Podcasts about their god

"Their God is in Washington."That's not a metaphor — it's how deep the colonization runs.From schools to politics, our minds are wired to obey power, not Allah. This hard-hitting episode exposes the real reason Islamic nations stay weak: broken systems, fake leadership, and spiritual confusion.

Welcome to Day 2630 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom Day 2630 – Wisdom Nuggets – Psalm 68:1-6 – Daily Wisdom Wisdom-Trek Podcast Script - Day 2630 Welcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! I am Guthrie Chamberlain, and we are on Day 2630 of our Trek. The Purpose of Wisdom-Trek is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. In today's Wisdom Nugget, we're embarking on a powerful and vivid trek through the opening verses of Psalm 68 in the New Living Translation. Psalm 68 is a magnificent hymn, often associated with processions involving the Ark of the Covenant. It's a celebration of God's triumphant power, His leadership of His people, and His unique character as both a formidable warrior and a compassionate protector of the vulnerable. The imagery is strong, reflecting an ancient Israelite worldview where God was seen as actively involved in the battles and circumstances of His people. As we delve into verses 1 through 6, prepare to encounter a dynamic picture of God – one that might challenge our modern sensibilities but offers deep truths about His nature and His unwavering commitment to those who are His. Let's begin by reading Psalm 68, verses 1 through 3: (Reads Psalm 68:1-3 NLT) Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered. Let those who hate him flee before him. As smoke is blown away by the wind, let them disappear. As wax melts in the fire, let the wicked perish at the sight of God. But let the godly rejoice. Let them be glad in God's presence and celebrate with joy. Guthrie Chamberlain: The psalm explodes with a dramatic call to action: “Let God arise!” This isn't a suggestion that God is dormant or unaware. Instead, it's an ancient liturgical or military cry, invoking God's powerful presence and intervention. It echoes the words Moses would speak whenever the Ark of the Covenant set out during the Israelites' wilderness journey: “Rise up, O Lord! Let your enemies be scattered!” (Numbers 10:35). The Ark symbolized God's presence among His people, and this cry was a prayer for Him to go before them, clearing the way and defeating their foes. In the ancient Near East, the concept of a “divine warrior” was common. Many cultures had myths of their gods fighting battles, often against forces of chaos or other deities. However, the Israelite understanding of God as a divine warrior was distinct. Their God, Yahweh, was not one among many; He was the supreme and only God. His battles were fought not out of divine conflict among equals, but out of His sovereign power to defend His people and execute justice against wickedness and those who opposed His righteous rule. So, when the psalmist cries, “Let God arise,” he is calling upon the all-powerful God to manifest His presence and unleash His might against His adversaries. The immediate consequence is clear: “let his enemies be scattered. Let those who hate him flee before him.” This is a picture of utter rout and dispersal. When God acts, opposition crumbles. His enemies cannot stand against His power; they are compelled to scatter and flee in disarray. The psalmist uses two vivid similes to illustrate the complete destruction of the wicked in God's...

“I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” — 2 Corinthians 6:16 What a sweet title: “My people!” What a cheering revelation: “Their God!” How much of meaning is couched in those two words, “My people!” Here is speciality. The whole world is God's; the heaven, even the heaven of heavens is […]

Daily Dose of Hope April 3, 2025 Day 4 of Week 1   Scripture – Mark 2:13-28   Prayer – Holy God, We come before you today distracted and with scattered thoughts.  Help us focus, Lord, on you and your Word.  Help us, in the next few moments, to be silent, still, and remember that you are God...Thank you, Lord, for your care and concern for our lives.  Thank you for how you show up in amazing and unexpected ways!  We give you glory, Lord Jesus.  In Your Name, Amen.   Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, a Deep Dive into the Gospels and Acts.  Today, we are finishing up the second chapter of Mark.  As we will see in today's narratives, Jesus is turning everything “normal” upside down.  He is upsetting the status quo and pushing up against some pretty sacred rules.    Let's start with his meal dining with Levi.  Jesus has been teaching and we should note this is a very public scene.  Jesus always had a lot of people around him.  He sees Levi, sitting in his tax-collector booth, and Jesus asks Levi to follow him.  Surprisingly, he does.   Most of you probably know that tax collectors at the time were not well-liked.  Levi would have been a local guy, a Jew, who was working for the Roman government, collecting taxes from the people of his community.  Not only would he have been seen as a sell-out, working for the Roman occupiers, but he would have been seen as a crook.  Tax collectors were known to charge more than they needed to so they could keep a good chunk for themselves.    And here Jesus is calling Levi to follow him.  Then, Jesus goes and eats at Levi's home.  Remember, table fellowship with someone at that time would have indicated that you accepted that person and were sharing a connection.  It was more than getting a bite to eat and chatting; it was truly making a statement about being in the same social and religious circle.  You didn't eat with people who were below you in social stature or who were from a different religious or ethical background.  But Jesus did.  And he made no apologies for it.  He is making a statement about what it means to be part of God's Kingdom.  All are welcome here; all are invited to Jesus' table.  Afterall, who needs a doctor – the healthy or the sick?    Think about your own table.  I think we can have some pretty powerful conversation over a meal.  Guards are let down, people laugh, they tell stories, healing occurs.  This is the perfect place to begin to begin to build relationships with people who aren't like you – people who think differently, look differently, and act differently.  Just like in Jesus' time, the table is one place where we can begin to get out of our comfort zones and allow the Holy Spirit to guide conversations and open doors.  Who might God be calling you to invite to sit around your table?   I also want to talk a bit about the end of the chapter, the discussion regarding the Sabbath.  The Pharisees are upset with Jesus and his disciples for walking through the grainfield on the Sabbath, and picking off the heads of grain.  Why would this have been such a big deal?   Let's talk about the Sabbath.  It was sacred among the Jews.  Over thousands of years, God's people were taught to keep this day set-apart and holy.  Having a day of rest was one thing that noticeably made the Jews different from the pagan cultures.  Their God ensured that they did not work and toil endlessly.  They were to have a break and have a physical, emotional, and spiritual rest.  Most likely, the Pharisees weren't upset with them for eating (everyone needed to do that), but that they trekked through the field and then broke off the heads of the grain.  In their mind, they should have avoided a hike on the Sabbath and already had their snacks prepared the day before.  Part of Sabbath is preparation for rest and renewal.    But Jesus is making a bigger point here (which he will continue to make in chapter 3 when he heals a man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath.)  The Sabbath was created to provide rest for humans.  The man-made rules that the Jews created around the Sabbath had become so very overwhelming.  Would a poor laborer really be able to follow these?  Would a struggling young mom with four kids be able to follow the Sabbath as the Pharisees required?  Of course, the answer is no.  Thus, all these rules were creating a structure of haves and have nots, the clean and the unclean.  Jesus is saying to them – you are missing the point.  You are making things harder and God intended this to make things better.  Finally, what he really is stating, which the Pharisees are really struggling with, is that he is Lord of the Sabbath – he has the power to determine which rules really lead to God.  He is making a statement here about who he is, his identity as the Son of God.   Psalm 145:9-13, The Lord is good to all;     he has compassion on all he has made. 10 All your works praise you, Lord;     your faithful people extol you. 11 They tell of the glory of your kingdom     and speak of your might, 12 so that all people may know of your mighty acts     and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. 13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,     and your dominion endures through all generations.   Blessings, Pastor Vicki  

Reading IGenesis 15:5-12, 17-18The Lord God took Abram outside and said,“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”Abram put his faith in the LORD,who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.He then said to him,“I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeansto give you this land as a possession.”“O Lord GOD,” he asked,“how am I to know that I shall possess it?”He answered him,“Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat,a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”Abram brought him all these, split them in two,and placed each half opposite the other;but the birds he did not cut up.Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses,but Abram stayed with them.As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram,and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.When the sun had set and it was dark,there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch,which passed between those pieces.It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram,saying: “To your descendants I give this land,from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.”Reading IIPhilippians 3:17—4:1 Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters,and observe those who thus conduct themselvesaccording to the model you have in us.For many, as I have often told youand now tell you even in tears,conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.Their end is destruction.Their God is their stomach;their glory is in their “shame.”Their minds are occupied with earthly things.But our citizenship is in heaven,and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.He will change our lowly bodyto conform with his glorified bodyby the power that enables him alsoto bring all things into subjection to himself.Therefore, my brothers and sisters,whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,in this way stand firm in the Lord.GospelLuke 9:28b-36Jesus took Peter, John, and Jamesand went up the mountain to pray.While he was praying his face changed in appearanceand his clothing became dazzling white.And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah,who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodusthat he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep,but becoming fully awake,they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus,“Master, it is good that we are here;let us make three tents,one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”But he did not know what he was saying.While he was still speaking,a cloud came and cast a shadow over them,and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.Then from the cloud came a voice that said,“This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.They fell silent and did not at that timetell anyone what they had seen.

A God of Joy and His people (Part 2) 2. Life worship -Leviticus 18v1-5; 19v9-18 In our first part, we looked at the ceremonial cleansing of God's dwelling place. Now Leviticus moves to the matter of personal & communal holiness and moral impurity. Repeatedly in this book, God has frequently said "Be holy, for I am holy". The ancient nation of Israel was to be an obedient example to the whole world, a unique concept or paradigm if you like! God was present with them and they were to be His light in a dark world. The people of Israel were to live a life that reflected the holiness of God! God desired obedience over sacrifice! Be Holy! Holiness was to be a moral attribute of ancient Israel, much the same as it was for the holy God who dwelt amongst them. In chapter 18, we see at least 3 characteristics of this relationship! Firstly there is the call to be loyal to God! God's laws were not be obeyed slavishly but to obeyed joyfully and with effervescent vigour! God is speaking to those He is in an intimate relationship with and He wants them to be observably loyal by being like Him - holy! Secondly there is the call to be different! Different from the surrounding countries and cultures! Ancient Israel was to have a national distinctiveness that truly was to have separated them from the surrounding cultures such as Egypt Ancient Israel was to live a life so radically different that people around them would notice! They were to be separate from the worlds around them in lifestyle and worship! . Their God was a personal God who dwelt with them. God's presence with them was to affect every aspect of life, on both a national and individual level. Thirdly, their whole life was to be worship! Worship wasn't to be just for the Sabbath, feasts and ceremonies - it was to be their lifestyle. God's regulations affected such ordinary things as relationships, diet, clothing, social justice, social welfare, environment and work. Their whole lifestyle was to be an act of worship, and not just on the Sabbath. Who knows best what humans need - humans or the God who created them? By being obedient, they would have life to the full - a life of blessing and peace! Lets look at an example. Chapter 19 which was read to us, starts off with taking care of the poor and the daily necessity to eat! That was how God was going to provide for the poor - through the farmer not harvesting everything! To leave some food unharvested was to be a symbolic act of worship, a thanksgiving and a visible sign of trusting in God to supply! It was holiness in action - a generous holiness if you will! Good Neighbours! This section is summed up in Leviticus 19:18, "love your neighbour as yourself". So, for an ancient Israelite, to love his neighbour would mean not stealing, lying, deceiving, blaspheming, cursing, being unjust, slanderous, filled with hatred or endangering! A good neighbour would be a person of integrity, not seeking to exploit others in any way. A good neighbour would administer justice and be observably filled with love. Does that remind you of something that was said in the New Testament? How to read Leviticus today? So what is the best way for us in the 21st century to read these ancient laws of Leviticus? Is it just to simply ignore them or are we to slavishly follow them? Perhaps the best way is to simply let Scripture interpret Scripture and see what the New Testament says about the Leviticus laws. Take for instance the food laws. We know in the New Testament that all food is now permissible, whereas under the Old Testament, certain foods were not permitted to be eaten. In the New Testament, the Apostle Peter had a dream in which all food was declared clean! It is also wise, not to see them as merely a list of "not do" statements, but also as "do statements". Rather, we should see them as a love letter from a God who wants to save His people from distress and anxiety in order to give them a life of peace, unity, health and a joyful life in all its fullness. All these laws were to lead ancient Israel to be a holy nation. Holiness was about being set apart for a purpose and making wise, conscious decisions about what was right or wrong. It involved being obedient to God and keeping His decrees and regulations. Being holy, involved having a lifestyle, which was contrary to the cultures surrounding them. To be holy was a lifestyle choice of worship, to reflect their holy God. They were called to be loyal! Called to be distinct! Called to worship! What has all this got to do with us? Where does the Day of Atonement and these laws fit into the life of a Christian in the 21st century? We will take a look in the third part in al little while! Right mouse click or tap here to save/download this as a MP3 file

Welcome to Day 2539 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom Day 2539 – Pressing Forward - A Christ-Centered Perspective on the New Year Putnam Church Message – 12/29/2024 A Christ-Centered Perspective on the New Year For our Christmas Eve service, we learned what it means to ‘Live in Christ, Daily' and were encouraged to bring light into every corner of the world. This week is the final Sunday of 2024, and to extend our previous message, we must be Pressing Forward with a message titled “A Christ-Centered Perspective on the New Year.” Opening Prayer: Heavenly Father, as we gather on this final Sunday of 2024, we pause to reflect on Your faithfulness throughout the year. Thank You for walking with us through every joy and challenge. As we look to Your Word today, open our hearts to hear Your call to press on toward the purpose You have for us. Teach us what it means to live as citizens of heaven, with our eyes fixed on Christ. Inspire us to move forward with renewed faith and hope in the year to come. In Jesus's name, we pray. Amen. Introduction: A Year's End and a New Beginning As we gather on this final Sunday of 2024, we find ourselves at the crossroads of time—looking back at the year that was /and looking forward to the coming year. It's a time of reflection, thanksgiving, and anticipation. Around the world, year-end traditions help people mark this transition: from fireworks in Sydney Harbor/ to the dropping of the ball in Times Square,/ from sharing resolutions/ to symbolic rituals like cleaning houses or eating special foods. These traditions, though varied, share a common theme: leaving the old behind and embracing the new. As Christians, this is also a fitting time to reflect on our spiritual journey. Today, we'll turn to Philippians 3:12-21 (NLT), where the Apostle Paul uses the image of a race to describe the Christian life—a race that calls us to press forward, forgetting the past and striving toward the future God has for us. Reading: Philippians 3:12-21 (NLT) “I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. But we must hold on to the progress we have already made. Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their God is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take our weak mortal bodies and...

You may have seen or heard some variation of this saying: “If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.” It’s a lovely thought, isn’t it? But is there any solid research to reassure us that these words are not just lovely, but true? Yes! In fact, one such study by British and American researchers demonstrated that people estimated the size of mountains as significantly smaller if they were standing with someone else as opposed to when standing alone. In other words, “social support” matters—so much so that it causes even the size of mountains to shrink in our minds. David found that kind of encouragement to be both lovely and true in his friendship with Jonathan. The jealous anger of King Saul was like an insurmountable mountain in David’s story causing him to fear for his very life (see 1 Samuel 19:9-18). Without some sort of support—in this case his closest friend—the story could have been drastically different. But Jonathan, “grieved at his father’s shameful treatment of David” (20:34), stood by his friend. “Why should he be put to death?” he asked (v. 32). Their God-ordained friendship bolstered David, allowing him to become Israel’s king. Our friendships matter. And when God is at the center of them, we can spur each other on to do greater things than we might imagine.

