodwill and mercy toward the other; wish for the well-being of that person.

8. Think about how it feels to be released from a burden or grudge. Be open to emotional relief. Seek meaning in the suffering you experienced.

9. Realize the paradox of forgiveness: as you let go and forgive the offender, you are experiencing release and healing.

Adapted from Robert D. Enright, in Scott Heller, “Emerging Field of Forgiveness Studies Explores How We Let Go of Grudges,” Chronicle of Higher Education (July 17, 1998).

Close with this story.

Gordon Wilson held his daughter’s hand as they lay trapped beneath a mountain of rubble. It was 1987, and he and Marie had been attending a peaceful memorial service in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, when a terrorist bomb went off. By the end of the day Marie and nine other civilians were dead, and sixty-three had been hospitalized for injuries. Amazingly Gordon refused to retaliate, saying that angry words could

neither restore his daughter nor bring peace to Belfast. Only hours after the bombing, he told BBC reporters:

I have lost my daughter, and we shall miss her. But I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge…That will not bring her back…Don’t ask me, please, for a purpose…I don’t have an answer. But I know there has to be a plan. If I

didn’t think that, I would commit suicide. It’s part of a greater plan…and we shall meet again.

Later Gordon said that his words were not intended as a theological response to his daughter’s murder. He had simply blurted them out from the depth of his heart. In the days and weeks that followed the bombing, he struggled to live up to his words. It wasn’t easy, but they were something to hang on to, something to keep him afloat in the dark hours when grief overwhelmed him.

He knew that the terrorists who took his daughter’s life were anything but remorseful, and he maintained that they should be punished and imprisoned. Even so, he refused to seek revenge. “Those who have to account for this deed will have to face a judgement of God,” he said, “which is way beyond my forgiveness…It would be wrong for me to give any impression that gunmen and bombers should be allowed to walk the streets freely. But…whether or not they are judged here on earth

by a court of law…I do my very best in human terms to show forgiveness…The last word rests with God.”

Gordon was misunderstood and ridiculed by many because of his stand, but he says that without having made a decision to forgive, he never could have accepted the fact that his daughter was never coming back. Nor could he have found the freedom to move on. Forgiving also had a positive effect that reached beyond his personal life. At least temporarily, his words broke the

cycle of killing and revenge: the local Protestant paramilitary leadership felt so convicted by his courage that they did not retaliate.

Matthew 18:21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone[i] who sins against me? Seven times?”

22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!”

Forgiveness is hard. But not forgiving is harder.

Lent is the 40 days prior to Easter. The word Lent originally referred to the forty hours of total fast which preceded the Easter celebration in the early Church. The main ceremony on Easter was the baptizing of the new believers on Easter Eve. The fast was for the new believers to prepare to receive baptism.

The reason that they chose a forty day period was because the Bible uses the number 40 often. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness; the forty days and nights Elijah spent walking to Mt. Horeb; in the story of Noah, God makes it rain for forty days and forty nights (they were in the ark for much longer); Jonah in his prophecy of judgment gave the city of Nineveh forty days grace in which to repent. the Hebrew people wandered forty years traveling to the Promised Land; finally the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai with God.

Exodus 15:11 recounts the words of Moses when he led the Israelites across the Red Sea safely away from the Egyptian army

Who is like you, Yahweh, among the gods?

Who is like you, glorious in holiness,

Fearful in praises, doing wonders

Moses knew that Yahweh was a holy God.

None of the gods is like Him

There is no person who is like Him.

Fearful

Does wonders

But as a holy God, he demands righteousness of us.

righteousness means that we put ourself under, conform to the claims of someone who has higher authority then us. the opposite of righteous is lawless.

so God’s demand is that we put ourself under him, conform to his claim upon our lives, which means that we are to live up to his standard of holiness.

pretty tough road.

Let’s look at our text.

In Romans 10 Paul describes the righteousness that the Christian is to live under. He does so first by contrasting it with the righteousness that Moses spoke

Verse 5 says

“Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.”

Moses was speaking of the law that God had given them. He was saying that they would live a long life in the land of Canaan, in great happiness and prosperity. He was not saying that they would have eternal life. Something that is notable in the Old Testament is that it very rarely speaks of eternal life and usually not in terms of how to attain it.

How they would acquire this life was by doing what God commanded. The law. We could rehearse the ten commandments or do a study on the law in deuteronomy but for now let’s look at the sabbath.

Deuteronomy 5:12 Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

Sabbath keeping has been an important part of the Jewish faith since the time of Moses. The Pharisees were so diligent in keeping the law that they found Jesus offensive for healing on the sabbath. Jews are still diligent about keeping the Sabbath. I mentioned once that you can go to the internet and put in your latitude and longitude and find out the exact time when the sun goes down and the sun rises to begin and end the sabbath.

Christians have also had a lot of respect for the sabbath. Some keep it as the Lord’s day and there have been many rules for how it should be kept. Awhile ago I mentioned blue laws that restrict activities on Sunday. I’m not positive because I don’t try and buy alcohol on Sundays’ but I don’t believe you can in Idaho. Churches have had restrictions against recreation on Sundays.

A branch of Christianity called Sabbatarians believe that we should continue to keep the sAbbath on Saturday. I went through a season of doing this, though not legalistically. The family still remembers that we used to have church on saturday night, not sunday morning.

All of these people have made sabbath keeping very important. But do you know that no matter how diligent you are to keep the sabbath, you will never be a righteous sabbath keeper?

Matthew 5:20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Pharisees were diligent keepers of the sabbath. And yet they were not righteous sabbath keepers.

We can not find righteousness with God by adherence to the law.

in Romans 10:8 the righteousness which is of faith says “The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart;” that is, the word of faith, which we preach: 9 that if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

We come by righteousness not by what we do, but by what we say.

Because righteousness by our actions is never enough. Our righteosness comes through the work of the blood of Jesus.

1 Peter 3:18 says 18For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

Jesus was our righteousness. He fulfilled the requirements of the law once and for all because he was unblemished, holy, righteous.

Hebrews 9:14 and 15 say How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! 15For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

We are not righteous. He is our righteousness. It is through His actions, not ours.

The only way that we can come under this righteousness is through the words of our lips and through our belief in our heart. There is nothing we can do.

Galatians 2:21 says I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

9 because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

11 The scripture says in Isaiah 28:16, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.”

12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.

13 The scripture also says in Joel 2:32 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

We’ll close with a story from Luke 18

Luke 18:9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10”Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about[a] himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13”But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14″I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The righteousness of the Pharisee could not save him because even though he was a diligent keeper of the law it left him prideful. Rather, the humble confession of the unrighteous tax collector justified him.

Today let us go out confessing that we are made righteous not from our own works but through the work that Jesus did which we are only able to accept through our belief in our heart and confession of our mouth.

Today we are looking at the story of God’s promise to Abram that he would multiply his descendents like the stars of the sky.

One of the questions that is important to ask is how are we to use these stories in our own life.

Will God do the same things for us that he did for Abraham? or for Solomon? or Paul?

A common way that people use the stories of the Bible is to Apply promises that were made to specific people in specific situations to themself.

So, Because God gave Abraham and Sarah a child in their old age does that mean that He is going to give a barren couple one as well.

Because Jesus healed a blind man does that mean that He is going to heal the young man who was deaf in the church I grew up in.

Because God blessed Jabez, enlarged his territory and kept him from pain does tha mean that He is going to do the same for me.