God pays a visit to Solomon! 2 Chronicles 7v11-22 Right mouse click to save this Podcast as a MP3. Introduction The remnant of Israel has returned from exile and the Chronicler is giving them an abridged version of history! The great king David has died, and his son, Solomon, is now on the throne. Solomon has had his first encounter with God and received the gift of wisdom! In Chapter 6, Solomon has prayed a great prayer to His God! Here, in our first reading, from the first 3 verses of chapter 7, we hear the Chronicler regaling one of the many great WOW moments of the Old Testament, when the glory of the Lord came down like fire and filled the temple to overflowing! The people fell down in worship of a great God, who was their God! This was followed by a great scene of abundantly joyful sacrificial worship to this God! In the passage before us tonight, v11 to v22, the temple is now complete. Solomon is now probably sleeping in his palace. It has been 13 years since he prayed that prayer in chapter 6! No doubt, during those 13 years, many times has Solomon wrestled in his mind over what he prayed... Then, one night God Himself turns up. Here the Chronicler reveals what God said to Solomon. The original readers/hearers are a remnant of the great nation of Israel, just returned to their land after being in exile! Probably wondering what happened, because under Solomon, the nation of Israel reached its pinnacle! Asking themselves questions like: Who is our God? Who are we, Israel, as a nation? Why are we in the situation we find ourselves in? The Chronicler is putting across his own theology as he writes this book of Chronicles! His theology, however, is consistent with the writings of the rest of the Old Testament and indeed the New Testament! So what does the Chronicler wish to convey to the remnant about this God from this encounter with Solomon? 1. A God of all History The first thing I see, from this passage, is that their God is a God of history! All human history is covered beneath his throne - the past, present and future! a. God of the past: He is the God of Israel's past! God throughout history had made covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and here, God reminds Solomon of the Covenant that He made with Solomon's father, David! This covenant promised 3 things! That there would be a land forever, a dynasty without end and a perpetual kingdom. b. God of the present: But not only is He a God of the past, He is also a God of the present! He has heard the prayers and accepted the temple as a place of worship - v12 "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices." He is the God of the present because He is speaking to Solomon in Solomon's present! Visiting Solomon, probably while Solomon is snoring his head off! c. God of the Future: So God is a God of the past and the present, but also a God of the future! And because God is the God of the future, all things are under His control! Even v13 "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people", shows the God of the past, present and future being in control. The Lord God says in this speech to Solomon, "I will..." several times! "I will hear!" "I will forgive!" "I will heal the land!" "I will open my eyes!" "I will establish your throne!" But not only of these humanly beneficial things but also Gods says in v20 "I will uproot you from here and send you into exile!" All in the future tense! And in v16 "I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there." Their God, who is the God of all human history - past, present and future - is from everlasting to everlasting! Nothing in the future is set rigidly! God may know what is going to happen but He also knows all that may happen as well! We see this through the tension of "If you do this, I will do this!" God is all-knowing, far beyond our human capacity and capability! 2. A God Who Lives! So a God over all human history - past, present and future. So what else is there here about this God? This God is also a God who lives and lives dynamically! This God is not like the gods of Israel's neighbours - a mere inert block of wood, bone or stone to be lumped about, put on a pedestal, have many copies made, bowed to impersonally and chanted manically at. No! This God of Israel is a God who lives! This God lives and wants to live with His people! God is a God who exhibits His life in at least 3 ways from this encounter with Solomon! a. A God who is Personal! This God is personal! Fourteen times, the Chronicler uses for God the personal pronoun "I" and fourteen times, he uses "me" or "myself." Twelve times, he uses the word "you" - on a single individual basis as well as a collective "you" on the basis of the nation itself. This God is personal to the individual Solomon, the King of Israel, but also personal to the nation of Israel. The Chronicler is intimating that no other nation had enjoyed a dynamic, robust and intimate relationship with their God, like Israel does! Our God is personal the Chronicler cries out! Because He is personal, it cries out that He lives! This God wants to be intimately involved with the people and nation He has chosen for Himself. Read through with me as I share some of these with you and hear how intimate and personal this God is! Listen for the ‘I' "I have heard your prayer; I shut; I will forgive; I will heal; I have chosen; I will establish; I have covenanted; I have given; I will uproot; I will reject; I will make This is a personal God! Listen for the ‘my' chosen this place for myself; among my people, called by my name; seek my face; my eyes will be open; my ears attentive; my Name may be there forever; my heart will always be there; an object of ridicule for my Name, Now listen for the ‘you', ‘their', themselves' and ‘they' you walk before me faithfully; humble themselves and pray; You do; Your father David; You observe; Your royal throne; their wicked ways ; if you turn away and forsake; you and go off to serve other gods; they have forsaken the LORD and they embraced other gods This is a personal, living and dynamic God wanting a personal and dynamic relationship with His people! Not some mere impersonal piece of wood, metal or stone like the gods of the surrounding nations to whom people babble! b. A God who is Responsive! This personal God is also responsive! This God, the Chronicler writes, has responded to the worship of the people when at the beginning of this chapter, His glory filled the temple to overflowing! Their worship was pleasing to Him and He acknowledged this with fire! WOW - v1 "the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple!" That must have been an awe-inspiring moment when their living God did that! So awe inspiring that they continued in worship by singing and offering sacrifices! This God responds to His gathered people! But this God also responds and appears to the individual, in this case, their King and leader, Solomon and with a personal answer to Solomon's own prayer we read in chapter 6! Here in v17-18, God confirms Solomon's anointing as King and leader of Israel! He reminds Solomon of the importance of the Temple in the life of Israel and as a symbol of commitment to the Covenant of David. This is a direct response to Solomon's prayer we read in 6v16-17. God is personally committed to the line of David. Now that's all very well when things are going swimmingly and Israel is being obedient, following the commands and ordinances of their personal God! But what happens if they choose not to obey or serve him rightly? God administers judgement, but v14 offers a way back - of humble repentance. However, if they continue to sin and are not repentant, well that leads us to another part of God being responsive - God judges! And not unjustly or recklessly but with justice! c. A God who Judges and Restores! In v13 we see that disasters can be sent by God! Droughts and plagues can be used by God to bring people ultimately back to repentance. In v19-23, we see what happens if Israel abandons their God and continues in their sinful ways (v19)! God abandons them because they first abandoned Him and went away to embrace other gods - gods of non-personality! Then God uproots them from the land that He had given them and rejects this very same Temple which He chose Himself to be a place of prayer and sacrifice. That's the reason Israel was to go into exile, away from the land of promise. But if God is the God who judges and does these things, He is also the God who enables restoration! When evil befalls Israel, natural, social or political, it is because of their disobedience and God must judge it or He would be a pretty impotent, capricious, spiteful and fickle God if He didn't! So while God maybe the author of disasters, He is also the agent of restoration! 3. A God Who Expects! This is a personal God of all human history who lives! This God judges disobedience but offers a way back through repentance. Part of His being personal is that this is a God who expects! a. God Expects His People to be Holy! How is this? Why does He judge? Because God is holy! He is of utter moral excellence and perfection. There is and can be no stain of sin and He must be totally separated from sin. Holy is what God is!! This holiness of God is seen in righteousness, which is holiness in action. God's actions conform to His Holiness. Justice deals with the ab­sence of righteousness. Sin must be dealt with deal with it He will and must! If God were not Holy, He could not and would not be God! If He were to cast aside his Holiness even for the briefest of times, he would cease to be God! b. God expects obedience! Not only is God holy, writes the Chronicler, but His people must also be holy and be seen to live rightly! God expects obedience! Israel was to be a nation of light reflecting their great and living God to the surrounding nations! They alone had the law of the Lord and they were to live rightly and obediently before God and the surrounding nations! They were to worship this living God and Him alone! In v17, we see the request to walk with God alone and follow His decrees and commands - the law of Moses! In v19-20, as we saw earlier, there was the penalty for idolatry and abandoning this living God! c. God expects prayers of repentance Now you may be saying, yeah right, Dave... If God is just, and of grace, He will provide a way out of these judgments! But you know what! He does! The people can be restored! How can this be? Verse 14 is the key! This is a key of grace: "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." How does He restore? Through the humility and repentance of the disobedient! Even when this great Living God is angry! Prayers by the disobedient, consisting of humility and repentance are necessary, in order to enable God to forgive and heal the destruction of sin and disobedience. In 2 Chronicles 6v32-33, we can see that anyone who acknowledges God's name and authority may pray with utter confidence that God would hear their petitions. Seeking God's face with humility is the key. What is repentance? It is a voluntary change in mind, in which the person and nation turn from a life of disobedience to living a life of obedience to God. It is done firstly in the Mind or the Intellect, where it is recognition of disobedience and guilt before God. Then, there is also at an Emotional level, exhibiting genuine sorrow for disobedience, a bit more difficult for us men! Finally it's also an act of the Will - a decision to turn back to God from disobedience, self-pleasure and self-centredness. And what is humility? Humility is where total trust is placed in God alone, and He has priority in all aspects of life. Humility is a lack of pride and of total commitment to God. This is a living and holy God, who expects His people to be holy, reflecting His holiness and being prepared to make themselves nothing in order to be restored and for their disobedience to be forgiven. Conclusion What an awesome and great God this is! This is the God who is the God over all human history - past, present and future! This is a God who is personal and responsive! This is a God who is holy, commands obedience and yet accepts humble repentance! What a great and Almighty God! Not only those things but He is a God of grace! How do we see that? This chapter from Scripture, 2 Chronicles 7v11-22, could well be a summary of all 1 & 2 Chronicles, if not the Old Testament and indeed all of Scripture! Some say that grace is missing from the book, just as some say that grace is missing from the Old Testament itself! But as we have hopefully seen, one aspect of God that shines through this passage is that He is a God of grace, with a message of grace as exemplified in v14! "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." But so what? What are we to do with and for this God? We are to be personally and collectively obedient to Him. Following closely to the leading of the Spirit and following our leaders, the pastors, elders and deacons as they seek to follow this great God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said "You can only learn what obedience is, by obeying." Lets be an obedient people. How do we do that? By loving God! How do we show we love God? By loving others, for as Jesus said, this sums up the whole Law!. The community out there, which we are a part of, is looking at us. We have this fantastic new building, and I can guarantee you, that there will be some people out there, just waiting for this adventure of ours with God to fail. Let us not allow that to happen. One of the key areas of obedience concerns idolatry! Now we may not go off to other gods and worship them, as Solomon and ancient Israel did. But we can set up false idols of our own, both as individuals and collectively. Calvin wrote that "What is idolatry? It is to worship the gifts instead of the great Giver?" This is a beautiful building! But let us not worship it and consider it so sanctified even for a moment, that it becomes our idol of worship. Let us be thankful to God for the gift and allow Him to use it for the benefit of the whole community and not just for our own sake. Let each of us ensure that God takes first place over everything in our individual and collective lives. Let us worship alone our great living God who gives abundantly, rather than commit disobedient idolatry by worshipping the gifts of the Giver. Then finally, let us hold our leaders up in prayer that they will be, collectively and individually, obedient to God! As Adam shared this morning, satan likes to stick his nose in and try to get leaders like Adam off track. Many churches have built new buildings, only for them to lie wasted shortly after, due to personal disobedience of the leadership. Lets not be one of those. The church I attended in Australia before coming to the UK, 21 years ago this coming Saturday, was very much like PBC is now! Growing, vibrant and they had just finished building a new church building! Everyone was excited and looking forward to the future! I am not going to say specifically what happened, but within 2 years that church was practically empty. In fact it is still going but it hasn't recovered to the way that it was. The leadership were found to have committed both personal and corporate disobedience and when it became public, it decimated the church and made it a public mockery. Those people who were in leadership are now restored back into a right relationship with God, but they had to find humility the hard way. Somebody asked me during the week, "If Solomon was the wisest man on earth, how come he fell into idolatry?" The answer I gave was not because he had so many wives and girlfriends. Nor was it, as suggested by a certain member of this congregation here tonight, the number of mother-in-laws. I think it was because he became proud, forgot not just who he was in God's eyes but he also forgot who God was! That led him to forsake the God of His youth and commit idolatrous acts. Let's go from here, willing to be obedient to this great God, remembering who we are and who our God is. This great God we love and serve who is the God of all human history - past, present and future. This Almighty God, who is living, dynamic, personal, and responsive: who both judges and restores. This is a God who is holy and expects His followers to be holy, living obedient lives and being quick to seek repentance after disobedience. Let's go out into our community this week, being His voice and light, confident that our living God is within us, as we engage actively and passively with those who don't know this great God! Right mouse click or tap here to save this Podcast as a MP3.

Listen to a sermon by Senior Pastor: Dr. M.A Mukosi, titled: People Who know Their God - preached at Jesus the Saviour Church, 185 Bobs Way, Eersterivier, Cape Town on 15 September 2024.

Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. (Psalm 45:6) Today's psalm picks up almost directly on the heels of yesterday's.  A question looms in psalm 44 about the suffering God's people have faced.  They've done nothing wrong, and yet have been crushed.  Their God and King has decreed victory, and yet they have faced defeat.  As Pastor Michael noted yesterday, no answers are given to the concerns stirred up in psalm 44, just a prayer for God to rise up and rescue his people. Psalm 45 would seem in some ways to be that answer to psalm 44's prayer of suffering, though.   It is a psalm to mark the wedding day of the King.  The King's presence, power, and purity of character is revealed in all its royal majesty.  “Gird your sword on your side, you mighty one; clothe yourself with splendor and majesty.  In your majesty ride forth victoriously in the cause of truth, humility and justice; let your right hand achieve awesome deeds” (45:3-4).   It all builds up to our verse today, a verse quoted in the book of Hebrews as pertaining to Christ: “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.”  The King enters and rises up in the fullness of his power and majesty, vested with all the finest garments and armaments to be every ounce the God and King we would ever hope for him to be.   As the psalm continues, the bride is also described in all of her glory and beauty.  The song is joyful, anticipatory, taking a long look at all the descendants to follow from the union of these two pure and noble persons.  Bride and bridegroom, king and princess soon-to-be-queen: the consummation of the very best ideals of all that is good and right in the world (if you need a visual: perhaps Aragorn's Coronation and reunion with Arwen in the white city of Gondor from the final scene of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, would be appropriate). This psalm rhymes with the Song of Songs, and certainly looks ahead to all the beautifully cryptic language of our Christian hope: that day when Christ, the coming King will be united with his bride, the Church in that great heavenly wedding feast at the end of the age.  It is a hope and a moment that encapsulates all the very best that we can ever hope for or dream: every ideal of justice and righteousness come in perfection, every notion of healing and wholeness made complete, every longing for fullness, given in abundance in ways that leave our cups overflowing.   Psalm 45's answer to psalm 44's suffering then, is to remember and to believe in the hope that is ours in our King.   Of course, in Christ, we have a much fuller picture to remember and believe as we await our Christian hope in our present times of suffering.  It is no longer a merely human king that we look to, but Christ: one who is both human and divine—a king who perfectly embodies the truth, humility, and justice that we seek and who is mighty to save his people.  This is our king who has been enthroned and our bridegroom who will come again to draw us all into the splendor of his royal reign when we take our seats and celebrate together with him at the wedding feast of the Lamb. Dear friends: in the present tumult of our times, may we never lose sight of the hope of joy, reunion, and peace to come in the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:     May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.  May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

Be The Light They NeedMatthew 4:16 “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”Recently I decided to start at the beginning of the New Testament and read a little bit each day of the New Testament. My Encounter Ministries class was big on evangelization and spreading the good news of the Gospel. They taught us various ways to do this. However, it is hard to spread the good news of the Gospel if you don't know the Gospel. I do know the Gospel. I have been through the whole Bible several times through different Bible studies and Bible reading plans.However, if we immerse ourselves in God's word, it will not only become a part of us, but it will transform us. The words, the stories, and the feelings will become ingrained in our very being, and we won't be able to forget them. The central message of the Gospel is love. This love is not just a feeling, but a powerful force that can change lives and draw people closer to God. God's love for us, and our love for Him, is a concept that was revolutionary in its time. The Jewish people knew that God loved them because He had saved them time and time again and also because His Spirit was with them when they escaped Egypt.Many people who lived at the time of Jesus didn't believe in our God. They believed in multiple Gods who did not love them. The gods they prayed to also required a lot from them. They had to perform human sacrifices in some cases. They thought their gods received their power from the worship and sacrifices. The more people who worshiped them, the more powerful they were. Their God's expected love and allegiance from them.Then they discovered this God who loved them just as they were, and they didn't need to do anything to earn that love, which was a game changer. This love is not a passive feeling but an active, unconditional, and sacrificial love. I believe this would be a game-changer for many of us if we truly believed it. If we truly understood that God loves us as His own adopted sons and daughters, we would live life differently. If we could truly grasp this concept that God loves us just as we are, then we could stop trying to earn that love; we could stop trying to live up to these impossible standards that we put on ourselves.God loves you just as you are. He doesn't need you to live up to any standards. He doesn't need you to do anything to earn that love. His love is there for you when you are at your best and when you are at your worst. God is always there for you. That is the first part of the message found in the Bible, and it is one we must not only believe but also trust in and live our lives accordingly by showing the same love to others, forgiving as we have been forgiven, and serving as we have been served.This brings us to one major message of the Gospel that we tend to overlook or ignore. That is, we are all called to love each other. This can be a challenging call a lot of the time. There are a lot of people in the world who are not very nice. Or at least they act in ways that are not loving. But we are still called to love them, just as God loves us. God is not calling us just to love our family or friends or those who are easy to love. He is calling us to love all those around us, even our enemies.The verse above says, “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned.” Jesus was a light to all who lived in the darkness. He brought this love that they had never seen before. God's love is unconditional and unending, and Jesus shared this love with one and all. This love that Jesus shared was such a bright light in their darkness. Some of the people Jesus interacted with were people who were cast aside by society. They were outcasts, and they felt unloved.Imagine how it was to be a leper in that day and age. They had to live apart from their whole community, and if anyone did walk near them, they needed to shout “unclean, unclean” So that people wouldn't get too close to them. Can you imagine Jesus coming up to you and giving you a hug after you haven't had any human contact in years for fear of infecting them or because of the laws? Imagine that light that Jesus brought into that situation when He healed them or even when he wasn't afraid to touch them. He gave them their dignity back when he was around them. That is a bright light.We can all agree that Jesus was a great light in the darkness. Do you know who is called to be that light now that Jesus is no longer walking around on this planet? You are, I am! We are all called to be “little Christs.” We are called to be a reflection of Christ to all those we meet. In John 13:35, says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.” Do you want to be a disciple of Christ? If so, we need to love one another. We need to be that light in the darkness. This doesn't tell us exactly how we should do this, but if we follow Christ's example, then this means we accept people for who they are. We love them exactly as they are without conditions. We don't call people names. We don't judge them and decide what we think of what they did. We simply accept them for who they are. This doesn't mean you can't lovingly point out when something is wrong, but first, you must love them unconditionally, or they won't be able to hear your kind correction. You must always come from a place of love and not a place of chastisement or a place of wanting to be right.If there was one thing that could change the world, it would be this one thing: If we could learn to love all the people around us, think about how much better the world would be. If we could love those around us, we could stop taking offense to everything they say because we know it is coming from a place of love. If we could help spread more love, then we would also be spreading more light. If we could spread more love and light into the world, there would be no room for hate. The light would chase that darkness away. Will you spread some light today? Who could you love today that you haven't in the past? Even if you don't approach the person, change your thoughts to loving thoughts. That would be a great start.Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to the episode today. Lord, we love you, and we thank you for all you do for us. We ask you to help us love more. Help us love everyone, even those who are difficult to love. Help us bring your light to all those sitting in the darkness. Help us see through appearances and see what you see. Give us your heart and your eyes for people, Lord. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name. Amen!Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Tonight is week #2 of our Surrender Series. There is a link below for my website. I invite you to check out the mentoring information and join us this evening on Zoom. I look forward to meeting some of you on Zoom this evening, and the rest of me will meet you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!Today's Word from the Lord was received in January 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “I am your God, and I can help you. No matter the problem, remember that I am God, and you need to rely on me for each step of the way.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Daniel has risen in the ranks, but things go sideways in a hurry.  King Nebuchadnezaar had become a little too enamored with himself and jumps the shark… “bow down to the statue, and serve my gods - everyone - or die in a blazing furnace.” That was definitely a ‘dark valley of death', but unwaveringly, they declined to worship the idol. Their God, whom they knew intimately and trusted fully, would save them, whether in life or death.  

Artist Album Track Label Year Time Cucamonga Alter Huevo Tetascotch AltrOck 2012 8:49 Blast Stringy Rugs O A L I Cuneiform 1997 6:31 Tapir! The Pilgrim, Their God and The King Of My Decrepit Mountain Mountain Song Heavenly 2024 7:19 Trevor Dunn's Trio Convulsant Sister Phantom Owl Fish Liver-Colored Dew Ipecac 2004 6:00 De Beren […]

“I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” — 2 Corinthians 6:16 What a sweet title: “My people!” What a cheering revelation: “Their God!” How much of meaning is couched in those two words, “My people!” Here is speciality. The whole world is God's; the heaven, even the heaven of heavens is […]

Garth Heckman  The David Alliance   BAM - watch them every Tuesday night on our Facebook page. This Week the Jezebel Spirit… and not just women have it.    August Friday and Saturday 16th 17th End times conference at HillSpring Church sponsored by The David Alliance,    I take blood pressure medication… Yes, I have high blood pressure. But not because I have a bad heart or high cholesterol or plaque in my arteries.. actually they look great, clear as a bell… but my heart is enlarged… my atrium is to big… and thats where we are going today.    Hey ever read scripture and get a heart check? When they were looking to find out why I had high blood pressure it was a little bit of a riddle until they took a sonogram of my heart… which was a great day because I led my Muslim Doctor to Christ… story for another day.  But they did all kinds of tests checking my heart…. When I read scripture I get heart checks like that… and here is one today for us.    Exodus 32:7 The Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.'” 9 Then the Lord said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. 10 Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.”   WE can see 3 things clearly here in scripture regarding Man, God and Those greatly used by God.     -1 Men can do stupid things…. Israel created their own God.. a golden statue… This is after their current God (YWHY- the true and real God) just led them out of Egypt, spit the read sea, drowned their enemies, gave them gold, jewelry, food and booty in their exit… but hey, you know… its just not good enough. Yes we all can do stupid things… and quite regularly for some of us.     -2 God can get mad! We see in scripture where Jesus gets mad. He turned over tables, he cussed out the pharisees and sadducees. He threw over tables, he swung a whip around chasing people out of the temple.  Which means… we can get God mad. Thats a thought we should reflect on… maybe a later podcast. But here in Exodus we see God wants to wipe out the nation of Israel and start over.  Wow… Im not saying that it sounds like God is pouting… but, well… this is an extreme response in my mind… which leads us to the 3rd things we see in this scripture.     -3 Moses is given an amazing offer. God says I will make you the father of a great nation… First just let me wipe out Israel. Next I will give you the ability to impregnate some women… I guess right?  Your family tree will grow and grow and grow and you will take over from where the other generation blew it…. How many would jump at that opportunity. But maybe one of the most impressive and most humble and maybe one of the most “God responses” in scripture… Moses says 11 But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. “O Lord!” he said. “Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? 12 Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth'? Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people! 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.'” 14 So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people. Moses could be handed an amazing future, an amazing legacy, an amazing story… I am sure it would have fed just about anyones ego… (yeah God, Im so much better than those sinners… kill'em all and lets do this) But not Moses, his heart was for the salvation of those people.  What dream, goal hope would you trade to see more people come to Jesus…  I am some day going to own 2 or 3 corvettes… at 58, a 63 split window and a 68 removable hard top or T top. Would I trade those dreams for more people to come to Christ? Would I trade my future dream home and cars and guns and boats and the ability to spoil my parents and my kids… would I trade all that to see more people come to Christ…. But don't miss the point… these “people” are a pain in the butt to Moses… they cause him nothing but trouble, they whine, they complain, they don't follow rules or Gods word… they want a different leader than Moses… would you give up your future promise for those people? You know the people that drive you crazy… they talk behind your back, they gossip, they want nothing more than to see you fail, fall and fizzle out. They revel in your loss… would you give up your dreams for those people to come to Christ?  HEART CHECK… lets put that at the top of our prayer list….

What is Emunah? Why is it that in its honor that the Jews were released from Mitzraim? Other nations in the world also acknowledged a God - but with a difference. For them their first reality, is the existence of a world, which then logically assumes a creator that created the world. Their God is a limited one and therefore they always try to explain everything according to nature, unless they're forced to believe in God when a big miracle occurs. Jews are naturally believers, and therefore they believe in G-d first, and then they become aware of the world. Their belief in G-d is not limited to the world, and therefore has no limitations. This unlimited Emunah is what freed them from all limitations, both spiritual and physical. לקו״ש א

The six days of creation provide a unique inversion to us today, because initially the order of the objects doesn't appear to make sense. After all, the sun appears on the fourth day, after the land and oceans were created. Every middle schooler who reaches the fourth day of creation can see a problem here, because the sun surely preceded the earth in terms of formation. Did we not just read in the opening verse of the Bible that “God created the heavens and the earth”? Is Genesis already switching the order and putting the sun, which is part of the “heavens,” after the earth? Did we just go from “Heavens First” to “Earth First”?This is where we apply our modern science to the book of Genesis, and in doing so we lose the wonder. But it's ok, there is an inversion waiting for us here, too. The sacred writer of Genesis did not know that the earth was round. Or maybe he did know. Or perhaps he thought it was shaped like a sausage. The point here is that it doesn't matter. I realize that saying “The shape of the universe doesn't matter” is blasphemy to a materialist who thinks that truth can only come through scientific proof. But this is the reason why materialists tend to get nothing out of the Bible, particularly the creation story. The spiritual reading is lost entirely unless you are willing to believe in spiritual things. And the first thing that you must be willing to believe in…is God. If this first principle is not in place, the Bible will be a strange read throughout and you will be sneering the entire time. If you approach it with doubt, you will get nothing from it. If you approach it with the eyes of faith, you will get the whole universe and the heavens, too. The key piece of being “willing” does not mean abandoning reason. Rather, it means using reason with faith, because they go together. One of the greatest documents from a Pope ever written is about Faith and Reason (in Latin, Fides et Ratio). It begins like this: Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves. Thus, if you approach the Bible like a half-formed ghoul, with only reason, or only faith, or only your body, or only your soul, you will miss the point, to your detriment. If you come with only faith, you will be a Fundamentalist. If you come with only reason, you will be a cold atheist. Why be either one? Be whole. Be your whole self, as God intends us to be. (Hint: These inversions are really about becoming a whole person, body and soul, with faith and reason.) When we express belief that the Bible is “inerrant” we mean in terms of faith and morals, not mathematical truths. But if you consider “reason” to only cover provable concepts and material things, then you will be a one-trick pony who has to play dumb when considering art and beauty. No scientific answers come for the great questions, or even basic ones like “Why is a sunset beautiful?” or “Why do children bring such tears and joy?” or “How did that song change my life?” or “Why do I feel the Presence of God in a silent adoration chapel?”Beauty is a great lead-in to God, but Biblical inerrancy is a hard sell today. Thus, we should stop trying to sell it at all. I am tired of being sold. Who is not tired of being sold, when all we see is marketing from dusk ‘til dawn? I don't want a product or an experience, I would like authenticity and truth, and there is not even an atheist that I know who doesn't see both of those things in Jesus Christ. And if you don't see the supernatural in Christ, then you cannot fully see His authentic truth, as He is the way, the life, and the truth. This requires no song and dance, just as Jesus did not dance for us. We must remember the purpose of sacred scripture is not to give us the Pythagorean theorem, but rather to give us spiritual truths. When we read Genesis, at certain points we may be reading the “science” of the day when it was written, or we may not be. Just as the science of Ptolemy's day put earth at the center of the universe (and was wrong), so was the science of the day of Moses wrong about the shape of the earth. Funny, then, that “the science” can change but God does not. This is why the phrase “Follow the science” is so slippery and fraught with missteps. Truly, our model of the universe we have today will likely be quaint and silly in a century. The beauty of sacred scripture is that it opens a conversation, rather than delivering a hard answer, as we expect math to do. Here is where the idea of “mystery” bothers us modern people, but the mystery of scripture is directly caught up in the ultimate mystery of God, who created all things out of nothing, who is the “sheer act of being itself,” who formed us out of clay (or atoms if you like). What could be more fun than this escape room outside of the Garden, where at the end we can be with the God Most High, who transcends all? We love mysteries. Why shouldn't we love the conversation with the greatest mystery of all? I urge you: set your Google-brain aside, and embrace the mystery. And the first part of that mystery and conversation that gets us spun around and walking away is the six days of creation and the shape of the universe. However, this is exactly the place where if you come back to it with faith and reason, it can open up a story that transcends what happens in NASA's images of outer space. The pictures of the Crab Nebula are beautiful, but there is another view of the universe beyond the stars. The shape of things, as seen by Moses, in the spiritual view is like a house. There is an upper, middle, and lower section. You might call this the heavens, earth, and hell worldview. This is much like a house. But this is not to address anything related to science, it is about addressing the physical and spiritual reality that we occupy. Now, here we must briefly pause for the Galileo affair, the most misunderstood event in modern history. If you have not read a history of what really happened with Galileo, I recommend you read Galileo Revisited: The Galileo Affair in Context, because a fascinating tale it truly is. The story you may have heard has been massaged by propaganda writers who really dislike the Church. In fact, one of the best summaries of the Galileo affair is from an episode of the History for Atheists podcast. We live in strange times. The God-deniers first stoked the myth of the Galileo story, and now various God-deniers are looking back and de-bunking the propaganda of God-deniers.Let's get to the point: the geocentric model of the universe was not devised by the Church. In fact, the model of Ptolemy came from the science of Egypt long ago. Long before that were other models, like the “Firmament” idea we find in Genesis, which many find funny today. Any beefs that we have with the shape of the physical universe is an academic discussion, not a spiritual one. Too much time and energy has been spent away from the spiritual life, and it seems that the model where the earth or humans are at the center is always a bad model. We think too highly of ourselves. (Note: we can think highly of ourselves as we are made in the image and likeness of God, but with humility in knowing that we are not God). In Genesis, the model is simple. It is speaking to our human reality. As a human being, I can look up, I can look at eye-level, and I can look down. I know there is something higher and something beneath. Here on dry land, I live on the “main floor.” The spiritual upper and lower rooms have deeper meanings. I can't go to those floors right now, but I know they are present. The error we can make is to think that our eye, on the main floor, is at the center of the universe. This is perhaps the ultimate error. The de-centering of mankind is essential to humility, and if anything, we should be grateful to science for doing just that. To be de-centered is humbling, and wonderful. Thus the simple vertical world of up/heaven, middle/earth, and down/hell in Genesis should not cause us any alarm, because if we live long enough, we will get to see this same de-centering of our own settled science. It will be proven wrong. Yes, the science we are certain of today will be modified, perhaps wildly modified, by future findings. How do I know that? First, because scientists are nowhere near the full understanding God's universe. Second, because science cannot test and verify spiritual things, as science cannot test for God. It's a ludicrous idea, like 2 + 2 = 5. Hopefully this does not shock you: our current model of the universe is wrong. Yes, it's accurate enough to build houses and space stations, but wrong in ways we don't know about yet. But that's good: it gives graduate students something to do. If the puzzle were complete, we would become bored and go crazy (mainly because we fail to realize that boredom can actually lead to serenity, but a discussion on concupiscence will come later). An inversion sits here in this space, because this is where our approach to scripture must step into the spotlight. Now, I could say this inversion is about reading the Bible in the four senses of scripture, which is critical, because these ways will expand the text for believers and unbelievers. The literal, allegorical, moral, and “how it relates to Christ” readings are all important. But there is a more subtle inversion for us. The inversion here is that we assume that all we know today is the same that we will know tomorrow, and many 19th-century Germans who thought themselves clever are beginning to look more foolish with each passing decade. The same is happening for 20th-century academics, such as those involved in the “Quest for the Historical Jesus,” as if they were Lancelot and Percival. However, in this relentless dissecting of the Bible as a dead body, scholars took the historical-critical method to its logical end. Now we have some good data and a bit of useful information from that quest. Better yet, now we can use that data to further our understanding of God. The rest we can throw away. As St. Paul said, “Test everything; hold fast what is good.” This is great advice because all of the Bible scholars who tried to turn Jesus into a common teacher of ethics or tried to reduce Moses into a mere model of the will-to-power, are now gone and so are their anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic theories. We can keep what is useful, and toss out the rest. (Julius Wellhausen, Rudolf Bultmann, Bart Ehrmann, et al: goodnight, gentlemen - thank you for the data, as we can now use it to increase our faith.)For a long time, Biblical scholars have been doing violence to the Bible because they see it as a work of literature rather than a sacred text. The era of “Comparative Religion” courses at universities is waning, as is the dogmatic absurdity of the “Q source” Gospel, a hypothetical document that does not exist. (And if anything it would be an early version of Matthew in Hebrew, written by the apostle named Matthew.) In another twenty years, a vast swath Biblical scholarship will be swept aside and flung into oblivion, as artifacts of an era riddled with excess curiositas and too little humilitas. However, we are living in a long hangover from attacks on scripture, and need some fasting (not Taco Bell) to cure this hangover. The old German doubters' and comparative literature ideas are still ringing in lecture halls, killing off one student's faith at a time. Professors of Bible scholarship can't get hired if they disagree with a secular dogma of a Bible that doesn't believe in miracles, spirits, or even God. This begs many questions that we'll avoid for now. For the past two centuries, academics have been approaching the Word of God with “reason alone” and using suspicion as their interpretive key, but the key has worn out, or God has replaced the locks. When we hear that Jesus' miracle of multiplying the loaves and fishes was just people sharing the bread that they had brought, we should laugh out loud. This miracle is one of the few that all four Gospel writers recorded. “Sharing” is not a miracle. Sharing is great, but it's not mind-blowing or life-changing. The apostles did not get bludgeoned, burned, and buried to proclaim the good news of “sharing.” Sharing is nice, but we know all about sharing without God becoming incarnate and dying on a cross to defeat the world, the flesh, and the devil.So we come to the inversion of how we should approach the Word of God. Even before you open the book, this approach decides what you will receive from the text. In the introduction to the Navarre Bible, a quote sums up the way we should approach the Bible, which inverts the way modern scholars read:“…the interpretations of Scripture should never be approached as a research exercise dependent on the researcher's technical skills. It is, rather, an encounter with the Word of God in the living Tradition of the Church…” (Pentateuch, p 16.)For several centuries now, we have been poking at the Bible like a dead trout washed up on the riverbank. But the Bible is much more like a giant whale that cannot be caught…yes, like Moby Dick. We have stopped reading the Word as sacred and started reading it like a biology book, where nothing supernatural or exciting ever occurs. We need to read it like it has the answers to the Biggest Questions, because it does.The death of many people's faith began in the era of the Renaissance and Reformation, as we began to discover new places and models of the universe. I do believe that this was all part of God's plan. Of course it was; everything is part of God's plan. Likewise, God's truth about the universe will lead to the death of our modern idols, too. It is inevitable. In the thousands of years from the first Passover to the Paschal Mystery to today, many great saints lived alongside many sinners, and many saints started out as great sinners. This exit and return from God, back to God is indeed the road home, as the parable of the Prodigal Son said (and so say we all!). The parable of the weeds and wheat applies in history and today, and it applies within each one of us. And like King Josiah had to smash to the idolatrous “high places” in the book of 2 Kings, so must we, and today the main idol that is a stumbling block for faith is not a golden statue or stone pillar, but ideologies and the idol of the “self.” Idols always need smashing. We are in yet another era of strange idols, so let's get to smashing (don't smash yourself, just the false image of the “self” as idol.) If you think God is not working to do the same things now to the idols of modernity as he did to past idols, your assumption of final knowledge will eventually come for you, or even burn you, just like it did to so many 19th century Germans' grandchildren in the 20th century. As for those who believed in such silly things as a flat earth and six day creation, those people were not as simple as we think. Rather, we too will seem simple in a hundred years, let alone a thousand, if the Lord does not return before then. Remember that Genesis is not teaching science or the shape of the universe - that is the task of the scientists and scribes of each age. What sacred scripture teaches is humility before God. If we approach scripture with humility, we will see the forest instead of the tree. If we approach the Word of God in wonder, we will choose the tree of life, rather than the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of knowledge is the one that says, “I know better than God.” In defense of those ancient scientists and scribes, let's imagine for a minute what the world looked like to them:When we live purely by the senses, without the aid of telescopes and books and knowledge handed down, the world does appear to be flat. While I am not a “flat earther,” most of the time the world is actually flat. Most of the time, I am not pondering the sphere I am standing on. I am getting groceries or walking the dog, and everywhere I go is flat in this Minnesota prairie land. Thus, it's reasonable that people believe in a flat earth because we cannot see the sphere. However, we have come to know better through reason, which is a great gift from God to us. With reason, we can use induction and deduction to arrive at conclusions. We can even make proofs about the roundness of the world. What we “know” by the senses alone is not always accurate. Our senses can fool us. This is why seductive beauty can be so deadly, but also life-giving. Beauty is like water or fire in this way, where it can aid life or destroy it. However, the same applies to reason, and by reason alone we can only get so far. By reason alone, we cannot reach the spiritual unseen realm, but we can know it dimly by logic and science. Yet there is more. By art, music, and literature, we can know of spiritual realities. Just as we can measure the earth by reason, we can at least open the door a crack to spiritual realities by art. Everyone has a song or lyric that brings tears to their eyes, a feeling that touches on something deeper than they can articulate. But to fully open the door to faith beyond this world and life requires a “willingness” to be willing, and the act of faith by our will invites our intellect into a broad new expanse that is beyond all sense and calculation. Observation and reason can take us to the door, but faith must place the key in the lock and turn it to walk into that panoramic spiritual valley. Since I cannot see all things at once, I take it on faith, from science, that the earth travels around the sun, not the other way around. I really have no means (or motivation) to prove it, which is why it makes sense to me that, prior to Copernicus, the prevailing wisdom and mathematical models did not have the sun at the center of the solar system but rather the earth. My eyes can see that the sun travels over the sky - yet the senses can deceive us. I myself have not empirically proven that the sun is at the center of the solar system, but it's wonderful that mathematicians and scientists managed to prove it. But contrary to popular belief, this dance of the sun and earth does no damage to the religious truth presented in Genesis. None whatsoever, because the two things are related yet separate. Here is something important to pause on: for people who lost their faith because the earth was no longer at the center of the solar system - they were inverted the wrong way. They were not seeing God correctly. Their God was too small. Likewise, when the “New World” was discovered, a falling away from faith occurred in Europe. Enlightenment writers said that that “man was decentered” by science; man was knocked off a pedestal by the findings of Galileo and Darwin and others. Also, geology and the discovery of dinosaur bones put man into a tiny sliver of time, making him question his centrality in the order of the universe. When I was young, this all seemed to point to religion as the enemy of the truth. Having been raised in the cult of Protestant liberalism (also called the United States of America), this made for a very strange childhood experience. We were like the mythical Pushmi-Pullyu animal of Dr. Doolittle, getting yanked in two directions by two heads. On the one end, all the history books and literature showed that science had dethroned man as the measure of all things. Then on the other end, the cults of liberalism and humanism preached freedom, self-esteem. So at the same time: I was being showered with praise for my uniqueness and specialness while scientific proofs declared me smaller and smaller. Is it any wonder that we are now confused? These two things don't flow together well. If man is not central, but is merely matter, then what ruse are the humanists trying to play with the endless plug of uniqueness? This raises a larger question, however. If man is not special, and is instead like any other species, to what do owe our “self-esteem”? If there is no soul, as public school and modern media taught us, then meaning is only what we make for ourselves, is it not? This is a tall order for each person to determine, since we must all start from scratch. But the truth is: we don't need to do any of that, if we submit our intellect and will to God. The question is already answered, if we are only willing to set pride and vanity aside for peace and hope. Truly, none of this can make sense without God as the beginning and end of all things. Thus the phrase, “made in the image and likeness of God” is so powerful, because it puts us into a relationship with His transcendence, into a nearby friendship that resolves both our smallness and our uniqueness. He is not so far that we cannot know him, nor so close that we are him. We are not God, but we are his friends. The contradiction here is that the Enlightenment spilled much ink, and even more blood, in attempts at making meaning. When the various revolutions of liberalism and communism and capitalism failed to bring the cure for sin, the humanists took up the standard and attempted to shock us to life with a foundationless hype regarding self-worth. But without God, it falls flat. Now: the problem is as follows. Placing man or the self at the center is an error. Genesis and the order of creation de-centers us. We are more valuable than many sparrows, yes, but we are not more valuable than God, or even the angels. Knowing our placement in creation brings freedom, because it allows us to willingly bend the knee to God for his grace and glory. From our proper place we can love and serve. Some people believe that the dinosaurs bones were sown into the earth to test our faith. While I find this to be absurd, it's not exactly wrong. Because if the existence of giant reptiles from a period long ago causes us to lose belief in God, then we had an error-ridden faith to begin with. If the concept of evolution upsets our ability to kneel and pray, perhaps we have never really kneeled and prayed. If anything upsets our trust in God, then we may be projecting what we want to be God, rather than receiving in humility what is God's truth. This is not a defense of creationism or darwinism or liberalism or any other “ism”: this is a goodbye to human pride masquerading as faith in God. The truth is that we are not the central item of all creation, we are a part of all creation, and a very important part. We are loved by God, more than the rest of creation. We are different from all other creatures. We are special, but not more special than God. Coming to trust in God's will means to follow Jesus' advice to “consider the lilies of the field” who do God's will without toiling or spinning. They do not worry, they do not fear - they reach up their petals to heaven, glorifying his creation. What I am getting at goes all the way back to Christ on the Cross. Upon the Cross you have the summary of all necessary first principles. On the Cross, the strangest experience in all history happened. The theory of evolution should not disturb you. The Christian story of the Creator of the universe being born into this world by a woman named Mary, living among us, performing miracles, and then being crucified by us - that is what should disturb you if you fully come to understand what it means. Dinosaur bones? The beak of the finch? A new continent across the Atlantic? The sun's position in the sky? Those are the things that made us stop believing? Those are the things that led us away from God and into the dead arms of modern idols? We trade our inheritance far too cheaply. What this means is something troubling. Most of us believers are not that serious. Most of us are just in it for Donut Sunday and cultural benefits. We may say, “Jesus, I trust in you,” but not really mean it like St. Faustina did. We were warned by Jesus about Donut Sunday faith. He said “…there are many who will say, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'” And in hell, of one thing I am certain: there are no donuts on Sunday or any other day of the week.No wonder our faith was sunk. Our trust is really in ourselves. We say we trust and believe, but we don't. We don't go out into the world and take action like Abraham did. We don't comply with God's will like Moses did, when he insanely walked into Egypt to scold Pharoah, the most powerful man in the world. More than words or going through the motions, real trust in God means doing, partaking of the Sacraments, and even praying for your enemies. When geocentrism or evolution causes us to stop believing, we are like Peter walking on water who focuses on the wind. As the Lord said to Peter as he fell into the water, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?” No finding or discovery should shake our faith. If anything, it is only a test to find out if we trusted God in the first place. As the Lord said to the Apostles, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have conquered the world.” We are too afraid to fully trust. St. John Henry Newman said, “Ten thousand difficulties make not one doubt,” and here I've only listed four: dinosaur bones, beaks, the discovery of the Americas, and the position of the sun. That leaves 9,996 difficulties yet to go before a single doubt should even be entertained. If Darwin or Columbus or Copernicus or Diplodocus caused our faith to die, then our faith was not sailing free and fully trusting God, but was moored to the dock of the self long before we arrived at our current wacky age of postmodernism. The key to understanding where we sit in the order of creation is to know that God is far beyond our understanding, yet is simple, true, good, beautiful, omnipotent, and omnipresent. The key to the good life is knowing that God is at the center, not me. If a discovery here on earth is made, nothing about God changes. New findings should not rattle faith if the right ordering and principles are in place, because truth cannot contradict truth. And none of the revelations of science in the last five hundred years have done anything to displace the truth of “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”Where the earth sits in the universe, where mankind sits in time and space, how our thumbs may have developed, or what land is discovered, what formulas are yet to be discovered - none of these things disrupt or shake the Creator of all, from whom all Being extends. If any of these things shattered faith, or embarrassed believers, then the faith was not built upon a rock but was actually sitting on sand. Evolution or heliocentrism changes nothing about faith and morals, beginnings and endings, bodies and souls. It just changes the map of the heavens, or the timeline of salvation. But God is always up, and hell is always down. As for God, these revelations are like me throwing a pebble at the moon from my driveway. Not only can the pebble not reach the moon, even if it could, it would have no impact. To me, the findings of evolution are interesting but not that important for the Biggest Questions, because humility before God has precedence. If his creation developed, it seems all the more amazing. However we came to the day of the Fall, the Fall happened, and it happened with the first two people from which we all inherit our concupiscence. The topic of how my body or brain may have developed is interesting, but not necessary for salvation. If the Fall happened 6,000 years ago or 60 billion - it makes no difference. I must live today and keep God's commandments, not because I have to but because I want to. The Fall happened, and that's what matters, and I can prove it by own penchant for sin, and I can only overcome it through the work of Jesus' redemptive suffering. If tomorrow aliens arrive, a believer should not be alarmed. The best thing to do would be to invite Gleep-Glorp to Holy Mass. If tomorrow the physicists do indeed prove there are infinite universes or that we are living in a video game, this should have no impact on a faith that knows that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This is the certainty in which you may sail uncharted waters, outlast storms, converse with aliens, navigate confusion, resist mutiny, endure war, suffer famine, persevere in poverty, ignore propaganda, and resist fear. The main thing to be wary of is those who preach against the spiritual truth of the creation, the fall, and the resurrection. Thinking about the cosmology of the universe is fascinating because it all leads to greater wonder in creation. But in my day-to-day life, I need to prepare food on the main floor of this “house.” In some respects, you might say that I offer up prayers to the top floor, while living on the main floor, and as for the basement - well, I don't want to go there. The house is haunted with spirits. There are spirits on every floor of the house. And the sooner you realize this, the less fearful you will be, because even now they are watching you. They are always watching you. I don't want to scare you at the end of this inversion, but as Nirvana said in its lyrics: Just because you're paranoidDon't mean they're not after you The next inversion is about angels and demons. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit whydidpetersink.substack.com