I don’t think so. Instead, we discover first from these stories that the God who has been faithful in the past is going to be faithful in our present. He is going to do a unique work in you just as he did a unique work in the life of Abraham, the blind man and Jabez.

Second, we learn from these stories who we are and where we’ve come from.

Moses told this story because it told Israel _who_ _they_ _were_. They were children of a promise.

The Church tells the story because it tells us _who_ _we_ _are_. We are children of a promise.

In this case, we are the fulfillment of the promise made by God to Abram that He would multiply his seed.

In the story today we learn that God was not simply promising Abram that He was going to multiply his seed. He was demonstrating using this promise to demonstrate to Abram’s that He was Abram’s shield and reward. And so we learn from this story that as heirs of this promise, He is our shield and reward as well.

Read Genesis 15:1-12; 17-18

1 After these things the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

2 Abram said, “Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Abram said, “Behold, to me you have given no seed: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir.”

4 Behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but he who will come forth out of your own body will be your heir.” 5 Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So shall your seed be.” 6 He believed in Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness. 7 He said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.”

8 He said, “Lord Yahweh, how will I know that I will inherit it?”

9 He said to him, “Take me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.” 10 He took him all these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each half opposite the other; but he didn’t divide the birds. 11 The birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

12 When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Now terror and great darkness fell on him. 13 He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your seed will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years. 14 I will also judge that nation, whom they will serve. Afterward they will come out with great substance. 15 But you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried in a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.” 17 It came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

Abram lived during a time of battles for control of various regions. In the previous chapter he had settled into a area that was near oaks that were under the rule of Mamre an Amorite. He had allied himself with this tribe.

In a nearby region a ruler named Chedor-laomer had come to reclaim the territory that he had ruled for twelve years and then lost to a rebellion. Battle after battle he conquered the kings of this land. Finally the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Bela stood up against him in the valley of Sidiim. Unfortunately, this valley had tar pits that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into as they fled. Chedor-laomer took the opportunity to take all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and to go on their way. An escapee from this battle went to the oaks and found Abram and reported that his nephew Lot had been taken by Chedor-laomer.

Abram gathered his people and those of Mamre, 318 total and went in pursuit. first to Dan and then as far as Hobah which is on the left hand of Damascus. Finally he was able to retake the army, was victorious and returned with all the goods, the women, the people, and his nephew Lot.

When he returned, the king of Sodom went out to meet him and said to him “Give me the people and take the goods to yourself.”

Abram replied “I have lifted up my hand to YHWH God most high, possessor of heaven and earth that I will take not a thread nor a shoe latchet nor anything that is yours lest you be able to say that you made Abram rich.”

So Abram returned to the oaks.

We can imagine that he did so with some insecurity. Chedor-laomer had a claim upon the land. Generally warriors don’t give up after a loss. They return again for vengence. So Abram knew that he had now made an enemy with a warrior who had a claim upon his neigboring land.

So, at the begining of Genesis 15, Yahweh came to Abram in a vision and responded to his concern.

God said to Abram “_I_ am your shield. your exceedingly great reward.”

Don’t worry Abram. I will protect you. You do not need to fear the return of Chedorlaomer. Just as I was with you in that battle I am with you now to protect you and your people.

But even moreso. You were a man of integrity and did not take a reward from the king of Sodom. So I will not only reward you, I will be your reward.

Imagine Abram’s shock at hearing God in a vision. And of course he was assured by this. But it left him with a question.

In verse 2 Abram replies: “Lord Yahweh, what will my reward be?, since Sarah and I are childless? As it stands now, Eliezer of Damascus will inherit my estate. You have given me no seed.

Abram was saying “All my wealth and riches, victories and honours, are of no worth to me, when I have no heir and am advanced in years, Should I die childless, as I am apt to do, what pleasure can I take in these _rewards_ you’ve promised, and comfort from them, when I have no one to inherit them?”

Verse 4 says And Behold, in Abram’s vision, he heard the word of Yahweh speaking. He said, “Eliezer will not be your heir. Instead your heir will be the boy who will come forth out of your own body. He will be your heir.” 5 Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So shall your seed be.”

In 1996 Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey (McCoy) desired to have more children then the one daughter that they had. Struggling to conceive, with the help of a doctor they finally succeeded through the help of fertility drugs. But what a shock to discover that they weren’t pregnant with one child, or perhaps even twins, but rather she was carrying seven fetuses. They declied what the internet called “selective reduction” to reduce the number saying instead that they would “put it in God’s hands.” And so on November 19th, 1997 they gave birth to Kenneth Robert, Alexis May, Natalie Sue, Kelsey Ann, Nathan Roy, Brandon James, Joel Steven , are the world’s first surviving set of septuplets.

Imagine going from one child to 8.

That’s how Abram must have felt. He was just told that he was going to go from zero to more then the stars in the sky. What a discovery! What a ridiculous claim. He and Sarah were old. And yet their progeny would outnumber the stars in the sky.

And so what did he do?

He believed.

What else could he do? There was nothing he _could_ do. It was totally in God’s hands. The only choice he had was to believe or to doubt. Or to doubt.

The result?

verse 6 says “and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”

I said last week that righteousness means that we put ourself under, conform to the claims of someone who has higher authority then us.

By believing, Abram put himself under God’s claim to be Abram’s shield. He was subjugating Himself to God. He found himself in right standing with God. In right relationship.

Through belief he was doing the only thing he could do. Agreeing with God. Saying Amen to God.

And God said to him, “Attaboy! You aren’t righteous for anything you did, but I am declaring you righteous because you believe me!”

We know that Abram wasn’t righteous because later he tried to pass off sarah as his sister

And yet because of his faith God _declared_ him righteous.

Paul says in Romans 4:4 that if Abram had done something to merit God’s favor, then the reward God promised him would be repayment of a debt. God would have owed Abram. But because there was no work involved but simply belief, instead of God repaying a debt, the free reward was righteousness.

It is interesting that Abram’s belief was not absolute and yet God still credited it to Him as righteousness.

After coming to Abram in a vision, promising him an heir, and then promising him the land as an inheritance, Abram has the audacity to ask “God, how will I know that I will inherit it?”

This is the second time that Abram has asked God a question. Do you know that it is OK to ask God questions? God is infinite and we are finite which means that there is lots for us to not understand. God does not credit our questioning to doubt.

We’ll close with God’s answer to Abram’s question.

God made a covenant with Abram.

Verse 9 says 9 He said to him, “Take me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.” 10 He took him all these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each half opposite the other; but he didn’t divide the birds.

And then continuing at verse 17 It came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

What is described here was a a rite or custom used in making and confirming covenants; a calf, or some other creature, were cut in pieces, and the parts laid in order, and the covenantees passed between these parts; signifying thereby, that if they did not fulfil the engagements they entered into, they imprecated to be cut to pieces as that creature was.

This is a practice that was common to the Chaldeans, greeks, and romans. Some believe it originated with this story.

What is important about this example though is that it was only God who made the covenant.

There are examples when men covenanted with God. Again, one sided.

Jer 34:18 [18 I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts of it;]

But in this instance Abram didn’t.

What does this mean?

It means that it was God who was making the promise to Abram, not Abram to God. God who would be held accountable if He broke the covenant.

Which leads us to a very important question: Who are the parties in the new covenant? We know that God made the covenant with us. Jesus death on the cross was the sacrifice as the animals were here. And we might imagine that God walked through this sacrifice. But does man walk through the sacrifice too?

I don’t think so. because if we did, we would be crucified as well. The symbolism of the covenant is that if one of the party breaks they were to be cut to pieces as the sacrifice was. So if Jesus was the sacrifice on the cross for us, wouldn’t it be true that if we broke the covenant we would be crucificed as well.