About the King's Business Daniel 8:1-27 by William Klock The books of 1 and 2 Maccabees in the Apocrypha detail the persecution of the Jews in the mid-160s BC, during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.  2 Maccabees 6, for example, tells how “the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their ancestors and no longer to live by the laws of God; also to pollute the temple in Jerusalem and to call it the temple of Olympian Zeus” (6:1-2).  The gentiles used the temple of God for their orgies and drunken banquets.  Antiochus desecrated the alter with the sacrifice of a pig.  On holidays the king's men would round up Jews and force them to participate in his parades and sacrifices.  Those who refused to participate or who were caught living by torah were killed.  Two women, for example, were caught having circumcised their baby boys.  Their babies were tied around their necks as the women were paraded through the streets to the wall of the city and then thrown down it to their deaths.  Faithful Jews who were caught secretly observing the sabbath in a nearby network of caves were burned alive.  2 Maccabees 7 tells the story of seven brothers and their mother, who were threatened with torture to eat pork.  Despite being beaten, they refused. The king fell into a rage, and gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, “The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his song that bore witness against the people to their faces, when he said, ‘And he will have compassion on his servants.'” (2 Maccabees 7:3-6) The king went on to do the same to the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh brothers who all refused.  We read that: The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Although she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors. Filled with a noble spirit, she reinforced her woman's reasoning with a man's courage, and said to them, “I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.” (2 Maccabees s7:20-23) She stood firm—and so did her sons—because they hoped in the Lord.  They knew that he is the Lord of history.  They knew his goodness.  They knew his faithfulness.  They knew their story and how it was interwoven with the story of the faithfulness of the God of Israel, and so even as they were brutally murdered by a mad king, they trusted in him.  Daniel was written for these people.  The stories in the first half of the book show Daniel and his friends standing firm for the Lord during the Babylonian exile, but the dreams and visions in the second are situated right in the middle of those days of violent persecution four centuries later.  That's what we see now as we come to Chapter 8 and to Daniel's second vision.  Let's start with verse 1 and read through to the end. In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first. And I saw in the vision; and when I saw, I was in Susa the citadel, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and I was at the Ulai canal. I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great.   As I was considering, behold, a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came to the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath. I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him. And there was no one who could rescue the ram from his power. Then the goat became exceedingly great, but when he was strong, the great horn was broken, and instead of it there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.   Out of one of them came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land. It grew great, even to the host of heaven. And some of the host and some of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled on them. It became great, even as great as the Prince of the host. And the regular burnt offering was taken away from him, and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown. And a host will be given over to it together with the regular burnt offering because of transgression, and it will throw truth to the ground, and it will act and prosper. Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one who spoke, “For how long is the vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate, and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled underfoot?” And he said to me, “For 2,300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.”   When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. And behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Ulai, and it called, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” So he came near where I stood. And when he came, I was frightened and fell on my face. But he said to me, “Understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end.”   And when he had spoken to me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground. But he touched me and made me stand up. He said, “Behold, I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end. As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. And the goat is the king of Greece. And the great horn between his eyes is the first king. As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power. And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall arise. His power shall be great—but not by his own power; and he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints. By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great. Without warning he shall destroy many. And he shall even rise up against the Prince of princes, and he shall be broken—but by no human hand. The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.”   And I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days. Then I rose and went about the king's business, but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it.   Another vision during the reign of the blasphemous king Belshazzar.  In his ways, he foreshadows the evils of Antiochus Epiphanes.  But as the first vision revealed, the days of Babylon were soon to be over, so this vision whisks Daniel hundreds of kilometres to the east, to Susa, which would become the capital of the Persian empire.  And there he sees another animal, this time a ram.  This is another clue as to when the book was written.  The ram as a sign of the zodiac was associated with Persia—not in Daniel's day, but in the time of the Greeks. The symbolism of Daniel 7 was difficult and there's a fair bit of disagreement about what it all means, but not so much with Daniel 8.  This vision is simpler and the explanation pretty straightforward.  Most everyone agrees on the major points.  So it begins with a ram representing the combined empire of the Medes and the Persians—those are the two horns, one bigger than the other.  Horns, in ancient imagery, represent strength.  The Medes were strong, but the Persians eventually become stronger and gobbled them up and so Daniel sees the ram, lowering its head, and charging from the east into the north and into the south and into the west—which is exactly what the Persian empire did, until it controlled the known world, even as far as Greece.  Daniel writes that the ram did as it pleased and became strong.  It's the way of human empires. But as the ram reaches the peak of its power, Daniel sees a goat appear in the west.  It helps to know that in the biblical mind, the goat was stronger and more powerful than the ram.  This goat had a single horn and it made its way across the land so fast it might have been flying for all it seemed to touch the earth.  It put its head down and charged the mighty ram and shattered both its powerful horns.  In case the symbolism wasn't already obvious, the angel explains that the goat is Greece.  The jutting horn is Alexander the Great. Alexander was the son of Philip II, King of Macedon.  He was tutored by Aristotle and assumed the throne when his father died in 336 BC.  He was only twenty years old.  By the age of thirty he had conquered the known world, from Greece in the west to India in the East, from Central Asia in the north to Egypt in the south.  And then, in 323 BC, still a young man, Alexander died of a fever in Babylon.  For twenty years his generals fought over his empire, eventually carving it up into four kingdoms, which Daniel sees as four horns.  The two relevant ones for the Jews were that of Seleucus who controlled Syria and the east, and Ptolemy, who controlled Egypt and Palestine. But this is all the background to the most important part of the vision.  Out of those Greek successor kingdoms arises another horn.  He isn't named, but as the details of the first horn obviously point to Alexander, the details of this new horn point very obviously to Antiochus IV Epiphanes.  In the great sweep of history, Antiochus was hardly the greatest of the Greek kings, but when he defeated the Egyptian Ptolemies and took control of Judah he became very important to the Jews.  The Ptolemies had treated the Jews well and allowed them to govern themselves as a sort of religous state as long as the high priest coughed up the annual taxes.  Antiochus, however, wanted to make good Greeks of the Jews and to get his hands on the temple treasury.  Under his rule the priesthood was bought and sold and eventually observance of torah was outlawed and torah scrolls burned.  God's worship in the temple was ended and it was turned into a temple to Olympian Zeus.  And Antiochus murdered faithful Jews by the tens of thousands. In Daniel's vision, Antiochus takes the form of this great horn that rises up against heaven itself.  These verses, especially 12-13, are difficult.  Just when I was glad to leave the Aramaic of chapters 2-7 behind, here come these verses that I can only describe as a Hebrew word salad.  The Hebrew of Daniel is something else that points to it having been written in the Second Century, because it's not written in the great literary Hebrew of Daniel's day, but in a sort of clunky Hebrew that looks a lot like it was written by someone who probably spoke Aramaic as a first language.  But that's okay.  The gist of Daniel's vision is that Antiochus, in going up against the temple and the priesthood, was really shaking his fist at the God of Israel.  This little earthly king who called himself “Epiphanies”—the manifestation of God—was pitting himself against the living God, the Lord of history, the one the Babylonian kings had had the good sense to acknowledge as God Most High.  That never ends well. And yet, for a time, the mad king seems to have won.  Israel's identity was centred on the temple.  That was the place where heaven and earth, where God and man met.  They were the holy people who lived with God in their midst.  And not only did Antiochus do his best to make sure they broke their end of the covenant with God by preventing them from keeping his law, but he suspended the very sacrifices that acknowledged God's presence in the temple.  He wanted the Jews to live like good Greeks and when they insisted on living like Jews, he banished their God from his temple and set up an altar to Zeus.  Judah was now his land.  Their God was gone, so they had no reason to obey his law.  Of course, the Jews knew better.  Like that mother and her seven sons in 2 Maccabees, they knew the faithfulness of the God of the Israel and they knew that no puny human king could blaspheme against him forever.  But, for a time, he would seem to have won the day.  According to Daniel's vision, for 2300 evenings and mornings the temple would be desolate.  That's a reference to the morning and evening sacrifices that were—or were supposed to be—made every day.  The sacrifices that Antiochus suspended.  Depending on how you parse this detail out, it's either about three years and three months or it's about six years and six months.  Most people tend to go with the three years, which corresponds closely to the time when Antiochus had suspended the worship of the Lord in the temple.  But the six-and-a-half years works too, if you count back to when the high priest was deposed.  Either way, we know what the vision represents.  And either way and for whatever reason, it's not an exact number, which means it may also be symbolic—we just can't be sure exactly how.  However we parse out the number, the important point is that the Lord has numbered these evil days. And that's the point I want to close on.  Too often we get fixated on numbers and on fixing dates and end up missing the point.  We do it with books like Daniel.  We do it with books like Revelation.  We do it with the prophets and with the apocalyptic discourses of Jesus.  It's nothing new.  Christians have been setting dates for over a thousand years and whenever we do, we seem to end up distracted from the gospel mission we've been given.  Often it ends with the creation of schismatic sects and cults.  William Miller, for example, worked out from these 2300 evening and mornings that Jesus would return in 1843.  His argument convinced a lot of people (and it helped that he threw in plenty of “God has told mes”).  Of course, it didn't happen so he adjusted his formula, admitted a small error, and corrected the date to 1844.  That didn't happen either.  But his followers had given up everything and then many of them walked away and became jaded.  They called it the “Great Disappointment”.  But, still, to this day Miller has his ardent followers.  They're the Seventh Day Adventists and believe that it really did happen in 1843, and that it wasn't about Jesus returning to the earth, but that Jesus on that date entered the heavenly temple to begin is work of judging souls in anticipation of his return. And many of us remember Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth that became a sensation in the 1970s.  Lindsey made a point of not setting an exact date, but he wasn't shy about saying things like the 1980's would probably be the earth's last decade.  It motivated some people to become missionaries, but it motivated lots of other people to abandon their jobs, their families, and to run up massive credit card debt because they were convinced that in a year or two none of it would matter.  In more recent years we've had similar predictions made about “blood moons” and the like.  Christian bookstores were filled books about the imminent return of Jesus and end of the world.  People were, once again, all worked up about the end of the world and, once again, nothing happened. Again, we too often forget the point of passages like this one in Daniel 8.  Even if we could estimate or even set a date by it, the point is that God is in control and, because of that, we have every reason to stand firm in the midst of trials and persecution, knowing that God will vindicate us in the same way that he has vindicated his people in the past and, especially for us as Christians, in the same way that he vindicated his son when he raised him from death.  Daniel 8—and so many other passages—remind us first and foremost that God is sovereign.  No matter how it seems, history is not random.  No matter how much they may shake their fists at the heavens, no king is outside the sovereign will of God.  No matter how much we may abuse our God-given liberty, every one of us will be held to account.  Sin and evil will not go on forever.  God is judge, one day he will deal with sin and death once and for all, and eventually all of creation will be to rights—including us.  And we know that this will happen, we believe, we have hope, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.  At the cross God did the hard part needed to set the world to rights.  At the cross Jesus won the decisive battle and one day the war will be over when we, the church, his people, have accomplished the work he has given.  He has equipped us with his own Spirit and sends us out to proclaim the life giving and renewing good news of his death and resurrection.  And for two thousand years, that good news has driven away the false gods of the pagans and brought kings and their people to their knees before Jesus and to give glory to the God of Israel.  Brothers and Sisters, date-setting, goofy predictions, and eschatological paranoia do nothing to witness the sovereignty of the Lord of history.  They do just the opposite and they undermine our witness.  They make Christians look foolish and the scriptures untrustworthy.  Our mission is to proclaim the gospel, because in Jesus and in his death and resurrection, that is where the world meets the living God and knows his faithfulness. And that brings me to the final point.  Look again at verse 27 and Daniel's response.  The vision left him troubled.  He even lay sick in his bed for “some days”.  He was in some sense dismayed because he didn't fully understand it.  But what did he do?  He says that he arose and went about the king's business.  Brothers and Sisters, the prophecies and apocalypses that the Spirit has given us in the scripture were never meant to send us out in a panic or a frenzy, they weren't given to have us abandon our earthly responsibilities because the world is coming to an end.  They were given to us to remind us that God is sovereign, that he will judge the wicked, and that he will vindicate his people for their faithfulness.  So be faithful.  The Lord had placed Daniel in a position of authority in the court of the king of Babylon.  That pagan court was soon to fall.  That pagan king was soon to die.  But the Lord had put Daniel in that position for a reason and so he went faithfully back to his work.  The same goes for each of us.  The Lord has put us where we are for a reason.  Be a faithful husband and father or a faithful wife and mother knowing that the Lord is sovereign.  Be faithful in your vocation, whatever it may be, however mundane it may seem.  Be faithful to your earthly obligations: to your family, to your business, to your school, to your church, to your club, to your friends, to your debts, to your country knowing that the Lord has placed you where you are.  That is, after all, the King's business.  This witness to our trust in the sovereignty of God is the foundation that undergirds our greater witness to Jesus and the gospel.  It is what prepares us to stand firm should the day come when we find ourselves forced to choose between obedience to an earthly king and obedience to our heavenly King.  May we stand firm like the saints of old and declare with the mother of those seven martyred sons, “The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us.” Let's pray: Almighty God, look with mercy on your people; that by your great goodness we may be always governed and preserved both in body and soul, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

ARE WE AS NATURAL MAN AMERICANS BORN INTO THIS WORLD AS TEMPLES OF THE LIVING GOD? WHAT WOULD BE OUR ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION? MOST OF US AMERICANS WOULD PROBABLY SAY NO, WOULD WE NOT? THEN THE QUESTION IS, DO WE HAVE TO BECOME TEMPLES OF THE LIVING GOD IN ORDER TO GO TO HEAVEN? GEORGE WHITEFIELD, IN THIS MESSAGE PAINTS A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE OF WHAT THE EXPERIENCE IS LIKE OF BEING, AS A BELIEVER, THE TEMPLE OF THE LIVING GOD. 2 COR. 6:[14] Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? [15] And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? [16] And what AGREEMENT hath the TEMPLE of GOD with idols? for “YE ARE THE TEMPLE OF THE LIVING GOD ; as God hath said, I WILL DWELL in THEM, and WALK in THEM; and I WILL be THEIR God, and they SHALL be MY PEOPLE.

God pays a visit to Solomon! 2 Chronicles 7v11-22 Introduction Yesterday we looked at David's final recorded public prayer in 1 Chronicles 29. We saw that David's God oozed greatness, power, glory, victory and majesty from all aspects of His very being! All of which are essential attributes of who He is: unchangeable and permanent. We discovered that this God is a God who gives and gives abundantly! The temple was yet to be built but the gifts from the King and the people had come in! People were waiting to start! Not only to build it but to serve within it! We came to the conclusion that we should pray not just for what God can give to us but also what we can give and do for our God! Giving not just money and goods, but our talents and imagination! Because from that, the community we live, work and worship within could be transformed to God's glory! But now the Chronicler has moved on in his story! The remnant of Israel you may remember has returned from exile and the Chronicler is giving them an abridged version of history! The great king David has died, and his son, Solomon, is now on the throne. Solomon has had his first encounter with God and received the gift of wisdom! In Chapter 6, Solomon has prayed a great prayer to His God! We shall look at that in the podcast tomorrw. Here, in our first reading, from the first 3 verses of chapter 7, we hear the Chronicler regaling one of the many great WOW moments of the Old Testament, when the glory of the Lord came down like fire and filled the temple to overflowing! The people fell down in worship of a great God, who was their God! This was followed by a great scene of abundantly joyful sacrificial worship to this God! In the passage before us tonight, v11 to v22, the temple is now complete. Solomon is now probably sleeping in his palace. It has been 13 years since he prayed that prayer in chapter 6! No doubt, during those 13 years, many times has Solomon wrestled in his mind over what he prayed... Then, one night God Himself turns up. Here the Chronicler reveals what God said to Solomon. The original readers/hearers are a remnant of the great nation of Israel, just returned to their land after being in exile! Probably wondering what happened, because under Solomon, the nation of Israel reached its pinnacle! Asking themselves questions like: Who is our God? Who are we, Israel, as a nation? Why are we in the situation we find ourselves in? The Chronicler is putting across his own theology as he writes this book of Chronicles! His theology, however, is consistent with the writings of the rest of the Old Testament and indeed the New Testament! So what does the Chronicler wish to convey to the remnant about this God from this encounter with Solomon? 1. A God of all History The first thing I see, from this passage, is that their God is a God of history! All human history is covered beneath his throne - the past, present and future! a. God of the past! He is the God of Israel's past! God throughout history had made covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and here, God reminds Solomon of the Covenant that He made with Solomon's father, David! This covenant promised 3 things! That there would be: A land forever A dynasty without end A perpetual kingdom b. God of the present But not only is He a God of the past, He is also a God of the present! He has heard the prayers and accepted the temple as a place of worship - v12 "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices." He is the God of the present because He is speaking to Solomon in Solomon's present! Visiting Solomon, probably while Solomon is snoring his head off! c. God of the Future So God is a God of the past and the present, but also a God of the future! And because God is the God of the future, all things are under His control! Even v13 "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people", shows the God of the past, present and future being in control. The Lord God says in this speech to Solomon, "I will..." several times! "I will hear!" "I will forgive!" "I will heal the land!" "I will open my eyes!" "I will establish your throne!" But not only of these humanly beneficial things but also Gods says in v20 "I will uproot you from here and send you into exile!" All in the future tense! And in v16 "I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there." Their God, who is the God of all human history - past, present and future - is from everlasting to everlasting! Nothing in the future is set rigidly! God may know what is going to happen but He also knows all that may happen as well! We see this through the tension of "If you do this, I will do this!" God is all-knowing, far beyond our human capacity and capability! 2. A God Who Lives! So a God over all human history - past, present and future. So what else is there here about this God? This God is also a God who lives and lives dynamically! This God is not like the gods of Israel's neighbours - a mere inert block of wood, bone or stone to be lumped about, put on a pedestal, have many copies made, bowed to impersonally and chanted manically at. No! This God of Israel is a God who lives! This God lives and wants to live with His people! God is a God who exhibits His life in at least 3 ways from this encounter with Solomon! a. A God who is Personal! This God is personal! Fourteen times, the Chronicler uses for God the personal pronoun "I" and fourteen times, he uses "me" or "myself." Twelve times, he uses the word "you" - on a single individual basis as well as a collective "you" on the basis of the nation itself. This God is personal to the individual Solomon, the King of Israel, but also personal to the nation of Israel. The Chronicler is intimating that no other nation had enjoyed a dynamic, robust and intimate relationship with their God, like Israel does! Our God is personal the Chronicler cries out! Because He is personal, it cries out that He lives! This God wants to be intimately involved with the people and nation He has chosen for Himself. Read through with me as I share some of these with you and hear how intimate and personal this God is! Listen for the ‘I' "I have heard your prayer; I shut; I will forgive; I will heal; I have chosen; I will establish; I have covenanted; I have given; I will uproot; I will reject; I will make This is a personal God! Listen for the ‘my' chosen this place for myself; among my people, called by my name; seek my face; my eyes will be open; my ears attentive; my Name may be there forever; my heart will always be there; an object of ridicule for my Name, Now listen for the ‘you', ‘their', themselves' and ‘they' you walk before me faithfully; humble themselves and pray; You do; Your father David; You observe; Your royal throne; their wicked ways ; if you turn away and forsake; you and go off to serve other gods; they have forsaken the LORD and they embraced other gods! This is a personal, living and dynamic God wanting a personal and dynamic relationship with His people! Not some mere impersonal piece of wood, metal or stone like the gods of the surrounding nations to whom people babble! b. A God who is Responsive! This personal God is also responsive! This God, the Chronicler writes, has responded to the worship of the people when at the beginning of this chapter, His glory filled the temple to overflowing! Their worship was pleasing to Him and He acknowledged this with fire! WOW - v1 "the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple!" That must have been an awe-inspiring moment when their living God did that! So awe inspiring that they continued in worship by singing and offering sacrifices! This God responds to His gathered people! But this God also responds and appears to the individual, in this case, their King and leader, Solomon and with a personal answer to Solomon's own prayer we read in chapter 6! Here in v17-18, God confirms Solomon's anointing as King and leader of Israel! He reminds Solomon of the importance of the Temple in the life of Israel and as a symbol of commitment to the Covenant of David. This is a direct response to Solomon's prayer we read in 6v16-17. God is personally committed to the line of David. Now that's all very well when things are going swimmingly and Israel is being obedient, following the commands and ordinances of their personal God! But what happens if they choose not to obey or serve him rightly? God administers judgement, but v14 offers a way back - of humble repentance. However, if they continue to sin and are not repentant, well that leads us to another part of God being responsive - God judges! And not unjustly or recklessly but with justice! c. A God who Judges and Restores! In v13 we see that disasters can be sent by God! Droughts and plagues can be used by God to bring people ultimately back to repentance. In v19-23, we see what happens if Israel abandons their God and continues in their sinful ways (v19)! God abandons them because they first abandoned Him and went away to embrace other gods - gods of non-personality! Then God uproots them from the land that He had given them and rejects this very same Temple which He chose Himself to be a place of prayer and sacrifice. That's the reason Israel was to go into exile, away from the land of promise. But if God is the God who judges and does these things, He is also the God who enables restoration! When evil befalls Israel, natural, social or political, it is because of their disobedience and God must judge it or He would be a pretty impotent, capricious, spiteful and fickle God if He didn't! So while God maybe the author of disasters, He is also the agent of restoration! 3. A God Who Expects! This is a personal God of all human history who lives! This God judges disobedience but offers a way back through repentance. Part of His being personal is that this is a God who expects! a. God Expects His People to be Holy! How is this? Why does He judge? Because God is holy! He is of utter moral excellence and perfection. There is and can be no stain of sin and He must be totally separated from sin. Holy is what God is!! This holiness of God is seen in righteousness, which is holiness in action. God's actions conform to His Holiness. Justice deals with the ab­sence of righteousness. Sin must be dealt with deal with it He will and must! If God were not Holy, He could not and would not be God! If He were to cast aside his Holiness even for the briefest of times, he would cease to be God! b. God expects obedience! Not only is God holy, writes the Chronicler, but His people must also be holy and be seen to live rightly! God expects obedience! Israel was to be a nation of light reflecting their great and living God to the surrounding nations! They alone had the law of the Lord and they were to live rightly and obediently before God and the surrounding nations! They were to worship this living God and Him alone! In v17, we see the request to walk with God alone and follow His decrees and commands - the law of Moses! In v19-20, as we saw earlier, there was the penalty for idolatry and abandoning this living God! c. God expects prayers of repentance Now you may be saying, yeah right, Dave... If God is just, and of grace, He will provide a way out of these judgments! But you know what! He does! The people can be restored! How can this be? Verse 14 is the key! This is a key of grace: "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." How does He restore? Through the humility and repentance of the disobedient! Even when this great Living God is angry! Prayers by the disobedient, consisting of humility and repentance are necessary, in order to enable God to forgive and heal the destruction of sin and disobedience. In 6v32-33, we can see that anyone who acknowledges God's name and authority may pray with utter confidence that God would hear their petitions. Seeking God's face with humility is the key. What is repentance? It is a voluntary change in mind, in which the person and nation turn from a life of disobedience to living a life of obedience to God. It is done firstly in the Mind or the Intellect, where it is recognition of disobedience and guilt before God. Then, there is also at an Emotional level, exhibiting genuine sorrow for disobedience, a bit more difficult for us men! Finally it's also an act of the Will - a decision to turn back to God from disobedience, self-pleasure and self-centredness. And what is humility? Humility is where total trust is placed in God alone, and He has priority in all aspects of life. Humility is a lack of pride and of total commitment to God. This is a living and holy God, who expects His people to be holy, reflecting His holiness and being prepared to make themselves nothing in order to be restored and for their disobedience to be forgiven. Conclusion What an awesome and great God this is! This is the God who is the God over all human history - past, present and future! This is a God who is personal and responsive! This is a God who is holy, commands obedience and yet accepts humble repentance! What a great and Almighty God! Not only those things but He is a God of grace! How do we see that? This chapter from Scripture, 2 Chronicles 7v11-22, could well be a summary of all 1 & 2 Chronicles, if not the Old Testament and indeed all of Scripture! Some say that grace is missing from the book, just as some say that grace is missing from the Old Testament itself! But as we have hopefully seen, one aspect of God that shines through this passage is that He is a God of grace, with a message of grace as exemplified in v14! "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." But so what? What are we to do with and for this God? We are to be personally and collectively obedient to Him. Following closely to the leading of the Spirit and following our leaders, the pastors, elders and deacons as they seek to follow this great God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said "You can only learn what obedience is, by obeying." Lets be an obedient people. How do we do that? By loving God! How do we show we love God? By loving others, for as Jesus said, this sums up the whole Law!. The community out there, which we are a part of, is looking at us. We have this fantastic new building, and I can guarantee you, that there will be some people out there, just waiting for this adventure of ours with God to fail. Let us not allow that to happen. One of the key areas of obedience concerns idolatry! Now we may not go off to other gods and worship them, as Solomon and ancient Israel did. But we can set up false idols of our own, both as individuals and collectively. Calvin wrote that "What is idolatry? It is to worship the gifts instead of the great Giver?" This is a beautiful building! But let us not worship it and consider it so sanctified even for a moment, that it becomes our idol of worship. Let us be thankful to God for the gift and allow Him to use it for the benefit of the whole community and not just for our own sake. Let each of us ensure that God takes first place over everything in our individual and collective lives. Let us worship alone our great living God who gives abundantly, rather than commit disobedient idolatry by worshipping the gifts of the Giver. Then finally, let us hold our leaders up in prayer that they will be, collectively and individually, obedient to God! As Adam shared this morning, old hairy legs satan likes to stick his nose in and try to get leaders like Adam off track. Many churches have built new buildings, only for them to lie wasted shortly after, due to personal disobedience of the leadership. Lets not be one of those. The church I attended in Australia before coming to the UK, 21 years ago this coming Saturday, was very much like PBC is now! Growing, vibrant and they had just finished building a new church building! Everyone was excited and looking forward to the future! I am not going to say specifically what happened, but within 2 years that church was practically empty. In fact it is still going but it hasn't recovered to the way that it was. The leadership were found to have committed both personal and corporate disobedience and when it became public; it decimated the church and made it a public mockery. Those people who were in leadership are now restored back into a right relationship with God, but they had to find humility the hard way. Somebody asked me during the week, "If Solomon was the wisest man on earth, how come he fell into idolatry?" The answer I gave was not because he had so many wives and girlfriends. Nor was it, as suggested by a certain member of this congregation here tonight, the number of mother in laws. I think it was because he became proud, forgot not just who he was in God's eyes but he also forgot who God was! That led him to forsake the God of His youth and commit idolatrous acts. Let's go from here, willing to be obedient to this great God, remembering who we are and who our God is. This great God we love and serve who is the God of all human history - past, present and future. This Almighty God, who is living, dynamic, personal, and responsive: who both judges and restores. This is a God who is holy and expects His followers to be holy, living obedient lives and being quick to seek repentance after disobedience. Let's go out into our community this week, being His voice and light, confident that our living God is within us, as we engage actively and passively with those who don't know this great God! Tap or click here to save this Podcast as a MP3.

2024-01-28 Ratifying The Covenantby Pastor Chris BergScripture Reference: Exodus 24:1-8, 32:1-351 Then the Lord instructed Moses: “Come up here to me, and bring along Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of Israel's elders. All of you must worship from a distance. 2 Only Moses is allowed to come near to the Lord. The others must not come near, and none of the other people are allowed to climb up the mountain with him.”3 Then Moses went down to the people and repeated all the instructions and regulations the Lord had given him. All the people answered with one voice, “We will do everything the Lord has commanded.”4 Then Moses carefully wrote down all the Lord's instructions. Early the next morning Moses got up and built an altar at the foot of the mountain. He also set up twelve pillars, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 Then he sent some of the young Israelite men to present burnt offerings and to sacrifice bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. 6 Moses drained half the blood from these animals into basins. The other half he splattered against the altar.7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people. Again they all responded, “We will do everything the Lord has commanded. We will obey.”8 Then Moses took the blood from the basins and splattered it over the people, declaring, “Look, this blood confirms the covenant the Lord has made with you in giving you these instructions.”---1 When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Come on,” they said, “make us some gods who can lead us. We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.”2 So Aaron said, “Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.”3 All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”5 Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!”6 The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.7 The Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.'”9 Then the Lord said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. 10 Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.”11 But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. “O Lord!” he said. “Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? 12 Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth'? Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people! 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.'”14 So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people.15 Then Moses turned and went down the mountain. He held in his hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 These tablets were God's work; the words on them were written by God himself.17 When Joshua heard the boisterous noise of the people shouting below them, he exclaimed to Moses, “It sounds like war in the camp!”18 But Moses replied, “No, it's not a shout of victory nor the wailing of defeat. I hear the sound of a celebration.”19 When they came near the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing, and he burned with anger. He threw the stone tablets to the ground, smashing them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf they had made and burned it. Then he ground it into powder, threw it into the water, and forced the people to drink it.21 Finally, he turned to Aaron and demanded, “What did these people do to you to make you bring such terrible sin upon them?”22 “Don't get so upset, my lord,” Aaron replied. “You yourself know how evil these people are. 23 They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will lead us. We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.' 24 So I told them, ‘Whoever has gold jewelry, take it off.' When they brought it to me, I simply threw it into the fire—and out came this calf!”25 Moses saw that Aaron had let the people get completely out of control, much to the amusement of their enemies. 26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and shouted, “All of you who are on the Lord's side, come here and join me.” And all the Levites gathered around him.27 Moses told them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Each of you, take your swords and go back and forth from one end of the camp to the other. Kill everyone—even your brothers, friends, and neighbors.” 28 The Levites obeyed Moses' command, and about 3,000 people died that day.29 Then Moses told the Levites, “Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the Lord, for you obeyed him even though it meant killing your own sons and brothers. Today you have earned a blessing.”30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a terrible sin, but I will go back up to the Lord on the mountain. Perhaps I will be able to obtain forgiveness for your sin.”31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a terrible sin these people have committed. They have made gods of gold for themselves. 32 But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, erase my name from the record you have written!”33 But the Lord replied to Moses, “No, I will erase the name of everyone who has sinned against me. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place I told you about. Look! My angel will lead the way before you. And when I come to call the people to account, I will certainly hold them responsible for their sins.”35 Then the Lord sent a great plague upon the people because they had worshiped the calf Aaron had made.

“If they want a monster so badly, they ought to be provided by one.” ― Margaret AtwoodTheir monster is Trump. He is the entire economy of the media machine. Without him, whole news networks would die, social media would become stagnant, and, more importantly, there would be no named evil for the New Puritans to unite in fear and hatred against.Their God is Barack Obama. Yes, that's right. We're caught in a clash of the titans that involves two movements, largely built and cultivated online, that now define two paths forward for America. Obama's 1984-like dystopia or Trump's populist revolt against monopolistic power at the top, not unlike Teddy Roosevelt driving a spike through the Gilded Age.Trump is, without a doubt, and these trials prove it, the man in the arena. Get full access to Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone at sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