And we’ve already broken the covenant. I cannot keep a promise with God. We saw from this story about Abram that even after he believed God, he questioned him. His righteousness came from God’s declaration of his righteousness. Not because of his ability to fulfill a covenant.

You might say then that All you can do is your best. Well, imagine if you borrowed money from the bank for a car and kept missing payments and suddenly found yourself six months behind they would say “you have broken your agreement with us. We are taking the car.” Would you say to them, “but I did my best?”

We can do our best with God, but we will still break the terms of the covenant. Our righteousness comes not from our ability to fulfill a covenant. It comes from God’s declaration of our righteousness based on our faith.

So, it is God who covenants with us. God who prepares the sacrifice. Only God can keep the terms of the agreement.

So what is left for us to do? We must do something?

We do what Abram did. We believe. And God credits it to us as righteousness. God says to us, “I am your shield your great reward. If you did anything, I would owe it to you as a debt. But you did nothing. So it is grace. My righteousness is grace to you. Just believe.”

Judging also means to condemn. To look at others we believe are sinners and to pass judgement on their destiny and value. In Luke 18:10 Jesus tells the story of a Pharisee and a tax collector in prayer.

“He spoke also this parable to certain people who were convinced of their own righteousness, and who despised all others. Two men went up into the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ‘God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The Pharisee in this story saw only the sins of the men around him and comparing himself to them condemned them. Abbot Moses wrote in the 10th century that “they who are conscious of their own sins have no eyes for the sins of their neighbors.” When we are like the tax collector and humbled by our own sinfulness we won’t have the room to condemn those around us.

However, judging should not be confused with forming opinions. A phrase I have heard before is that we judge for classification but never condemnation. It is not judgmental to acknowledge that someone’s temper, gossip, abusiveness or even judgmentalism is a sin. But it is not our place to have a critical attitude for this person or to condemn them. Instead we are to show them love.

We’ll close with an old story about two neighbors, a baker and a farmer. The baker began to be suspicious of the farmer, suspecting that he wasn’t getting his money’s worth when he paid for a pound of butter. He weighed the farmer’s butter on several occasions and finally had him arrested for fraud.

The judge asked the farmer at the trial, “I presume you have scales?”

“Yes, of course, Your Honor,” the farmer replied.

“And weights?” the judge asked.

“No,” replied the farmer. “I don’t have a set of weights.”

“Then how do you hope to weigh accurately the butter you sell to your neighbor?” the judge asked.

“That’s easy,” the farmer said. “When the baker began to buy from me, I decided to buy my bread from him. I’ve been using his one-pound loaves to balance my scales. If the weight of the butter is wrong, he has only himself to blame.”

Matthew 7:2 warns that “with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.” The baker found that the measure with which he was judging the farmer actually measured against himself. Keep an eye on your thoughts and conversations asking God to remove any judgmentalism that may have crept in.

On my bookshelf are books on congregational growth, end times, bible commentaries, graphic novels, study bibles, hymnals, leadership, psychology. Controversial: The geocentric bible, two books on Mary the mother of Jesus from a catholic perspective. Books on Bill Clintons presidency. I just ordered a couple books on classroom management for teachers.

By far the majority would be non fiction books about religion.

I’m not alone.

The Chicago Tribune reports that “A study of book purchases from 1998 to 2000 shows that the leading genre of books purchased by men was non-fiction religion. After that came Espionage/thriller books followed by science fiction, computers, and mystery/detective books.

Women spent the most on romance books, followed by general fiction, mystery/detective, non-fiction religion, and religious fiction.

“The Story Behind What We Read,” Chicago Tribune (11-21-01); source: Ipsos Book Trends

What we read says a lot about us. It says what is important to us. What we want to learn about. What we want to entertain us. It shows who we are.

The first Psalm agrees. It says the man who puts his delight in God’s law will be blessed. If we are going to be defined by what we read, let it be the story and the teachings of the Bible that defines us.

Lets read Psalm 1.

1 Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked,

Nor stand in the way of sinners,

Nor sit in the seat of scoffers;

2 But his delight is in Yahweh’s law;

On his law he meditates day and night.

3 He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water,

That brings forth its fruit in its season,

Whose leaf also does not wither.

Whatever he does shall prosper.

4 The wicked are not so,

But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6 For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the wicked shall perish.

Throughout time, the Jews and the Church have used the Psalms as prayer. The most common way that the Psalms are used in prayer is to read 5 of them daily completing the book in 30 days. Reading through the Psalms once a month.

Eugene Peterson, in his book “Answering God” says

“If we wish to develop in the life of faith, to mature in our humanity and to glorify God with our entire heart, mind, soul and strength, the Psalms are necessary. we cannot bypass the Psalms. They are God’s gift to train us in prayer that is comprehensive and honest.

The Psalms are necessary because they are the prayer masters.”

Psalm one has the unique quality of being the first of the 150. Most writers through the centuries have believed that this psalm is the summary of the 150, written as an introduction. It is very similar to Jeremiah 17:5 leading some scholars to wonder if this Psalm is written by Jeremiah.

If we are going to use this as a prayer, what is it that we will be praying?

We will be praying that God will keep us from doing one thing and pray that He would cause us to do another. And pray that we will be blessed.

First, what we would not do.

Two years ago when I first came, I began my ministry here by preaching through the book of Ephesians. In some of my first lessons, I quoted a book on Ephesians called Sit, Walk, Stand by Watchman Nee. Pastor David Legge summarizes the book by saying “. Watchman Nee, in his famous book on the book of Ephesians, says that the Christian’s experience begins with sitting – isn’t that right? We are sitting in heavenly places in the Lord Jesus Christ, blessed with all spiritual blessings. He says that it then leads to walking: walk as children of light, walk in the calling wherewith ye are called. But it doesn’t end there, and that is why in chapter 6 we are met with not sitting, not walking, but standing. You see, you need first of all to sit before you can stand. That’s the order in the book, and that is God’s order, the order the Holy Spirit has ordained within this theological treatise of how we are to live. You’ve got to know the blessings that you have in Christ before you can fight in this battle. You’ve got to come into the realization of what Christ has done for you, and the blessings that He has bestowed on you – and then you must walk worthy of that calling before you can ever stand against the foe.”

If in Ephesians we are to sit with Christ, to walk in the calling we were called and then finally standing, the Psalmist warns against its opposite.

1 Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked,

Nor stand in the way of sinners,

Nor sit in the seat of scoffers;

The progression here is first to walk toward the counsel of the wicked. Then once you’ve arrived there to stand amongst them. And finally when you’ve gotten comfortable to sit with them.

For us, according to Watchman Nee, the order needs to be turned around. We sit with God and then are launched out into the world where we stand firmly for the truth of the gospel.

So the first thing we pray in this psalm is a declaration that we choose to not walk in the counsel of the wicked. “Lord, I choose to follow you and not to follow the world.” But that is not enough. We pray that God would keep us from the ungodly. He does that by strengthening our character, empowering our will, emboldening our witness and by providentially keeping us from situations in which we would be tempted.

We pray, “Dear God, keep me from walking in the counsel of the wicked. I know that what they have to say may seem wise but I know that the only wisdom to be found is from you. I don’t want to stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers. They have nothing good to say about you and so they will only distract me from you. Lord, protect me from the distractions from the world.”