It's difficult to nail down the exact situation of this Psalm. We don't know who wrote the Psalm, when it was written, from where it was written. And yet, what we do know is enough to get a good sense of what it was that was going on.For starters, the writer of this Psalm is not young. Did you catch that? Look at verse 9, “Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent.” Or, verse 17, “O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me.” He's not young. In fact, he's grown old, and not only that, but he's grown old in such a way, that he feels it. He notices it. He recognizes he is not the man he used to be in regard to his physical abilities. He's grown old, and, in his own words, his strength is spent.We also know that this old, worn man, has enemies. Verse 4, “Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.” Verse 10, “For my enemies speak concerning me, those who watch for my life consult together.” He's got enemies, his enemies want him dead, but unlike himself, his enemies don't seem to have shown any sign of slowing down. For the words on their mouths are not, “My strength is spent” but, verse 11, “Pursue…seize.” The Psalmist is the wounded and worn out prey in this picture, his enemies are the vicious lions in the thicket.SignificanceIt's not a promising situation if you're the Psalmist here, right? His enemies in the background, full of vigor, himself in the foreground, wore out and weak. Do you get a sense for just how defenseless he would have appeared before his enemies? Do you get a feel for just how threatening his enemies would have appeared before him? But there's yet another layer to this whole thing that we need to recognize. An aspect of this situation that incites this entire Psalm, gives this thing weight, significance, a sense of consequence, like whatever happens to this man has massive relevance for a far larger group of people, on the outside as they look in. What is it? What is that aspect that adds surprising weight to a situation from a few millennia ago between an unknown Psalmist and his unknown enemies in an unknown location? It's not that his enemies noticed that this man's movements have slowed a bit and concluded, “He's weak.” It's not that his enemies have caught a glimpse of his tired, wrinkle eyes and concluded, “He's worn out.” But, it's that while at other times his enemies might have seen him in his strength and health and concluded, “Look at his power, his vitality, his prosperity, his position in society – surely that means his God is with him. If his God is with him, we're not going to try and take him down.” But now when they see him wrung out, now when they observe him exhausted, now when speak concerning him and consult together they conclude, “surely what his current state of weakness means is that his God has left him.” Verse 11, “God has forsaken him; pursue and seize him, for there is none to deliver him.” You see the significance here? Their conclusion takes in the poor, fatigued, outward appearance of this man and goes upward. Goes vertical. Concludes “If a man looks like that, the only reasonable explanation is that his God has left him.” You get that? Circumstantial decline equals spiritual destitution — that's their logic.Do you see the kind of bearing this might have on you, me, someone looking in on this and thinking, “Well my circumstances look an awful lot like his. In fact, mine might be even worse. I've lost my strength. I've lost my energy. I've lost my ability. Physically speaking, I am a shell of who I used to be.” If it's true that his situation signals God left him. What should I conclude when I look in the mirror and see much of the same? You see the significance? Should God's people conclude God has left them if they're experiencing decline? I mean, anyone here ever experience a season of physical decline? I mean, my goodness!So, the way his enemies are looking upon this man, concluding his poor physical situation a sign of spiritual desertion by God, is what it means to be seen as a portent. See verse 7, “I have been as a portent to many.” That's not a word we often use, but put simply, a portent is a sign. A sign, given by God, to signal attention (Blinking red light - Hey, look here, look here! See, by the look of this thing, or the look of this person, an outward picture of my inward disposition toward that person, or that nation he's a part of). As an example, the Egyptian plagues were portents – signs of God's judgment of Egypt (Exodus 7:3). The prophet Isaiah served as a portent – a sign of God's judgment against Egypt and Cush (Isaiah 20:3). The prophet Ezekiel served as a portent – a sign of God's judgment against Israel (Ezekiel 12:6). In all three cases we know they are portents, we don't need to guess at it or wonder, because God says it explicitly and it is recorded for us in his word. Well that's what this Psalmist's enemies are saying. Without a word from the Lord, they are saying, “This is a man forsaken by God.” And note, it may not be they were the only ones thinking that. Again, verse 7, “I have been as a portent to many.” Maybe friend or foe alike were drawing that conclusion about him. I mean, would it have been the first time a group of people concluded their friend cursed by God simply because of their disastrous circumstances? Think of Job and the conclusions his friends drew upon seeing him. ResponseSo, zooming out for a moment. Worn, tired man – wicked, cruel enemies – conclusions arising about having been forsaken by God. It doesn't look good for the Psalmist does it? And yet, that is the reality he is faced with. And there are a number of ways he could have choosen to respond. He could have gone into denial, “I don't need a refuge.”He could have gone into despondency, “I'm a gonner. What's the use of seeking refuge?” He could have puffed himself up in pride, “I can take them. I am my own refuge.”He could have put his trust in man, “I'll call on people more powerful than they – they'll be my refuge.”Well, he didn't do any of those things. But what he did do was set his sights on the only refuge that he – in all the many years of his long life – had ever known. Verse 1, “In you, O LORD, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame.” He goes to God for refuge, and that movement of his toward God for refuge is what we're going to look at for the remainder of this sermon. His movement toward God as refuge, in which, first, he calls out to God. Second, he recalls the character of God. Third, he draws a conclusion concerning God and his care for his people. Call to God, character of God, conclusion concerning God and his care for his people.Call to GodFirst, the Psalmist calls to God. And let's just recognize for a moment just how hard it can be to even do just that in situations as sad as these. I mean you've been there, right? Wore out with tears, weighed down by sorrow, you want to call out to God but the words just seem to get stuck in your throat, you know? As if it's the most challenging task in all the world to get your mouth to even whisper, “God, help.” It makes it all the more amazing, and instructive, to note that God gives the Psalmist the grace, in this moment, to not only call out to God, but do so over and over again. He says,Verse 1, “Let me never be put to shame” Verse 2, “deliver me, Rescue me, Incline your ear to me, save me” Verse 3, “Be to me a rock of refuge to which I may continually come” Verse 4, “Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked.” Verse 9, “Do not cast me off, forsake me not” Verse 12, “Be not far from me, make haste to help me” Verse 18, “do not forsake me” The Psalmist calls out to God.Character of GodAs he calls to his God, he recalls the character of his God. That he is faithful. Verse 22, “I will also praise you…for your faithfulness, O my God.” That he is Holy. Verse 22, “I will sing praises to you…O Holy one of Israel” That he protects his people. Verse 3, “You are my rock and my fortress.” Verse 7, “You are my strong refuge” That he sustains his people. Verse 6, “Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; You are he who took me from my mother's womb.” More than anything else, over and over again, he says God is righteous.Verse 2, “In your righteousness deliver me” Verse 15, “My mouth will tell of your righteous acts” Verse 16, “I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone” Verse 19, “Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens” Verse 24, “My tongue will talk of your righteous help” See the reason he knows his cry doesn't fall on deaf ears. The reason he knows not one of his words are not spoken in vain is because he knows something about his God that his enemies don't. Namely, that though friend or companion may spurn you, though neighbor or co-worker may turn on you, though brother, or sister, or mother, or father may say to you, “Good riddance, I'm gone!” God won't. If you are truly his, God will not forsake you because God is not like man. Untainted by sin, untouched by evil, unlimited in energy, awareness, and presence He is the only infinitely reliable rock and fortress for mankind. It is upon his character that the Psalmist rests his weary soul.Conclusion For All Who Seek Refuge In GodSo he calls out to God. As he does, he recalls the character of God. And lastly, he draws a conclusion concerning God and his care for his people. And he does so in a really unique way. He draws a conclusion concerning God and his care for his people by connecting it to his own praising of God. Said another way, he cites his praising of God as the key to understanding God's care for his people. Now how does this work?Does he reason, the way God cares for his people is conditioned upon whether or not they praise him in return? That's the key. That's the connection. Like the Psalmist is saying here, “God, I will praise you in return for you saving me.” Is that how the Psalmist wants us to understand the way God cares for his people?Well it can't be, because there's nothing conditional about words like: Verse 6, “My praise is continually of you.” Verse 8, “My mouth is filled with your praise and with your glory all the day” Verse 14, “I will praise you yet more and more.” Verse 22-23, “I will praise you with the harp, praise you with the lyre, shout for joy to you with my lips… and sing praises to you” It's not conditional, it is certain. This man is going to praise God.Is it because he reasons, the way God cares for his people is based upon whether or not they earn his favor? That's the key. That's the connection. Like, “God, you should save me because I've praised you. I've always praised. Why, just listen, I'm praising you even now.” Well it can't be because nothing is said in this entire Psalm about the Psalmist being deserving of anything. Instead, this Psalm is overwhelmingly focused on God's righteousness, God's goodness, not this man's. So if he's not trying to make a deal by offering to praise him, if he's not trying to earn something from God by praising him, what then is the connection between his praise of God and God's care for his people? What is this Psalmist wanting us to see about God's care for his people given that he says, “I will praise him more and more?” IndicatorWell, what he's wanting us to see is that his praising of God is a sign. An indicator. A proof — God is his strong refuge. God is his mighty fortress. He is, in fact, God's man, loved by him, not forsaken but held tight to his chest. His enemies have a plan to take him out. His enemies conclude God has left him. God has forsaken him. The Psalmist says, You want to know how God cares for his people? Listen to their praising of him!The Psalmist's continued praising of God is the sign, the indicator, God is still faithful. The words of the Psalmist, the song on his lips, the praise that flows out from his mouth show that God is still faithful. See it as he reflects upon his past, verses 5-6, “Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you.” See how his praise follows God's faithfulness? Even more clear, Verse 17, “O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.” See how his praise confirms God's continued faithfulness?Now look to the future and consider his enemies are saying, “that God has forsaken him.” Like, “You want to know how God really cares for his people? Well, he doesn't. When they get old, when they get weary, when they fall down, it's means God has left him. He is the kind of God who forsakes his people. Just look at this man.” Well, if they were right in that conclusion, and they ended up carrying out their plan of pursuing him and seizing him, what would you expect to hear from the Psalmist then? Nothing. No more words, no more praise, the blinking indicator of God's faithfulness, the sign of God's care – snuffed out!Is that what in fact we see in this Psalm? Is that what we in fact hear? Note the connection between God's faithfulness and his peoples' praise of him. It's here, starting in verse 20, that we see it most clearly, “You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. 23 My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed. 24 And my tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long, for they have been put to shame and disappointed who sought to do me hurt.” See, you will revive me, and disappoint them. You will bring me up, and put them to shame. You will comfort me, and scorn them, and after you do so, then like the roar of thunder follows the flash of lightning so will my praise of you follow your rescue of me. You see it? The Psalmist is arguing, “Where's the evidence, where's the indicator that God cares for his people? Brother, sister, hear it in my song!And, brothers and sisters hear it in our song as well, for “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”ApplicationYou know, a few days ago we were gathered with our community group in our living room, singing. And as it does every other Wednesday night, the sound of our sound spills out into the neighborhood. This last Wednesday, it was the sound of the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” You got to wonder, what are my neighbors thinking when they hear, every other Wednesday night, 15, 20, 25 adults gathered together, singing? What do they think when these words fall upon their ear: “Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with Thee,” What do they think when they hear us sing those words? How about those who live within a few blocks of this building? Has a single Sunday morning gone by in the last two, three years that they have not heard 400, 500 voices together singing out, “Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not, as thou hast been, thou forever will be.” What do they think when they hear us sing those words?Oh God make it so that when they hear your people sing in homes, in churches, when they hear your people sing aloud of your righteousness and your faithfulness and your holiness, may it be that they can manage no other thought than, “They're right.” Their God is righteous. Their God is faithful. Their God is holy. Their God has not forsaken them, their God has not let them be put to shame, their God has brought them up from the depths, again! Their God cares for his people – I can hear it in their song.Hear the Song YourselfAnd, brothers and sisters, may the same be said of us when we come here, Sunday after Sunday,Following the shattering of a relationship we thought would never break, following the sudden and shocking loss of a job we were counting on always having, following the diagnosis we always feared, following the phone call we never wanted to receive, following the season of life we never wanted, never asked for, and don't see any way out of.May it be that when we come here, bearing those kinds of burdens, and we hear songs of God's praise begin to rise up from the mouths of those gathered round us, may it be that we too think – they're still right. Our God is still righteous. Our God is still faithful. Our God is still holy. He has not forsaken me, he will not let them be put to shame, he will pull me up from the depths, again!Yes, may we sing often of the goodness of our God. May we pray, along with the Psalmist, verse 18, “Lord do not forsake us until we proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.” Proclaim it my brothers and sisters. Sing of his righteousness for all to hear. The TableNow, part of our weekly proclamation of God's care for his people involves this table. Did you know that? Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11, quoting Jesus, says that “as often as we take of this bread, drink of this cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” We proclaim that God didn't spare even his own Son, but rather gave him up for us all, and so – how will he not also with him graciously give us all things (Romans 8:31-32). We proclaim that God promised to send his Son, and that he was faithful to do it. And that this Son, will come again. And so, if you're here today and you've trusted in Jesus, then we invite you to take and eat with us. If you've not put your trust in Jesus, we ask that you'd let the elements pass, and we pray you would, in this moment, put your trust in the God who alone is righteous, and a refuge to which you can continually come.I'll invite the pastors to come, let us serve you.

On today's podcast, Joie Harber, the co-founder of Creation to Revelation is here to chat with us about a 3-cycle approach to learning the Bible that she and her husband have developed. If you're looking for a method of diving into God's Word as a family in a way that will inspire a love and knowledge of God's Word in all of you, you've come to the right place. She has a lot of great discipleship and Bible study information for you!  Meet The Guest:Living the dream of being a wife and homeschool mother to 5 children, Joie is Co-owner with husband Brian, of their family business Creation To Revelation. Their God-driven mission is to provide parents and Bible class teachers with resources and tools that are Biblically accurate, comprehensive, flexible, and high quality for all ages, inspiring a love and knowledge of God's word.Topics Covered in Today's Episode: • The 3-Cycle Approach to Learning God's Word Together As A Family• How visuals help us learn from our earliest years.• How important it is to help our children to see the Bible as one cohesive story. Additional or Mentioned Resources: • Creation to Revelation Website• Bible study workbooks by Bob Waldron• Creation to Revelation Podcast with Joie Harber• We are offering everyone who listens to this podcast a free download of our Digital License of our 17 Time Periods flashcards with any purchase on our website to help their family jump start organizing their Bible knowledge. The code is TTDPODCAST The discount is good from now through the end of July. Click HERE to learn more.

(6/7/2022) Actress Elle Graham joined Mike and returning cohost, actress Daire McLeod on episode 145! Elle has quickly built a stellar resume and is on track for success. She stars opposite Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates in Lionsgate's feature ‘Are You, Their GOD? It's Me, Margaret' an adaptation of the iconic Judy Blume book published in 1970! Elle also stars as “Savannah” in the Disney Television's hit mystery adventure series ‘Secrets of Sulphur Springs' now in its third season. Other television credits include the hit series AMC's ‘The Walking Dead', Netflix's ‘Stranger Things', The CW's ‘The Originals', and a recurring guest star role in the DC Universe series ‘Swamp Thing'. Elle's previous film credits include ‘She Said' with Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan, ‘Captive' opposite Kate Mara, ‘MILE 22' opposite Mark Wahlberg, and ‘Trial by Fire'' starring Laura Dern. You can follow Elle Graham on Instagram @ellecharlottegraham Enjoy the Podcast!  

Angels are mentioned over 250 times in the Bible. Their God-given purpose is inseparably intertwined with God's plan for humankind. Does every person have a guardian angel? Is there such a thing as “an angel of death”? What are the divisions in the angelic kingdom? What are seraphim? What are cherubim? Explore exciting truths and deceptive misconceptions. Comparative religion website: www.thetruelight.net Ministry website: www.shreveministries.org Video channel: www.YouTube.com/mikeshreveministries All audio-podcasts are shared in a video format on our YouTube channel. Mike Shreve's other podcast Discover Your Spiritual Identity—a study on the biblical names given to God's people: https://www.charismapodcastnetwork.com/show/discoveryourspiritualidentity Mail: P.O. Box 4260, Cleveland, TN 37320 / Phone: 423-478-2843 Purchase Mike Shreve's popular book comparing over 20 religions: In Search of the True Light

Enlarge thy Tent brings us to Isaiah's Prophetic book Chapter fifty-four. Isaiah describes in Part One Hundred-sixty-nine that they are to make room to receive the blessing of the Lord. Now forgiven and reunited with Jehovah we find the phrase LORD of Hosts used. They are not forsaken or a curse. Out of captivity the blessing will be such that they must make ready. They are promised that this will no fail nor be a cause of shame. The hand of the Lord has brought them out and the blessing will overflow to their joy. For it is promised "thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel" has done this. Their God ever present. Go https://linktr.ee/warnradio more info. Enlarge thy Tent is the promise to the now #delivered #Judah to expand, make room. The description is "Enlarge the place of thy tent" and "stretch for the curtains of thine habitations", "spare not, lengthen thy cords, strengthen thy stakes." For the once captive Judah has received #promises and to receive those, they must be prepared to make more room. It is a #command, it is a #blessing, it is fulfillment to once humiliated nation that #Godsblessing will be a #massiveoverflow. This overflow will be both to the right and to the left and it will #inherit the #Gentiles. The time of confusion and judgment is over. They will not be confounded nor ashamed. The nation is commanded as "Thy Maker is thine husband." No longer a widow, the nation is in the blessing of the #LORDofhosts.   To get the Books from the Watchman Dana G Smith go to his website http://www.DanaGlennSmith.com

March 19, 2023 - Good Shepherds Jesus oversees his Church through shepherds or, maybe stated more correctly, under-shepherds who serve under Christ and in the manner of Christ. Their God-given task is to imitate the servant leadership of Jesus, to emulate Jesus as they lead his people. As such, they are our examples. They are models of holy living and holy leading. We copy them as they copy Christ. For more information on GCR, visit our website at www.gcrchurch.com or download our app.

The Rev. Dr. Brian Kachelmeier, pastor of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in San Antonio, TX, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study Exodus 40. We've arrived at the last chapter of Exodus. The Tabernacle, its furnishings, and all the accoutrements required for worship have been constructed. Now, God directs Moses to set it all up according to his divinely revealed pattern. As the chapter ends, the glory of God fills the Tabernacle, signifying that it is holy ground where he dwells among his people. The completion of this special worship place signifies a major milestone in the Israelites' journey. Their God now travels with them, and they have a place to meet him. It's the true story of God reaching down into history and, through an unlikely prophet, redeeming his chosen people from slavery. It's the story of Exodus, but it's also the story of us all. How through Christ, God has liberated us from sin, death, and the Devil. Don't miss this chapter-by-chapter study of the Book of Exodus on Thy Strong Word.