So, the first thing that we pray is that God would embolden us to stay away from the counsel of the wicked. The second is that we would delight in God’s law.

verse 2 says

“But his delight is in Yahweh’s law;

On his law he meditates day and night.”

James Mays in his book “Preaching and teaching the Psalms” writes

“What is the law? In this psalm it is torah, not mere rules and legal codes. It is the instruction of God, God’s instruction about God in that God creates, elects, saves and makes covenant with us; and it is God’s revealed will in making know to God’s people in every time the meaning of God’s good pleasure.”

When we think of the law we picture the ten commandments and the levitical code found in Deuteronomy. But what is meant here is the torah: the first 5 books of the Bible. Think for a moment what they contain. The story of the creation of the universe. The destruction of the world through the flood and the subsequent promise that God would never flood the world again. The promise of God to multiply Abraham’s seed. The deliverance of Israel from the Egypt into the promised land. The establishment of Israel as a nation. And finally the gift of the law as the guide to life for this fledgling nation.

We pray “Oh God I delight in your story. Let it be my story. Fulfill your promise to abraham by multiplying the number of converts that I am able to bring to you. Deliver me from sin as you delivered Israel from the hands of Egypt.”

The second part of verse 2 says that the blessed man will meditate on the law both day and night.

The idea of meditating is an interesting one. Some consider it to be a mental exercise… a clearing of ones thoughts so that we might focus entirely on God.

J.I. Packer, theologian and author says

Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, thinking over, dwelling on, and applying to oneself the various things one knows about the works and ways and purpose and promises of God.

It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communication with God.

Its purpose is to clear one’s mental and spiritual vision of God, and to let his truth make its full and proper impact on one’s mind and heart.

It is a matter of talking to oneself about God and oneself.

It is, indeed, often a matter of arguing with oneself, reasoning oneself out of moods of doubt and unbelief into a clear apprehension of God’s power and grace.

J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1973), pp. 18-19; submitted by Bill White, Paramount, California user ratings

But Meditating on God’s law is more then that. The Old testament word that we translate into meditate has some interesting connotations.

Looking at Eugene Peterson again, we find that

“Meditate is a bodily action; it involves murmuring and mumbling words, taking in a kind of physical pleasure in making the sounds of the words, getting the feel of the meaning as the syllables are shaped by larynx and tongue and lips. Isaiah used the word “meditate” for the sounds that a lion makes over its prey (Isa. 31:4). A lion over its catch and a person over the torah act similarly. They purr and growl in pleasurable anticipation of taking in what will make them more themselves, strong, lithe, swift: “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlargest my understanding! (Psalm 119:32)”

It is important for us to know how it is that our bodies and minds are designed to worship. Last Sunday in portland I was with a group of people in a street church whose body and mind worshiped while drawing and painting art. For me it is found in two ways. The first is through playing my instrument. When I am singing I can get easily distracted. But when I am playing the piano or keyboard, I can get lost in rapture. The other way that my body and mind are wired for worship is through study of the Word of God. It is like preparing a quilt or tuning an engine. Methodically working over individual parts, analyzing the language, listening to the Holy Spirit, consulting wise authors. Then sculpting the parts into something useful to those to whom I will preach. There is something holy in this process as we learned from 1Corinthians a few Sundays ago.

This is what the term meditate means here. Ruminating. Murmuring. Mumbling.

The Talmud tells a story about the strange conduct of an old rabbi. During the oral study of the Torah, when he came to the phrase “And God said,” he would without exception fall into an ecstatic trance. He was so overwhelmed by the mystery and miracle that God should speak that his ecstasy hindered the school’s progress.

“Lord, enrapture me in the study of your law as I meditate on it day and night. Let it enthrall me. Speak to me Lord, just as you spoke to Abraham, to Joseph, to Moses.”

And finally, our prayer is that we would be blessed.

“Blessed is the man.”

“Blessed is the woman.”

Literally this means “Happiness.” It might be well translated “Oh the happiness of the man who delights in the law of the Lord.”

But my imagination is captivated by the idea of blessing as a prophetic action. A prayer that God would bestow of good upon the recipient.

In Ge 24:60, her relatives “blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of ten thousands” (the King James Version “millions”),

The word here expresses the wish or hope for good. There are also instances where such a blessing of man by man may be taken in the prophetic sense, as when Isaac blessed Jacob (Ge 27:4, 27, ),

Isaac put himself in God’s place, and with a sense of the Divine concurrence, pronounced good upon Jacob. And so the word becomes in part a prayer for, and in part a prediction of, the good intended.

This is the meaning I have in mind when at the end of every service I pray “Lord, bless your church.” I am agreeing with God that there would be good for His church.

So here, let there be a blessing on the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. Let there be a blessing on the woman who delights in the counsel of the law. Let there be a blessing on those of us who meditate day and night upon the Word of God.

Amen.

Then came the test. Dad pressed the record button and his son said sweetly, “Mommy and Daddy can’t come to the phone right now. If you’ll leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, they’ll get back to you as soon as Jesus comes.”

John G. McFayden, Woodbridge, Virginia. Christian Reader, “Kids of the Kingdom.”

How the news media would announce the end of the world:

Sports Illustrated: “Game’s Over!”

Ladies’ Home Journal: “Lose 10 Pounds by Judgment Day with Our New Armageddon Diet!”

Inc. Magazine: “Ten Ways You Can Profit from the Apocalypse.”

CNN: “World Ends; Women and Children Most Affected.”

J. C. Penney’s Catalog: “Our Final Sale.”

America Online: “System Temporarily Down. Try Calling Back in 15 Minutes.”

Advent is a time when we talk about the fact that Jesus is coming to the world.

He came to Mary.

He came to Zechariah.

Christmas eve we’ll remember that He came to us as a baby king 2000 years ago in a manger in Bethlehem

Today we remind ourselves that He will come again at any moment. Perhaps this moment. He will come to take His followers away and to judge the world once and for all. To set up a new heavens and a new earth. Where the lion will lie down with the lamb. Where peace and love and joy will reign.

A few weeks ago On the first sunday of advent I read this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was a prisoner of Germany following a failed attempt to assasinate Adolph Hitler.

He wrote to his wife: “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, does various unessential things, and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside is not a bad picture of Advent.”

This is true of us this season of advent as we wait to celebrate the evening when the baby Jesus came into the world.

We are utterly and completely dependent that the door to freedom for our soul be opened by someone other then ourselves. We wait. Because there is nothing we can do to make the event happen any sooner.

The same is true as we wait for Him to come again. We wait. Because there is nothing we can do to make His coming happen any sooner.

So, the question we are answering today is “How should we wait?”

Do we just go along business as usual? Do we drop everything and sit on a mountaintop as some have? Is there a special way that we should be found waiting?

This was a question that the Conneticut legislature had to answer one day in 1789. They were in session when the sky of Hartford darkened ominously. and some of the representatives, glancing out the windows, feared the end was at hand. They wanted to cancel their sessions.

They were not the first to fear that the end had come. And they won’t be the last.

Something like this happened to me when Mt. St. Helens erupted. I remember as our church service was coming to an end that the sky out the one window we had looked very odd… the darkest storm cloud i’d ever seen. When the service was over, we went out to the strangest site we’d ever seen. And I can tell you I was not the only person wondering if it was the end of the world.

In 1998 A gallup poll was taken that asked that question :

“What is the likelihood that the world will come to an end because of Judgment Day or another religious event in the next century, the percentage who believe it is:

Very likely 23% Somewhat likely 16% Somewhat unlikely 16% Very unlikely 41% No opinion 4

USA Today /Gallup Poll, September 29-October 1, 1998

39% of americans believe that the world will come to an end in the next century.

57% believe that it won’t.

So what does the Word of God have to say about how we should live regarding his second coming?

Turn to Matthew chapter 24 we’ll read verse 36-45

36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,[e] but My Father only. 37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour[f] your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

45 “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.

There are two important lessons for us from this passage.

The first is that no one, not even the angels or Jesus Himself knows the day or hour that Jesus will return. Only the Father.

The story goes that on New Year’s Eve 999 a crowd pushed its way into St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to pray at a midnight mass led by Pope Sylvester II. Some trembled, some wept—all were on their knees or prostrate in prayer. The beginning of the end, the great day of wrath, God’s judgment, was moments away.

For months reports of meteors and earthquakes seemed to signal the end. All across Europe, people donated lands, homes, and goods to the poor to better their souls for the coming judgment. Sins were confessed, businesses neglected, fields left uncultivated as people waited in dread. On New Year’s Eve at St. Peter’s, the tension was so thick that, as the clock ticked toward the end of the millennium, one account says, “not a few [died] from fright.”

Then the clock struck twelve: “The crowd remained transfixed, barely daring to breathe.” And life went on.

For centuries there have been innumerable theories as to when and how the world might end. Here are some highlights gleaned from alleged prophecies:

In 960 Bernard of Thuringia, a German theologian, calculated 992 as the most likely year for the world’s end. As the time approached, panic was widespread.

Mark Galli, editor, Christian History. Source: Richard Erdoes, AD 1000: Living on the Brink of Apocalypse (Harper & Row, 1988)

German astrologer Johann Stoffler predicted an overwhelming flood on February 20, 1524. Believers started constructing arks. One man is said to have been trampled to death by a mob attempting to board his specially built vessel. When nothing happened, the calculations were revised and a new date given—1588. That year also passed without any unusual rainfall.

Solomon Eccles was jailed in London’s Bridewell Prison in 1665 for striding through Smithfield Market, carrying a pan of blazing sulfur on his head, and proclaiming doom and destruction. Although the end of the world did not follow, the Great Fire of London did, in 1666.

After studying both the Bible and the mystical messages of the Great Pyramid, in 1874 Charles Taze Russell, founder of the sect that became Jehovah’s Witnesses, concluded that the Second Coming had already taken place. He declared that people had 40 years, or until 1914, to enter his faith or be destroyed. Later he modified the date to “very soon after 1914.”

Herbert W. Armstrong, publisher of the magazine “The Plain Truth,” declared that January 7, 1972, was undoubtedly the date to watch. The utter failure of his prediction did not diminish his zeal.

verse 36 says “36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,[e] but My Father only. ”

If ever there was a lesson to be learned from history it is that no one knows. And we’re not going to know.

One of the greatest errors of those who teach end times prophecies today is that they are looking for signs to tell them that Jesus’ return is imminent.

There are no signs that need to be fulfilled. He could come at this very moment. No one knows when. Because Jesus himself said that no one knows. Jesus didn’t even know. Only the father knows.

John Calvin said that Christ intended to hold the

minds of believers in suspense that we might not, by a false imagination,

fix any time for the [second coming].

We know how fickle our minds are, and how much we are tickled by a vain curiosity to know more than is proper. Jesus wishes that the day of his coming would be the object of such expectation and desire, that no one would dare to inquire when it will happen. In short, he wants us to so walk in the light of faith, that while we are uncertain as to the time, we would patiently wait for the revelation of him. We ought therefore to be on our guard, lest our anxiety about the time be carried farther than the Lord allows; for the chief part of our wisdom lies in confining ourselves soberly within the limits of God’s word

The second lesson we learn from this passage is that when He comes we will immediately be taken away to be with Him

verse 40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and one will be left; 41 two women grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one will be left.

1Thessalonians 4:16, 17

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first, 17 then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Such a vivid picture, yet we don’t really know what this will be like. It has been used as a means to frighten people who are not yet following Jesus. It became the title of the bestselling novels on the end times, “Left Behind.” Imagine what will happen, the book wonders, when the Christian pilots of a jet are raptured leaving the plane without a pilot? What will happen to the husband whose wife and children are suddenly taken away. Or the pastor who thought he was doing the Lord’s work but finds himself left behind.

But these passages are for us a matter of hope, not of fear. We will be reunited in the air with the our dead loved ones. We will meet the Lord in the air. And we will be with the Lord forever.

Comfort one another with these words.

Comfort. In the midst of persecution. Hard times. We comfort each other with the knowledge that when Jesus returns we will be with him and our saved loved ones forever.

Conclude with two Commands that Jesus had for us as we look forward to His soon return.

The first is to Be ready

verse 44 says Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.

John Calvin wrote that Although Jesus desired to keep the minds of his followers in suspense regarding when He would return,He was simultaneously concerned that the indifference arising out of the enjoyments of the world would lull them to sleep. Jesus’ antidote was verse 44 where he exhorted them to readiness. He wished them to be uncertain as to his coming, but yet to be prepared to expect him every day, or rather every moment. So To shake off their sloth, and to excite them more powerfully to be on their guard, he warned that the end will come, while the world is sunk in brutal indifference; So be ready

It would be easy when you don’t know when it was going to happen to get complacent.

verse 38 says For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39 and they didn’t know until the flood came, and took them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

We can’t be just going about business as usual. Our lives must be lived as though He could come right now.

The second Command is to be found doing.

45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them their food in due season? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his lord finds doing so when he comes.

We need to be busy about the work that Jesus has left us to do. Taking care of our families. Loving people. Being faithful in our work and school. Telling people about Jesus.

In the begining we looked at some examples of times in the past when people had set a date for Christ’s return. A common theme to these stories is that people set aside their normal work, left everything and waited for His return. But Jesus here says that He has left us as servants to do work. We will be blessed if Jesus finds us busy doing His work when He comes.

Remember the story we began with. In 1789 The house of representatives for conneticut was meeting in Hartford when suddenly the sky outside darkened ominously. Fearing that the end was at hand many of them called for an immediate adjournment. .Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives rose and said, this to them:

“The Day of Judgement is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, “I wish that candles be brought”

A man was stranded on the proverbial deserted island in the Pacific for years. One day a boat came sailing into view, and the man frantically waved and got the skipper’s attention. The boat landed on the beach, and the skipper got out to greet the stranded man.

After a while the rescuing sailor asked the castaway, “What are those three huts you’ve built?”

The stranded man replied, “That first hut is my house.”

“What’s that next hut?” asked the sailor.

“I built that for my church.”

“What about the third hut?”

“Oh,” the castaway answered solemnly, “that’s where I used to go to church.”

Today we are reading from 1Corinthians 1:10-17.

Verse 11 says:

11 For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are from Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. 12 Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,” and, “I follow Christ.”

Christians have been segregating themselves from each other since the first century.

That lists 4 groups. Those who follow Paul, those who follow Apollos. Those who follow Cephas, which means Peter, and those who follow Christ.

That list has been growing ever since.

Today, instead of saying I am of Paul, I am of Peter, we say I am of Menno, or I am of Calvin, or I am of Luther.

Today in America there are over 6000 protestant denominations. 32,000 denominations worldwide.

And the segregation is not just across denominational lines. Drive into some urban settings and you will find 4 Baptist churches across the street from each other at one intersection.

After the death of Martin Luther there was strife over what groups were the proper theological successor of Lutheranism.