Jesus, in his kindness and compassion, repeated the miracle of feeding thousands of people. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - Turn in your Bibles to the account you just heard read, Mark 8:1-10. One of the great challenges of our Christian lives is how prone we are to forget God's goodness to us in the past, how wonderfully He has provided for us, how completely and consistently He has met our needs. We tend to forget these things. These lessons God has crafted over the years of our experiences, and yet we are prone with each new challenge in our lives to look at that circumstance as unique, somehow different than anything we've ever faced before. The one that's going to finally sink us this time, and we forget God's faithfulness over our lifetimes. In His amazing kindness, God patiently orchestrates days in which lessons are repeated and then repeated again. We have the opportunity to learn from those lessons, God's faithfulness to heal your body when you're sick or injured. God's faithfulness to give you money that you might need for an unforeseen need time and time again. God's faithfulness in feeding your empty stomach day after day. You have to admit, dear friends, He has a very good track record in that over the many years and you can testify to it. The Psalmist testifies in Psalm 103 where it says so beautifully, "Praise the Lord oh my soul, all my inmost being praise His holy name, praise the Lord oh my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. Forget not all His benefits.” That's why the feeding of a multitude is repeated in the Bible, I believe. Two separate occasions in the gospels, the four gospels, six biblical accounts in all. Two in Matthew, two in Mark, and then one each in Luke and John. Six times the same lesson's repeated for us about the greatness of Christ in feeding the empty stomachs of a multitude of people. It seems like the Lord through the Holy Spirit thought we needed to hear this. We have Jesus feeding a multitude again. I. Repeated Repetition The first point in your outline there is repeated repetition, which you would say is redundant. It's intentional. Again and again God teaches us the same lessons and this is a miracle repeated. This almost exactly parallels the earlier feeding of the 5,000 in Mark 6. There are a lot of similarities between the two accounts. It begins with Jesus's compassion. Mark 6:34 tells us that Jesus had compassion on the crowd because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Here again, this account starts with Jesus' compassion. The location is described as a deserted place in both cases, isolated, distant from a population center. The same question is raised by the disciples as to how they're going to feed such a large crowd in such a remote place. Jesus asks the disciples the same question about their resources, the exact same question, "How many loaves do you have?" In both accounts, there is the order to have the people sit down on the ground. In both accounts, Jesus takes the loaves, gives thanks, breaks the bread, and gives it to the disciples, to the people. In both accounts, there is a separate mention of the fish being dealt with as well, eaten as well. Also, in both times we're told that everyone in the crowd ate their fill. They were satisfied completely. Then both accounts narrates the broken pieces of bread and fish being picked up off the ground and collected in baskets. Both accounts give the number of the men who are fed omitting the women and children, and both finish with the crowd being dismissed and Jesus and His disciples moving on to another place along the Sea of Galilee to continue ministry. They're both the same, just a couple of chapters apart. This has led some critics, hostile critics of the Bible, to point this out as a prime example of the slapdash work done by the New Testament writers. These critics don't believe that these events actually happened, but these stories were fabricated and passed down, narrated and then woven together to make the myth of Jesus the God-man. They think we have these New Testament documents as a huge work of existing documents that were thrown together without any careful editing. The accounts of these two feedings are cited as proof of this. Mark, without much thought, just found, I guess a scrap of paper on his desk and just stuck it in here, not knowing he was really recording the same event as before. That's what these critics do. There are some key differences between these two accounts. Obviously there are details here that are different. 4,000 people fed as opposed to 5,000, seven loaves as opposed to five, a few fish as opposed to two fish, seven basketfuls gathered as opposed to twelve. On that last one, we have to note that the Greek word for basket was different in the two accounts. In the first feeding in the 5,000, the Greek word was “cofinos”, which is a smaller basket or container, like a pouch that you could probably wear on your belt, something smaller, enough food, let's say, for a single individual. In this account, the Greek word was “spuris", like a big hamper, much larger volume, two different words. If these had been copycat accounts, I think you would've just harmonized those details or they would've been exactly the same. Not at all. These two feedings actually happened and they happened in a relatively short amount of time; Jesus said so. Later in this chapter, the disciples are going to bicker between themselves about having forgotten to bring bread with them on the boat. God willing, we'll talk about that next week. Listen to Jesus' full answer. Look down at Mark 8:17-21, “Why are you still talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? Don't you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the 5,000, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ '12,' they replied. 'And when I broke the seven loaves for the 4,000, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ They answered, 'Seven.' He said to them, 'Do you still not understand?’” II. Why the Repetition? Oh, there's no doubt at all that there were two different accounts. Jesus uses that as an example and we'll talk about that next week of how they should have learned by experience. The question comes to me, as it always does in the Gospel of Mark, we look at the Holy Spirit's intention in all of this. Why the repetition? Why do we have these two feedings that are so very similar? Now, at one level, this question doesn't even need to be answered. Jesus did lots of miracles over and over and over again. There are only so many ways you can heal a crippled person or a blind person or a deaf person or a sick person. Generally Jesus touched them, maybe spoke a few words to them, healed them, and they went on their way. Basically it looked the same day after day. Scholars tell us that Jesus had about a three-year ministry and most of the days were alike, healing lots of people with a word or with a touch. Also, Jesus' teachings; we shouldn't imagine that He came up with new content every day. He taught essentially the same things, I think, day after day to the people. We have lots of different parables, lots of different sermons, but we do have some messages that are repeated for us. A very good example is what we know generally as the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. We have the Sermon on the Plain, clearly a different occasion ed different location in Luke 6. Both of them begin similarly, "Blessed are the..." Et cetera, but there're actually significant differences between them. There's some overlapping teachings that are repeated and some differences too. It must be that, day after day Jesus did a lot of the same teaching and covered the same ground. He did different aspects of His ministry multiple times, including this feeding, which He did at least twice. Let's go beyond that into a deeper issue. That is our need for repetition. We need lessons repeated. It just isn't the case that you hear it once and then you've got it for life. It isn't the case that once I make a mistake and learn from it, I never make that mistake again. Would any of you like to raise their hands and say, "That's me to a core, I never make the same mistake twice." I don't think any of us would want to say that. We need the reminders, and the disciples' continual forgetfulness represents us. They stand in our place and they represent us. How do we look? Not great. These individuals had to be reminded of things again and again. We have to go through experiences again and again to learn from them. We are dull and slow to learn like they were. We need this. The Bible makes much of the need for reminding, a repetition of doctrine. For example, the Book of Deuteronomy is the second giving of the law. God didn't say you had it once, you have it for life, but they needed the details of the law repeated right before they entered the Promised Land. "We have to go through experiences, again and again, to learn from them. We are dull and slow to learn like they were. We need this. The Bible makes much of the need for reminding, a repetition of doctrine." Jesus would warn His disciples again and again and again about His own suffering and death that was about to happen in Jerusalem and they still didn't get it. They still didn't understand. Their hearts were hardened concerning the need of Jesus to go and die. Then more in general, the New Testament writers speak about our need for reminders, our need for repetition. Philippians is a good example: Philippians 3:1, "Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you." Paul there in Philippians says, "I have to write the same things to you again and again to keep you safe from your own sin." Then in the next chapter, very famously, Philippians 4:4, "Rejoice in the Lord always." Well, Paul, you already said that in Philippians 3:1, "Again, I will say rejoice." We have in one verse repeated repetition of the same theme. Do you say, “I don't have to be told more than once to rejoice in the Lord. I know that Christ's crucifixion and resurrection is enough to make me joyful every day.” Do you have to be reminded again and again to rejoice in the Lord? Or again, Paul says earlier in that book, Philippians 3:18, "For, as I have often told you before, and now say again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ." He says, "I say these things to you guys again and again.” Peter talks about repetition also in 2nd Peter 1:12 & 13, "So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body." Peter is saying, "It's part of my job to just remind you of certain things again and again." Therefore, it's not part of my job as a preacher to come up with something new and fresh every time I get up here to preach. It's just impossible and it's not good for you either. It's going to be the same basic things that you've already heard in perhaps slightly different words. Why do we need this particular lesson repeated, this lesson on food, this lesson on God feeding our empty stomachs? I think this is vital because of some of the core flaws we have in our earthly condition. This is a central issue in our lives. Will I get enough to eat? Will I get enough to survive or not? Ecclesiastes 6:7 says, "All man's efforts are for his mouth, yet his appetite is never satisfied." Everything you do is for your stomach and it never is done. Again, after the feeding of the 5,000 in John's account the next day, remember that the huge crowd came back for another meal. They wanted more. They wanted breakfast. They're back for breakfast. Jesus said, "Do not labor for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give you." Then He goes on in John 6 to develop the whole theology, "I am the bread of heaven. I am the bread that came down from heaven. If you feed on me, you'll live forever." He's not speaking physical. He's saying, "The words I have spoken are spirit and they're life,”[ John 6]. He says, "Stop living for your stomachs. Stop living for your earthly appetites.” Then in Hebrews 12:16, we have a warning there, "Make certain that there's no one in your congregation who is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his birthright for a bowl of stew because that was what he was all about." As Paul says in that same passage, Philippians 3:19, he says, "I've often warned you that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their God is their stomach." Therefore, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount warns us in the whole passage on anxiety, "Do not worry, do not be anxious about your life, what you'll eat, about your body, what you'll wear." He says later, "So do not worry saying, 'What shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them, but seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." The overwhelming anxiety many have of having their bodily needs met must be met by faith in the future grace of God. God is going to care for me. He's going to meet my needs. With food and clothing we'll be satisfied, we'll be content and freed up so that we can seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and not be worried about our earthly bodily needs. We should learn from experience. God is faithful to His children. God is faithful to care for our needs. Psalm 37:25 the Psalmist says, "I was young and now I'm old. Yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. I have watched God be faithful to His children year after year." Christ in His kindness and compassion does this miracle twice. The Holy Spirit in His kindness and compassion has the doubled miracle recorded both in Matthew's Gospel and in Mark. In addition to the original feeding of the 5,000 in all four gospels, that's six accounts of Jesus' miraculous feeding of the empty stomachs of huge numbers of people. That's big picture. That's why the repetition. III. Jesus Speaks With Compassion Let's walk through the account again. It starts with Jesus' compassion. Look at Mark 8:1-3, "During those days, another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus has called His disciples to Him and said, 'I have compassion for these people. They have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way because some of them have come a long distance.'" Now, as we've noted before, Jesus' compassion is the most common emotional state ascribed to Him. "Jesus' compassion is the most common emotional state ascribed to Him." Again and again, we have descriptions of Jesus's compassion or descriptions of Jesus being compassionate. This one time is unique, both in Matthew and in Mark's gospel, this second feeding, Jesus speaks it about Himself here. In all the other accounts we're told Jesus had compassion on the leper or He had compassion on the crowd, something like that. Here He says it about himself, "I have compassion on these people." Now, the Greek word in our account relates to Jesus's inner organs, His intestines, His gut, His stomach, the KJV says “his bowels”, that kind of thing. That's because we often feel things down here, right? We talk about having butterflies in your stomach. Or you talk about somebody's gut reaction or a feeling in the pit of my stomach, these kind of things. We have a sense that down here is where we feel the feelings. Jesus is moved here with the compassion of suffering people. He describes himself as compassion, "I have compassion on these people." In this way, Jesus is a perfect display of Almighty God's compassion. We should never think that God the Father, the God of the Old Testament is the God of wrath and judgment and terror, the God of Sinai and Jesus is the kind and compassionate one that talks Him into being kind. The God of the Bible, the God of the Old Testament is moved with compassion again and again. For example, in Exodus 2 when God looks down on Israel in their bondage and He sees their suffering because of their task masters, and He was concerned with them. "He looked on them and was concerned about them," [Exodus 2:25]. When He invited Moses up into the glory cloud on Mount Sinai and He wants to reveal Himself to Moses in a very beautiful way, Moses says, "Now, show me your glory.” He puts Him in the cleft of the rock and then He speaks these words, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithfulness." This is the first thing that God tells Moses about Himself, "I'm a compassionate God." Even in that terrible book, maybe the worst book in the Bible, the book of Judges, that terrible cycle of sin that they go through when the Israelites are so corrupt and pagan in their worldview and in their lifestyles, no better than Sodom and Gomorrah, and God again and again sends them judgments in the form usually of Gentile invaders that come in and plunder them like the Midianites, et cetera. They cry out, and they're in grief and anguish and they put away temporarily their idols and they cry out to God. God is moved with compassion for them. It says in Judges 2:18, "Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, He was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived, for the Lord had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them.” Perhaps one of the most striking descriptions of this in the book of Judges, Judges 10:16. There the people who have been unusually corrupt, very wicked. God gave them over and said, "Just run after the gods of the Gentiles that you've been following. Let them save you." There's condition. The Jewish condition got worse and worse. Then it says in Judges 10:16, "Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord, and He, God, could bear Israel's misery no longer." It was harder on God than it was on them. He doesn't take delight in people's suffering; He takes delight in people repenting and turning away. He has compassion. We have again and again these statements of God's compassion. Psalm 103:13-14, "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him for He knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust." He knows your stomach cyclically gets empty and needs food. He made it that way. He knows how weak we are. He's compassionate. He knows what you need before you ask, or again, Isaiah 49:15 & 16, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born? Though she may forget, I will never forget you." Or again in Hosea 11:8, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?…My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.” It was compassion that caused God to send His son, His only begotten son into the world. That's why He sent Him. Jesus spoke powerfully to the compassion of God towards sinners in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:20, "While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him, and he ran to his son and threw his arms around him and kissed him." That's the compassion of Almighty God towards sinners. Therefore, Paul calls God the Father of compassion. 2nd Corinthians 1, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles." Jesus is the incarnation of God's compassion. He's moved with feeling over other people's suffering. Look at the account again, verse 1-3, "Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus has called His disciples to Him and said, 'I have compassion for these people. They have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way because some of them have come a long distance.'" We have this huge crowd from all that area. The Decapolis was a predominantly Gentile area. It seems that's where He is. Those people had never seen anything like what Jesus was doing. He was healing every disease and sickness among the people, effortlessly with a word. He was giving teachings such as they had never heard before, and they just stayed there. They just stayed there hour after hour, day after day, they didn't leave, and they were just so absorbed that they forgot their own bodily needs. Jesus knew they'd been with Him three days. They hadn't had anything to eat. Clearly that statement, “He’s on the third day,” showed that He's not feeding them every day. It was not his top priority to feed their empty stomachs. He could have done it every day, but it's not until the third day that He even addresses this physical need for them. But He says, "I have compassion on these people.” He knows their physical condition and without nourishment, and they're a long way, a long distance, maybe 10-15 miles from where they live, maybe more, if they don't get nourishment, they are going to collapse. The Greek word for collapse is that of a bow string coming loose, hanging loose on a bow. They'll just collapse to the ground if they don't get it. That's compassion. You're stepping into someone's situation, thinking about their circumstance and what do they need for this situation. That is the nature of Jesus' compassion. He affects the feeding. The feeding affected. Jesus involves his disciples. He expresses His compassion for the crowd to them. He wants them to know His concerns and He wants to teach them to imitate Him in that compassion. Like the last time, He wants them to feel the burden of their hunger of the problem. IV. The Feeding Effected Look at their response, verse 4, "His disciples answered, 'But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?'" I mean, do you ever wonder about that? Really? This is the question you're going to ask. That's exactly what they asked back in Mark 6, "Have you learned nothing?" Again, the disciples represent us. We're just like that. They hadn't learned the lesson of the loaves and they're going to prove it. God willing, next week we'll talk about it, they bicker about not having brought bread. They don't get it. They're slow to heart. They're dull. Then Jesus takes inventory of what they have. Verse 5,”How many loaves do you have?" Jesus said. "Seven," they replied. Like last time, He wants the disciples to provide what they have as a physical starter for the miracle. As I said in the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus clearly doesn't need that. He created the universe “ex nihilo”, out of nothing, by the word of His power, the universe. He doesn't need the starter kit of their bread and fish, but He wants to use it. I think that's instructive for us. We are drawn into the circumstance and we are called on to give what God's already provided to us to the situation. Then Jesus works out the logistics. Verse 6, "He told the crowd to sit down on the ground." Last time in Mark 6, the account goes into more detail than that. He had the people sit down in groups on the green grass, and they sat down in groups of hundreds and 50s. This was, as I said last time, perhaps for crowd control and organizational logistics. He doesn't go into any of those details this time in Mark 8, "Then He gives thanks to God and distributes the result." Verse 6, "When He had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, He broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before the people, and they did so." The thanksgiving is essential, looking up to heaven, just like He did when he healed the deaf-mute. Looks up to heaven. Everything comes from God. Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of the heavenly lights. "What do you have," Paul says, "that you did not receive?" Everything's coming as a gift from God. He just looks up and gives thanks for the loaves. Then somewhere in the middle of verse 6 comes the miracle. Do you see it? Look down at the text. See if you can see the miracle somewhere there in the middle. He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people, and they did so. The miracles in there somewhere, I don't know where it is, but somewhere in there, barley loaves get multiplied. As I said last time, barley that never grew and was never harvested, never ground, and never cooked and never served, none of that. It just appeared ready to eat. It's a miracle. Then the fish comes along, the fish too. Verse 7, "They had a few small fish as well. He gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them." Again, the fish are mentioned as a second act, and again, the fish flesh that Jesus created never grew or swam in the water. They were never caught by hook or by net. They were never sectioned and grilled or boiled or any of the things that people who like fish do to prepare it. As one commentator said, "They were created dead." It's kind of an interesting mind-blowing statement. The fish were created dead but not spoiled, right? Ready to eat. Then verse 8, "The people ate and were satisfied." The word could be translated they gorged themselves. They ate until they couldn't eat another bite like the fatted calf. They are full. It's abundance. Then verse 8, the pieces are collected as evidence, "Afterwards, the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over." Now, again, the word for basket here, the Greek word is like a hamper. Even though there's fewer numbers of baskets, there probably might have been more leftovers this time. Then we have the count in verse 9-10, "About 4,000 men were present. Having sent them away, He got into the boat with His disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.” We have 4,000 men, again, the women and children omitted in Matthew's account of the feeding, the 5,000 it says, "Plus women and children." So we have to imagine that's the same in every case. You have 4,000 men, plus women and children, a huge crowd. I don't know how many, 15,000 more, no idea, but a big, big crowd. This is an amazing miracle. 4,000 men, smaller crowd this time fed with more loaves. In my geeky math, it's like, "Oh, then this was an easier miracle then. Fewer people, more loaves." Don't think that way. It's a miracle. This is how many people there were to feed, and this is what there was to feed them, and He used it and fed them. Dalmanutha is another name for Magadan. It's the region between Magdala and Capernaum. Magdala is the place where Mary Magdalene came from. This is effectively Jesus's returned to Galilee now into ministry. The cross is now less than a year away. Jesus would finish His ministry there in the northern area of Galilee, and He would begin making his way down to Judea and to Jerusalem where He would die for the sins of the world. V. Lessons From this Second Feeding What lessons can we take from this second feeding? I would say not many different lessons than the lessons from the first feeding. Why should they be different? It's the same lessons. First and foremost, what does this miracle say about Jesus? It's simple. Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of the world. Trust in Him for the salvation of your souls. That's what this miracle says. It's the same as all the miracles. “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of His disciples which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and believing may have life in His name.” We should worship Jesus and trust in Him and believe in Him. Jesus created all things out of nothing. Through Him all things were made. Without Him nothing was made that has been made. Jesus is God and created all things. We should stand in awe and worship Jesus as they did at the end of Mark 7 when Jesus healed that deaf-mute and they said of Jesus, “He has done all things well.” Beyond that, in the first version of this particular miracle, Jesus links their need for physical nourishment to His death on the cross, as I said in “the bread of life teaching.” Listen to John 6:47-51, "I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Jesus is calling all sinners to come to Him and feed on Him for life. That's not just once. Yes, it's instantaneous. When you trust in Jesus, the moment you trust in Him, you'll be born again and all your sins will be forgiven, past, present, and future. But that just begins a lifetime of feeding on Jesus. Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. All of those words ultimately lead to Jesus as the bread from heaven. Feed on Him. "When you trust in Jesus, the moment you trust in Him, you'll be born again and all your sins will be forgiven, past, present, and future. But that just begins a lifetime of feeding on Jesus." Next, I would say develop a heart of compassion like Jesus. We all tend to play the role of the priest in Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We see hurting people in the world and just walk by them. Don't be like that. Say, "God, I confess that I don't care about suffering like I should. I don't care about temporal suffering like I should. People that are hungry, people that are hurting, people that are in disaster-stricken areas, people that have poverty issues even in our own city, I don't care like I should. I must confess that to you. Would you work in me a heart of compassion to meet people's physical needs?" We know that their spiritual needs are far greater because eternal suffering is far weightier than temporal suffering, no matter how bad it is. Eternal suffering is what awaits the damned. We are told in scripture that many are traveling the road to damnation, and they're around us every day. They're heading toward eternal torment, and we should care. We should have compassion on them because they're like sheep without a shepherd. We should speak the words of life to them. We're called on to meet physical needs. Jesus will say to the sheep, "I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick, and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me." That's physical ministry. We're called on to do that [ John 6], "as a vehicle to spiritual ministry." That's our desire. Finally, Jesus prepares His disciples for world mission. This is a Gentile area. Jesus began, as we talked about the Syrophoenician woman's demon-possessed daughter a couple times ago, and Jesus said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, but not ultimately to the lost sheep of Israel." Jesus will send His disciples out after His death on the cross and His resurrection to the ends of the earth. Jesus cares about Gentiles. These are probably Gentiles. He wants to feed them and care for them forever. In Mark 16, He says, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." Again, in Luke 24, “This is what is written, ‘That Christ will suffer and rise from the dead, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.’" Today is a time for us raising money for missions. We should at least, be sacrificial about giving money. It's not a hard thing for us. We have been abundantly blessed. I've been here 25 years, raising money for Lottie Moon as part of what we do every December. I can't remember any more than one time that we didn't meet our Lottie Moon goal. It's grown year by year. Not every year has it grown, but it's at $150,000 now. We can definitely meet that and more. This is my last year as a trustee of the International Mission Board. I can tell you all of that money goes to keeping missionaries on the field, so they don't have to come back and raise support. We have, I think a total of nine units. There were four that were sent out during the COVID year. We have nine units on the field, I think, by my latest count that consider us their sending church.Our giving keeps them on the field. Let's be faithful and give. Now, the time has come to prepare for the Lord's Supper. I didn't orchestrate that we would be talking about eating bread on the day we do the Lord's Supper. The Lord, for some reason, wants to link the feedings to this. I think the central lesson of my sermon today is repetition. Jesus said, "As often as we observe the Lord's Supper, we consider His death until He comes." This is a repetition ordinance for us. I'm going to close this sermon time in prayer, and then we'll have the Lord's Supper. We invite anyone who has already trusted in Christ and testified to that by water baptism, and partake. If not, we ask that you refrain. As you're doing, as you're waiting, ask the Lord to show you any sin in your life that He wants you to deal with it then partake with a commitment in your heart that you want to live a holy life. Close with me now in prayer. Father, thank you for the time we've had to hear from you, hear from your written word, and we thank you for the power of the Word of God. We thank you also for the power of the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Now as we turn our attention to this ordinance, help us, oh Lord, to learn its lessons and feed on it spiritually, even as we eat physical bread and drink the physical juice that we'd realize the spiritual lessons beyond it of the cross in the resurrection. In Jesus' name, amen.