Peter Meiderlin was a Lutheran theologian and pastor living in Augsburg during the early seventeenth century. He lived in a very troubled time, a time exposed to the ravages of the Thirty Years War and a time of great strife between Lutherans and Calvinists. But even worse, it was a time of internal fighting within Lutheranism itself. During this so-called “Confessional Age,” the Lutheran movement became a battleground for a bunch of doctrinal disputes. In the period after Luther’s death, there emerged intense competition as to who was the more authentic representative of the Lutheran theological heritage. One attempt to forge an authoritative doctrinal norm, binding for everyone, was the Formula of Concord in 1577. But it wound up resulting in more cantankerousness. It is thus not surprising that amidst external war and internal strife, theologians and church leaders would eventually plead with their church for that which Christ had promised his disciples according to the Gospel of John: Peace. Peter Meiderlin was one of those with a passion for peace.

Meiderlin’s argument for peace in the church starts began with a a dream he had. In it he sat at a table reading the Scriptures. All of a sudden Jesus appeared to him as the victor over death and devil and warned him of an impending danger and admonished him to be very vigilant. Then Jesus vanished and the Devil appeared in the form of a blinding moonlight claiming to have been sent on a mission from God. He stated that in this final age the Church needed to be protected from all heresy, and apostasy of any kind and God’s elect had the duty to safeguard and keep pure the doctrinal truths they inherited. The devil then alleged that God had authorized him to found a new order of these doctrinally pure. Those who joined would bind themselves to an oath of strictest observance to these doctrines. The devil then extended to Meiderlien the invitation to join this militant fellowship for his own eternal welfare. In the dream Meiderlien thought about what he had just heard and decided rather then sign up to bring it in prayer before God. The devil immediately vanished and Jesus reappeared and tenderly rose the trembling Christian up, comforted him most kindly, and before he departed admonished him to remain loyal only to the Word of God, in simplicity and humility of heart.

For Meiderlin this dream depicted in a powerful way the state of Lutheranism, theologians of his time, and even of his own church. Putting pen to paper he began work on a book to address these issues.

MEIDERLIN wrote “while agreement could strengthen weak things, discord demolishs great things.” The church had the opportunity to minister to the weak, to bind up the brokenhearted. To live out the gospel. If she were united she could strengthen weak things. But instead, by being in a constant state of disagreement they demolished the great things that they were capable of doing.

He quoted a famous Stoic philosopher named Seneca who warned of cramming the mind with unimportant things. “We are ignorant,” Seneca wrote, “of essentials because we deal in non-essentials.” The theologians of MEIDERLIN’s time had focused so much on the non-essentials of the faith, the insistence of belief in theological minutiae, that they were ignorant of the essentials of the faith. It was important, he felt, to get back to only those doctrinal statements that are necessary, that center on salvation, follow unmistakably Scripture, have been formulated in universal confessional statements, and are considered true by the great majority of believing theologians.

He then wrote what has since become a famous phrase among people trying to forge peace in the body of Christ.

In essentials unity

In nonessentials liberty

In all things charity

The essentials he believed were those things that had to do with salvation.

He was in agreement with Paul who wrote to the divided Corinthians in verse 17

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ wouldn’t be made void.

On things that have to do with the gospel we should be in agreement.

The authority of the Word of God

Sin

The attempt to get to God through Works

The cross

The free gift of salvation by grace through faith.

Showing love to our church. To our family, our friends, our neighbors.

Showing grace to each other when people’s faults are apparent to us.

spend your time with people telling them about jesus instead of watching a movie”

These are the essentials that we should be focused on. We should be unified on them. Strengthening weak things by our unity.

So, In essentials, unity.

In nonessentials, liberty.

Paul was thankful that he hardly baptized anyone. Baptism is such a significant rite that it can take on a level of importance that is out of balance. For the Corinthians it came to identify them with the person that they wanted to follow. For some, the method of baptism, immersion, sprinkling, pouring can become as important as the act itself. Different methods of baptizing are nonessential and so we should extend liberty to those whose opinion is different from ours.

Debates over free will and predestination.

Whether or not the world was created in 6 24 hour days or over a period of millions or billions of years.

Whether or not Jesus will come before or after a millenial reign, or before or after a tribulation.

Whether or not the gift of tongues is still in use today.

Each of these are nonessentials. They aren’t part of the gospel. They aren’t part of the apostle’s creed or other doctrinal statements of the early church.

So, In essentials, unity.

In nonessentials, liberty.

We need to allow each other our disagreements on these issues and not allow them to detract from our unity. To not allow our disagreement on these matters destroy the great things that we could be doing in each others’ lives and in the community that we live.

It is so important to Paul that the Corinthians focus on the gospel and not get distracted by their allegiences with specific leaders that in verse 10 he says

“I beg you, brothers”

He pleads with them “through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ,”

“that you all speak the same thing and that

there be no divisions among you, but

that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment

In essentials unity.

In nonessentials liberty.

And finally

In all things, charity.

Let us be known by our love. Known by our committment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And by our willingness to disagree with each other.

But let us be known by our love.

This psalm is written by a man named Ethan the Ezrahite. He was a Levite. Apparently very wise because 1Kings compares Him to King Solomon saying “He (Solomon) was wiser than any other man, including Ethan the Ezrahite—wiser than Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations.”

Ethan found Himself in troubling times as you read in the psalm. It doesn’t sound like it when it begins but the farther you get the more desperate the situation becomes.

One of the things that I believe we can learn from this is how to pray. Ethan begins by singing praises to God. I will sing of the loving mercy of the LORD forever;

Psalm 147 says “How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!” God is amazing

Part of my devotional life is to periodically go to the Benedictine monastery for the evening prayers at 5:30pm. They sing in chant which is written out in their prayer book so that you can sing along if you want to. They sing the psalms. Word for word.

I’m sure many of us have been in setting where they do things a little different then you are accustomed to at your own church. So you watch, and you imitate what they are doing. If you are there more then once, you get in the rhythm and their traditions, words and actions become a part of you and become meaningful to you.

Something very meaningful to me is how they end each psalm. They end them with the gloria patri. “Glory be to the father and to the son and to the holy ghost, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.”

But what is significant about this is that we are always standing when we sing this. And everyone bows. Leans their chest over in reverence. I’ve taken each of my children with me. And it was so cute to watch Elijah because he watched them, and when they bowed, he bowed with them.

I have found that no matter what my spiritual condition. What my relationships with my family. Sins that I am carrying. My relationship with God. It is good to sing praises to God. There is a part of me that sighs. I have come to God and I have honored him with my lips. Honored Him with my throat. Honored Him with my body.

So Ethan begins his prayers by singing of the loving mercies of God. Because God is amazing. His mercy toward us is amazing. His faithfulness toward us is amazing.

I’ve mentioned before that I first responded to the gospel message when I was 5 or 6. A lady down the street that my mom knew held something called a 5-day club. She had us into her home and told us bible stories using a flannel board. And had us learn memory verses. And fed us graham crackers. I remember that one of those days she asked if we would like to invite Jesus into our heart. And I remember saying “yes!” And so she went back into her bedroom and knelt at her bed and said a little prayer. And then I remember coming back the next day and she asked again, and I said “yes!” again and she said that I didn’t need to twice, that the work that Jesus was going to do had already begun.

Isn’t God’s mercy amazing? The work that Jesus was going to do had already begun. God showed mercy on me at a tender age. When He offered me the gift of salvation and I responded He gave me the gift of the Holy Spirit. And a result of that is that I know that His mercy protected me from many poor choices because of the gift of His Holy Spirit. Sometimes we look back on our life and wonder if God was even there because we see all the bad choices that we made. But imagine how much worse it could have been had He not been in our life. God’s mercy is shown to us in that He saves us from our sin, but also He guides us and the choices that we make, protecting us from ourselves.

And God’s faithfulness is amazing. He has carried me through many times when I felt so faithless. He is faithful even when we feel faithless.

My faith was fairly solid through Jr. High and High School. I became really excited about Jesus in High School and began sharing my faith with my friends. Because there was skepticism in my family about the Bible and Jesus, I began reading apologetics, the study of reasons to believe that God exists, that the Bible is true and that Jesus was the Son of God. I began meeting with my youth pastor once a week for prayer, praying for revival.

And so when it came time to decide what to do for a career and for college, I wanted to go to a Bible college to get my Associate of Arts and get grounded in the world of God and then go on to a music school so that I could be a music minister.

But something happened at college. A strange thing to happen at a Bible college. Doubts started to seep in. I think that this is a natural thing to happen at this age as we question everything. This is one reason that a secular college can be hazardous to the spiritual health of a young adult. It is a questioning time and skeptical professors can lead people away from the faith. Suddenly the door was open to the possibility that maybe God didn’t exist. Maybe He hadn’t been real in my life.

This troubled me for awhile. And then I came into contact with the music of Michael Card and a song He wrote called “God’s own fool.”

It seems I’ve imagined him all of my life as the wisest of all mankind

But if God’s holy is wisdom is foolish to man, he must have seemed out of his mind

For even His family said He was mad and the priest said a demon’s to blame But God in the form of this angry young man could not have seemed perfectly sane.

We in our foolishness thought we were wise He played the fool and He opened our eyes

We in our weakness believed we were strong, He became helpless to show we were wrong

So we follow God’s own fool for only the foolish can tell.

Believe the unbelievable, come be a fool as well.

I had attempted to find God in intellectual pursuits… to grasp Him with my mind. And Michael Card reminded me that in order to come to Jesus, we must believe the unbelievable and become a fool.

God is faithful. He is even faithful when we are faithless.

Beginning with Verse 3”I have made a covenant with My chosen;

I have sworn to David My servant,

I will establish your seed forever

And build up your throne to all generations.”

And continuing with verse 30.

“If his sons forsake My law

And do not walk in My judgments,

31. If they violate My statutes

And do not keep My commandments,

32. Then I will punish their transgression with the rod

And their iniquity with stripes.

33. “But I will not break off My loving mercy from him,

Nor deal falsely in My faithfulness.

34. “My covenant I will not violate,

Nor will I alter the utterance of My lips.

35. “Once I have sworn by My holiness;

I will not lie to David.

Romans 11:29 says for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. He swore by His holiness that He would not lie to David. That even if Israel would violate His laws and not keep His commandments He would not take back His promise that David’s throne would reign forever.

We know now that that promise was fulfilled when Jesus came.

But Ethan didn’t know and it seemed that God had forsaken His covenant even when He said that no matter what He wouldn’t. So after God declares He won’t revoke His covenant, Ethan replies:

But God…

You have cast off and rejected,

You have been full of wrath against Your anointed.

39. You have spurned the covenant of Your servant;

You have profaned his crown in the dust.

40. You have broken down all his walls;

You have brought his strongholds to ruin.

41. All who pass along the way plunder him;

He has become a reproach to his neighbors.

42. You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries;

You have made all his enemies rejoice.

43. You also turn back the edge of his sword

And have not made him stand in battle.

44. You have made his splendor to cease

And cast his throne to the ground.

45. You have shortened the days of his youth;

You have covered him with shame.

Ethan saw the state of disrepair in Israel, the state of the crown, that they had fallen under the sword of God’s enemies and He said, “God you have turned back your covenant. You said that even if we broke your laws you wouldn’t forsake your covenant. But here we did and it seems like you have abandoned us. There is no king. How can there be an everlasting line of David if there is not king? We have broken relationship with you. And now you have broken relationship with us.”

Some of you today find yourself in the same place as Ethan and Israel. You have known the mercy of God as He saved you… saved you from your sin, but also showed mercy on you by protecting you from your choices as you lived your youth and adult life. He has been faithful to you, carrying you through faithlessness. He made a covenant with you and promised that He would not break it.

But in your heart you know that you have broken His law. Repeatedly. Purposely. You’ve felt yourself moving away from God. You began living your life on your own strength rather then relying on God. You’ve wondered and worried about your salvation, uncertain as to whether you would find yourself in heaven or hell if you were to die in your sleep or a car accident.

It is such a hopeless feeling. You feel imprisoned in yourself. Wanting to run back to God, but not wanting to give up fighting him. Fighting for the things that even though you know aren’t good for you you still want. There is a constant fight in you with the holy spirit. with your conscience. your stomach turns and you want to yell out for help. but that thing in you that wants all the things that aren’t good for you trap the voice and kept your relationship with god severed. hopelessness seeps in even more. until you feel like there is nothing anyone can do to help you. even though you know god could reach you and wanted to, it was too far to walk alone

You read verses like Hebrews 6:4 and worry that you have completely gone away from Christ.

“4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance.”

If this is where you find yourself, you are in the company of Israel. In the company of Ethan. You have declared the glory of God. Known His faithfulness. Known His mercy. Heard His promise to you that He will keep you even in your faithlessnes. And yet you have found yourself breaking His law. Rejecting His relationship with you. And now you’ve found that it seems He has turned back His promise to save you.

It is time to join Ethan in prayer:

How long, O LORD ?

Will You hide Yourself forever?

Will Your wrath burn like fire?

Where is Your former loving mercy, O Lord,

Which You swore to David in Your faithfulness?

Blessed be the LORD forever!

I believe that God will not turn back from His covenant with you. Even in your faithlessness. If you are still worried about your relationship with Him then you are still under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, still aware of your sinfulness, still humble of your need for a savior. Hebrews 6 is describing those who do not feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit anymore.

But it is a horrible place to be to feel hopeless. And there are no quick fixes. There is something interesting about how this chapter ends. It ends with “Blessed be the Lord God forever” after a prayer of hopelessness that God would turn back. But this is a benediction that comes at the end of each of the 5 books of the Psalms. It may not be the ending of this psalm. This psalm may end in despair.

We can not take for granted God’s eternal covenant with us. If we turn away from him, harden our hearts, then we are going to feel the consequences. And coming back into right relationship is not a quick fix. We need to cry out to him. Ask him to remember.

Something important though is that we know what it means. What does it mean to light a candle on a Sunday morning. Why do we do it?

Lighting a candle is a part of the Jewish celebration of the Sabbath. The lighting of Sabbath candies formally ushers in the Sabbath in the home. It is to be done 18 minutes before sunset. There is a website that you can go to that will precisely pinpoint when 18 minutes before sundown will be for your specific geographic location. At least two candles are lit, symbolically representing the two forms of the fourth commandment: zachor -”Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” in Shemot, and shamor “Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” in Devarim. The candles are lit on the table where the Sabbath meal is eaten, and should be large enough to burn during the meal and well into night.

For the church the candle is significant because it is a reminder to us that Jesus is the light of the world. John 8:12 says “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The candle flame represents the presence of Jesus. As the flame is brought into the sanctuary and the candle lit, it’s symbolizes Jesus coming into our worship service and being with us during worship. As the flame is carried out at the end of the service, it symbolizes Jesus going with us into the world, helping us to be a light to the world for Jesus.

So today we are going to look at 3 things this verse talks about: what darkness means, what it means for Jesus to be the light of the world and to have the light of life.

Darkness and light are such powerful images that they find their way into the creation myths of the many cultures of the world. It is interesting that in most of them it is out of the darkness that creation springs forth. Darkness is such a powerful image that ancient cultures imagined it to be an actual substance.

In the beginning of the Egyptian creation stories there was the great celestial waters of the depths of the nighttime sky. Swimming within this primordial Deep were the eight mighty Gods who swam within the Waters, guarding the infant Creator.

In time, this young creator God emerged with one single finger pressed against His lips in Silence. And light streamed forth from the body of this Divine Child, banishing darkness to the far reaches of the universe.

The greeks also believed that the creation came from out of darkness. First there was only chaos. And then out of the void appeared Erebus, the unknowable place where death dwells, and Night. All else was empty, silent, endless, darkness. Then somehow Love was born bringing a start of order. And then From Love came Light and Day.

While it is interesting to see what other cultures believed about the origins of light and darkness we go to the only true source to learn where they came from.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.

3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. There was evening and there was morning, one day.

1John 1:5 tells us that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

God created the earth, formless and empty… dark. And then God invaded the darkness with light. And do you that ever since then there has never been a place of total darkness in the universe? Contrary to popular belief, pure or total darkness does not exist, because some small amount of light, in the form of radiation, permeates every corner of the universe, even if at times undetectable by the human eye. – Wikipedia

God invaded the darkness with light. And He’s been doing it ever since.

Jesus said in John 8:12 “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus was continuing the work done by his Father, invading the darkness with light. And He was not just the light of the Jewish people… to the Pharisees who heard his words. He was the light of the world. Everyone who heard Him knew that He meant the gentiles when he said “I am the light of the world.” He is the light to your unsaved family friends and neighbors.

Eberhard Arnold founder of the Bruderhof movement said that “Jesus’ light is an all-inclusive life force that belongs to all. This force seeks to affect all relationships of life in the same way as the sun shines upon the just and the unjust. God does good to enemy and friend alike. God is there for everybody and everything. The task of His light can only be to serve all, to be there for all. – Eberhard Arnold. Salt and LIght p. 21

Isaiah 60:3 says “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

The light of Jesus is an invasion force shining on everything and everyone around Him.

He came because Humanity and all of creation were made for the light. Made to be in the light. Jesus came knowing that mankind withers away when it is not in the light. Just as we can’t survive without physical light, we can’t survive without spiritual light. Because we were made to be in the light of God it is against our very nature when we aren’t in the light. When there is no light, there is no life, only death.

So When the service begins the candle is nothing but a dead wick reminding us that without Jesus in the world there is only darkness.

Then as the flame enters the sanctuary it symbolizes the entrance of Jesus into the world where He could shine into the darkness the light of God.

Once the candle is lit, we are reminded of three things.

First, the candle reminds us that because Jesus is the light of life his light allows us to see in the darkness.

Like other children, I remember having nightmares. One that I remember is when I was spending the night at my grandparents. I dreamt that there were creatures on the floor that would get me if I was to get up to get a drink of water. Seems like they were killer frogs or something. Because it was dark I couldn’t see if they were there or not.

This is the problem with sin and death in the world. They cloud everything with a veil of darkness that keeps us from seeing accurately. As a result we are filled with fear. Even the flicker of a candle can light the way so that we can see clearly and put fear aside.

But darkness doesn’t just keep us from seeing it can also lead to depression.

The little village of Rattenberg is the smallest town in Austria, and getting smaller each year. The town has lost 20 percent of its population in the past two decades, and as of 2005 had only 440 residents. The reason? Darkness. Rattenberg is nestled behind Rat Mountain—a 3,000-foot obstruction that blocks out the sun from November to February. But thanks to some clever new technology, the town’s situation is about to get a little brighter.

An Austrian company called Bartenbach Lichtlabor has come up with a plan to bring sunshine into the darkness by installing 30 heliostat mirrors onto the mountainside. The mirrors will grab light from reflectors on the sunny-side of the mountain and shine it back into the town.

The project will not be cheap—the European Union will cover half of the $2.4 million bill—but if successful, will bring hope to the 60 other communities scattered throughout the Alps that endure the winter darkness each year. Markus Peskoller, Lichtlabor’s director, has also committed to paying for the $600,000 cost of planning the project because of its potential for other markets. “I am sure we will soon help other mountain villages see the light,” he said.

Without sunlight to light the darkness this little town was dying. Because most people cannot live without the light. The light of Jesus brings life to people under the depression caused by spiritual darkness.

The second thing the candle reminds us of is that because Jesus is the light of life, His light provides warmth. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the reality TV show Survivor and what has struck me by it is how separated we are from the work that most of the world has to go through to meet their most basic needs. We don’t understand how increadibly important light and fire are for our basic survival. For us water comes in the tap or in bottles on the grocery store shelf. But the water the rest of the world has access to is not drinking water. It has to be purified. And the only method available for them to purify water is to use fire. The only way to prepare meat to be eaten is through the heat of a fire or the sun. And while some of us live in cozy homes with a thermostat to bump up to 74 when we feel a bit chilly most of the world’s population lives in huts, tents, shacks on dirt floors.

The heat that accompanies light is essential to life.

The spiritual warmth that Jesus provides through the community of the church is equally essential to life. Love is the warmth that the light of God provides.

1John 2:10 says 10Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him© to make him stumble.

When we have love for each other the light of life keeps us spiritually warm. We are at home together around the wood stove enjoying each other and sharing experiences with each other.

People without this warmth live in darkness, out in the cold. Verse 9 says “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.”

Finally, The candle reminds us that because Jesus is the light of life his light produces growth. Nothing can grow without light. Not even algae and plankton or the creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean. Creation was made for the light. Sunlight flashes forth life and generates it on earth making it germinate and bear fruit everywhere.

Where do you find yourself this morning? Are you walking with Jesus in the light or do you find yourself in darkness? A friend of mine asked what if the light is so bright that it is unbearable. What if the light that we are living in seems only a glimmer, like a solitary candle in the darkness.

Johann Blumhardt has some comforting words that I will close with. He writes:

Wherever we find ourselves distant from God, we are in darkness; the closer God is to our heart, the more light we have. Just think of the

great darkness the heathen felt when they knelt before mute idols and

were in unrestrained bondage to their own pleasures and desires; how far they were from the living God! Things could never be good for them in this darkness; they had no future hope, yet their spirits could not shake off a longing for the future. A deep sense of sorrow must have dominated their minds; they had a sense of their divine origin, even while they were aware of their own ruined condition. It is true that often people do not sense these things; in that case they languish like irrational animals, at first in the full bloom of natural strength, then gradually deteriorating.

When a person does sense these things, the darkness seems to grow even

more oppressive. At this point the Gospel arrives and proclaims a Savior who forgives sins and a heaven with open doors. To the person who senses his darkness the message falls like a shaft of light into his heart. “I have found it!” he cries, almost drunk with joy. This was the experience of the heathen to whom the Apostle came and this is the experience today of those whom the gospel sunrise enlightens with the knowledge of themselves and of Christ. To them it can be said, The darkness is past and the true light now shines.

Oh, if only we might receive light, dear friends, for at the end of this year we want with one accord to be found to be people who are gripped by the Savior. Even if we are afraid, or if we are still in the clutch of Satan, we must not lose courage; we can still see the light of life. Whatever condition we may be in, we have the name of the Lord Jesus and we can rise up in the triumph of his victory.

-Johann Christoph Blumhardt