Your first clue that something unusual ahead is a sign on the Interstate announcing what they call "the biggest cross in the Western Hemisphere." And, sure enough, as you approach that spot in Texas, you begin to see this huge white cross on the horizon. Actually, it doesn't look all that large from a distance. But then, as you drive that direction, it looks more and more impressive. Until you are coming up on it; (or especially when you do what I did), you stop and you stand at the foot of it - that cross is huge! I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why Your God Is Too Small." When you're far away, that cross is nice but it's not particularly impressive. But the closer you get, the bigger it looks. Sadly, there are people, even good church people, who go through their life never realizing the magnitude of the God they belong to. He's nice, but they never really see how big He is because they never get close enough to Him to experience His amazingness. Their God is too small, so their life is too small. The Apostle Paul didn't want the believers that he cared about to miss the awesomeness of the God they had. In Ephesians 3, beginning with verse 17, our word for today from the Word of God, he says, "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power... to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (In other words, so you can experience everything God's got.) Then Paul, who has paid the price to see God up close, describes what He's like when you see Him up close. He describes God as "Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us." You don't get to see God that big by just taking your place at church every time the doors are open. You never see the amazingness of your Lord by just reading the Bible when you get around to it; by praying general, predictable prayers; by obeying God's Holy Spirit only when it's not too hard or not too risky. It is possible to be around Almighty God for your whole life and just keep a safe distance. You've determined how big God's piece of your life is going to be and that's that. But you'll never know what your life could have been if you would dare to step on the spiritual accelerator and experience God up close. When you do that, nothing else in your life ever needs to be overwhelming to you again except the overwhelming size of your God. If you want to experience a big, big God, make a daily time with Him in His Word the non-negotiable of your personal schedule. You can't specialize in your Lord unless you specialize in His Word. Throw open the doors of your heart and tell Him, "Lord, I've played it safe long enough. I'm ready to go for everything you've got by surrendering everything I've got." Tell Him you're ready to follow Him out of your comfort zone; beyond where it feels safe. We make serious mistakes because we forget, or we don't know, how very big our God is. We overestimate earth-stuff and underestimate our Almighty God. A safe distance turns out it really isn't safe at all. Don't just believe in Him, pursue Him with everything you've got. The closer you get, the more amazing He looks.

Youth is a time of life when all manner of ideals are being formed in a person: reasoning skills, social skills, character qualities, work ethic, and academics. And yet, greater than these is the formation of the image our kids will have of God. Their God image is the sum total of their beliefs and feelings about who God is. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter speaks to the importance of shepherding this important formation in our children. Why God Image is important? It is the lens through which you view life. Where does God Image come from? Experience Teaching Shepherding God Image in our kids: Tap their imagination. Share testimony. Model it in relationship. Be patient with their questions. Point them to the Scripture. Helps: The Jesus Story Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones Children's Authors: by Max Lucado The Ology by Marty Machowski Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis Tiny Theologians Catechisms

“Bloom where you are planted.” It's not found in the Bible but it certainly is a biblical attitude. There's a passage in Jeremiah that is a great example of what it means to “bloom where you are planted.” You'll find it in Jeremiah 29, and it is a letter that the prophet wrote to the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Get the picture? They are God's chosen people, now refugees who have been forcibly relocated in Babylon. And here is what Jeremiah wrote to them: This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:4-7). Jeremiah didn't say that they should fight to get back to Jerusalem. He didn't say they should just get by until God provided a way of escape. He said to make the very best of the situation they were in. This was a foreign culture; there was no temple in Babylon; it was a pagan culture, worshipping many false gods. And yet this is where they found themselves—this is where they were planted. Notice that God told them that he had carried them into exile, not Nebuchadnezzar. This must have been an amazing statement to them. Their God had brought them to this terrible land? Why would God plant them there? It was hostile to their way of life, to their beliefs, to their God. And yet God made it clear that they were to bloom right there in Babylon where they were planted. I am reminded that we who are Christ-followers are called foreigners and exiles in this world. Peter writes that we should “live out our time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” We are planted here, and while we're here we should bloom for Jesus. The exiles in Babylon were to build houses, plant gardens marry, increase in number and seek peace and prosperity for the city of Babylon. They were to bloom in Babylon, of all places. Are you blooming where you are now planted, or have you allowed the circumstances of life to destroy your will to bloom, to steal your joy? I want to encourage you to know that God can cause you to bloom in ways you've never imagined, if you will be willing to bloom right where you are planted.

Recording on June 26th. Two days after SCOTUS made the choice that Women and people with wombs don't have autonomy over their own bodies. We here at Bonfire Babble do not recognize this unjust law. We recognize that living breathing Human Being has the right to make their own choices. We do not recognize that while they claim pro-life, they are playing "Their God" by choosing a possible life, over a life that is already here and has life and a claim for their life on this plane. We  talked politics for about 25 minutes after the two reviews - and then I cut it - we will do that another time BECAUSE We are reviewing some books! From Llewellyn. These are some good ones Y'all! Corey Reviews: The Witches' Sabbath by Kelden & Jason Mankey Detta Reviews: Hex Twisting by Diana Rajchel  THIS is the book you need if you are angry right now and want some solid actions to take while protecting yourself. Land Acknowledgment Bonfire Babble Podcast recognizes that we live and record on the traditional lands of the Duwamish Tribe. We Honor Their past and present stewardship of the beautiful land and the life-giving energy they provide. To learn more about the Duwamish People and Real Rent visit their site!  How To Reach Us Join us for fun posts, extra materials, spells, and lots of fun stuff at  Bonfire Babble Witches on Patreon  You can find us on Instagram Facebook at Bonfire Babble Podcast Bonfire Babble TikTok Cawnawyn Mor Our awesome in-house astrologer! You can catch her once a month on the podcast! But always on Instagram…provided there isn't an outage…. If you like us – and you are on Apple Podcast – we would love it if you gave us a 5-star rating and if you have time – a short review! Thanks so much for listening! We are no longer on Privatized Feathers. Chirp, Chirp.  

Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. (Psalm 45:6)   Today's psalm picks up almost directly on the heels of yesterday's.  A question looms in psalm 44 about the suffering God's people have faced.  They've done nothing wrong, and yet have been crushed.  Their God and King has decreed victory, and yet they have faced defeat.  As Pastor Michael noted yesterday, no answers are given to the concerns stirred up in psalm 44, just a prayer for God to rise up and rescue his people. Psalm 45 would seem in some ways to be that answer to psalm 44's prayer of suffering, though.  It is a psalm to mark the wedding day of the King.  The King's presence, power, and purity of character is revealed in all its royal majesty.  “Gird your sword on your side, you mighty one; clothe yourself with splendor and majesty.  In your majesty ride forth victoriously in the cause of truth, humility and justice; let your right hand achieve awesome deeds” (45:3-4).  It all builds up to our verse today, a verse quoted in the book of Hebrews as pertaining to Christ: “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.”  The King enters and rises up in the fullness of his power and majesty, vested with all the finest garments and armaments to be every ounce the God and King we would ever hope for him to be.  As the psalm continues, the bride is also described in all of her glory and beauty.  The song is joyful, anticipatory, taking a long look at all the descendants to follow from the union of these two pure and noble persons.  Bride and bridegroom, king and princess soon-to-be-queen: the consummation of the very best ideals of all that is good and right in the world (if you need a visual: perhaps Aragorn's Coronation and reunion with Arwen in the white city of Gondor from the final scene of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, would be appropriate). This psalm rhymes with the Song of Songs, and certainly looks ahead to all the beautifully cryptic language of our Christian hope: that day when Christ, the coming King will be united with his bride, the Church in that great heavenly wedding feast at the end of the age.  It is a hope and a moment that encapsulates all the very best that we can ever hope for or dream: every ideal of justice and righteousness come in perfection, every notion of healing and wholeness made complete, every longing for fullness, given in abundance in ways that leave our cups overflowing.  Psalm 45's answer to psalm 44's suffering then, is to remember and to believe in the hope that is ours in our King.  Of course, in Christ, we have a much fuller picture to remember and believe as we await our Christian hope in our present times of suffering.  It is no longer a merely human king that we look to, but Christ: one who is both human and divine—a king who perfectly embodies the truth, humility, and justice that we seek and who is mighty to save his people.  This is our king who has been enthroned and our bridegroom who will come again to draw us all into the splendor of his royal reign when we take our seats and celebrate together with him at the wedding feast of the Lamb. Dear friends: in our present sufferings and sorrows, may we never lose sight of the hope of joy, reunion, and peace to come in the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ.  

Exodus 32 NLT read aloud by Simon MacFarlane. 1 When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Come on,” they said, “make us some gods who can lead us. We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.” 2 So Aaron said, “Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” 5 Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!” 6 The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry. 7 The Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.'” 9 Then the Lord said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. 10 Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.” 11 But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. “O Lord!” he said. “Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? 12 Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth'? Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people! 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.'” 14 So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people. 15 Then Moses turned and went down the mountain. He held in his hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 These tablets were God's work; the words on them were written by God himself. 17 When Joshua heard the boisterous noise of the people shouting below them, he exclaimed to Moses, “It sounds like war in the camp!” 18 But Moses replied, “No, it's not a shout of victory nor the wailing of defeat. I hear the sound of a celebration.” 19 When they came near the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing, and he burned with anger. He threw the stone tablets to the ground, smashing them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf they had made and burned it. Then he ground it into powder, threw it into the water, and forced the people to drink it. [...]

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John's Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today's edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. You and I live in an age and in a time when bodies of water are admired and enjoyed. Very rarely are they feared or seen as uncrossable boundaries. Of course, this does not apply for those of us who live in the Grand Haven area and have tried to cross the bridge from the north, with all that construction traffic. At times this has made the Grand River seem like an uncrossable boundary.This week, in the last Christian Mythbusters before we begin Holy Week, I'd like to talk about things that seem impossible and how God is often inviting us to see new ways forward.  In the Hebrew Bible reading our church read this past Sunday, the prophet Isaiah wrote, “Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”For the Israelite people, when they hear a prophet remind them that their God is a God who makes a way in the seas and a path in the mighty waters, they know from a very visceral place what that means. Their minds go back, back to the stories their ancestors had told them about when the Hebrew people fled slavery in Egypt and arrived at the beaches of the Red Sea. There was no way to turn, no other path of escape from Egypt, and the armies of Pharaoh were advancing rapidly. But then the power of God pushed to the waters aside and made a pathway through the sea so that the children of Israel could walk to their freedom on dry land. They remembered as well, the stories how, decades later, when the descendants of those escaped slaves arrived at the Jordan River, on the eastern boundary of the Promised Land, their priests carried the Ark of the Covenant into the water and the waters parted once more, creating a pathway into the land of promise, the land of God's long-awaited blessing for God's people. The prophet speaking in the 43rd chapter of Isaiah is trying to invoke those powerful memories for God's people. For decades they have lived in exile, with no sense of how they could ever break free of Babylonian imperial power and return to the land God had given their ancestors so long ago. They were afraid, afraid that their sin, their failure to be the just society God had called them to be, that all of this had forever broken the covenant. But Isaiah is trying to remind them in this reading that every time it seems like the end for God's people, God has always made a way. Their God is the God who can make a path in the Red Sea, who can turn the waves of the sea into a chariot and horse to protect God's people.Isaiah is telling the exiles that the God who had made paths through uncrossable water was going to bring them home, it was just that God was bringing them home by a new and different way. So, they needed to remember those past memories of God's salvation, but also needed to let go of them just a bit so they would be able to see the new liberation God was bringing about in their own time. This time they wouldn't be coming home through water. Instead, God was going to sustain them through the middle-easter desert. God was going to create a new path, a new way home.I wonder, at the end of Lent, with Holy Week and Easter almost here… I wonder what new things God is trying to do in your life, in our church, in the world. The prophet is right, if you only ever look for God where you have found God in the past, you will miss the new things, the new salvation God wants to bring you. And sometimes, like those ancient exiles, you need to pull your eyes from the place where God has always saved you and look instead to what might seem like a desert. Because it could be that your salvation now lies in an entirely different direction. Know this, beloved child of God, throughout all of the paths behind you, all of the things that shaped you—for good or for ill—God's hand has been at work, redeeming that which was wrong and never should have happened and giving strength to that which was good. So wherever you find yourself at this end of Lent, don't give up. Remember the past, but turn into the new thing God is bringing about in your life. Let it be OK that you don't have it all figured out, that you don't know the answers, that you still struggle with sin and doubt. Don't let that weigh you down. Because the goodness God has for you is there, just ahead in the distance, if you can but make room in your life to accept and receive it. Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today. 

Reading I Gn 15:5-12, 17-18 The Lord God took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.” Abram put his faith in the LORD, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness. He then said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.” “O Lord GOD,” he asked, “how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He answered him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Abram brought him all these, split them in two, and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not cut up. Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram stayed with them. As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him. When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, which passed between those pieces. It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.”Reading II Phil 3:17—4:1 Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us. For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the Lord.Gospel Lk 9:28b-36 Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen.

In this episode, you'll hear: What Rachel & Seth did to prevent drifting apart How important it is to work on yourself individually and as a couple The importance of prioritizing your marriage BIO: Seth and Rachel Dunne are both certified stepfamily coaches with the Stepfamily Foundation and run a Blended family workshop with a local therapy group in Fairhope, AL. Seth also owns a commercial construction company and Rachel is a full-time graduate student and counselor-in-training. They have been married going on eight years now and have three kids, including two "ours babies." Their God-given purpose is helping others find peace and purpose in the chaos of blended family life. Instagram: @spiritualstepmom website: www.spiritualstepmom.com GET CONNECTED: www.blendedandflourishing.org www.joinwinell.com (Stepmom Community)

“Bloom where you are planted.” It's not found in the Bible but it certainly is a biblical attitude. There's a passage in Jeremiah that is a great example of what it means to “bloom where you are planted.” You'll find it in Jeremiah 29, and it is a letter that the prophet wrote to the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Get the picture? They are God's chosen people, now refugees who have been forcibly relocated in Babylon. And here is what Jeremiah wrote to them: “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper'” (Jeremiah 29:4-7).  Jeremiah didn't say that they should fight to get back to Jerusalem. He didn't say they should just get by until God provided a way of escape. He said to make the very best of the situation they were in. This was a foreign culture; there was no temple in Babylon; it was a pagan culture, worshipping many false gods. And yet this is where they found themselves—this is where they were planted. Notice that God told them that he had carried them into exile, not Nebuchadnezzar. This must have been an amazing statement to them. Their God had brought them to this terrible land? Why would God plant them there? It was hostile to their way of life, to their beliefs, to their God. And yet God made it clear that they were to bloom right there in Babylon where they were planted. I am reminded that we who are Christ-followers are called foreigners and exiles in this world. Peter writes that we should “live out our time as foreigners here in reverent fear” (1 Peter 1:17b). We are planted here, and while we're here we should bloom for Jesus. The exiles in Babylon were to build houses, plant gardens, marry, increase in number and seek peace and prosperity for the city of Babylon. They were to bloom in Babylon, of all places. Are you blooming where you are now planted, or have you allowed the circumstances of life to destroy your will to bloom, to steal your joy? I want to encourage you to know that God can cause you to bloom in ways you've never imagined, if you will be willing to bloom right where you are planted.

Called kkk. Via: Supreme courts. UC feds. Anti-terror dread. Judges. DA's. CIA. FBI. Any PD. Really. Soldiers of course

Savitri claims the living Satyavan for their work together on earth, their sacred charge. Their God-given task is to bring God's Light and Bliss and Love to earth for mankind. She tells Death that within herself she has already triumphed over his darkness. She reveals the roles that she and Satyavan will play by saying; “I. the woman am the force of God, He the Eternal's delegate soul in Man”. Death challenges Savitri to reveal her strength and to prove her freedom from his laws.

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? This is not to say that the unrighteous have no inheritance at all brothers and sisters, GOD will reward every man according to their works. The inheritance for the unrighteous is the Lake of Eternal Fire. We don't want that. We don't want to feel that. We don't want you to feel that, that's why we pray the LORD gives us an understanding and humble heart to submit to all HIS ways for our lives. Thank you for listening. Do not forget to check out the Hebrew Herald, Awaken Watchman, and the GODhead Expansion for your continual edification in JESUS name. You can also click here for The Husband, The Wife, and Their GOD - the book mentioned in the lesson --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thejewandi/support

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. Rejoicing is celebrating, being happy. We know how to rejoice. We rejoice when good things happen to us. We rejoice when we get some unexpected money, when we get a good deal, when it's time to have fun with friends. Nobody has to tell us to rejoice. The circumstances prompt us to rejoice. We might not even be able to help it. There are two modifiers, though, to Paul's command to rejoice. We are to rejoice in the Lord. That's the one modifier. The other modifier is that we are to rejoice always. What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? We know how to rejoice in good circumstances. How do we rejoice in the Lord? This can only be done through faith. There is no way for anyone to know the Lord God except if he reveals himself to them. Only those who believe in what he has revealed of himself can ever rejoice in him. What has God revealed about himself? He is your God. You are his people. In the whole Bible this is always what he has to say, no matter who he is dealing with, so long as they are his chosen ones. He says the same thing to all of them: I am your God. You are my people. Stay close to me. I am your rock and your castle. For you I strive and wrestle. I am yours and you are mine and where I am you may remain. The foe shall not divide us. Whereas the circumstances are what make us rejoice otherwise, what makes us rejoice in the Lord is what he has revealed of himself to us. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. His mercy endures forever. Just as you might rejoice that you can put some new-found money into your pocket, so you can rejoice that God is yours and you are God's. This good relationship is something to rejoice about. The other modifier is that we should rejoice always in the Lord. Nobody's in the habit of rejoicing always. Nobody celebrates always. The party has to come to an end sometime. The circumstances that cause us to rejoice either get taken for granted or go away. We do not rejoice always. And Paul is not calling upon us to rejoice always in the normal way we use that word. We are to rejoice always in the Lord. This means that our rejoicing is probably going to look a little different than the rejoicing and celebrating that we might see or experience with Christmas presents, for example. Sometimes people get the idea that the Christian life is supposed to be uninterrupted happiness, never-failing victory, a charmed life. This is not what we see, though, when we examine the people who have believed in God before us in the Bible. We do not see this even with Jesus. He did not always skip around with a smile on his face. He didn't look this way when he was being whipped or crucified. When he was looking ahead to the suffering that was coming upon him, he prayed that the cup should pass from him. And yet, we must say that Jesus rejoiced in the Lord always. Rejoicing in the Lord does not have to match up with certain looks on one's face or even certain feelings or emotions. Rejoicing in the Lord is inextricably tied up with faith in him. To believe in him is to trust in his salvation. No matter what might come our way, no matter which cross God might lay upon us, we can rejoice in our salvation. We can rejoice always, because salvation is his business and not ours. Since it is his business, and not ours, we can rest assured that it will never fail. Consider Paul who penned these words. Earlier in the letter he says that he is writing while he is shackled with chains. He is in prison for preaching the Gospel. He is on his way to Rome where he will be tried and falsely found guilty. Since he was a Roman citizen it is thought that he was executed by having his head chopped off instead of being crucified. Being crucified was considered to be too shameful of a punishment for Roman citizens. Crucifixion was reserved for slaves and non-citizens. In the midst of all of this perhaps Paul's rejoicing may have occasionally faltered, for he was flesh and blood like any one of us. But in the main, there's no reason to think otherwise than that he continued to rejoice in the Lord always. This doesn't necessarily mean that he was grinning or skipping while he was being led to the executioner. People think rejoicing has to mean a certain look or a certain visible emotion. But that's a rather superficial way of thinking. Paul believed in the Lord his God and rejoiced. Would he have rather had his head on a pillow rather than on the chopping block? Perhaps. But he took what the Lord gave him, trusting in his steadfast mercy. Apply this also to yourself. Unless Christ comes back first, one day you are going to be dying. The circumstances will probably be such where you definitely do not feel like rejoicing in the normal way that this word is used and understood. But you are not a slave to your circumstances, where the circumstances dictate everything that's going on with you. You have a relationship with the Lord. It is my great wish for you that you are blessed to have someone with you at that time to help you die well. I hope that you have someone who knows God's revelation of himself to us. Knowing that revelation, that person can tell you about the Lord God. Knowing God's revelation, you can rejoice in the Lord while you are dying. There's nothing magical that has to happen. There's nothing that has to be charged with the right emotions, or perfectly persuasive. All that's necessary is to hear what God says about himself and about you. What God has said is that he is yours, and you are his. You can stay with him. The foe can't divide you. Just as God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision, so God has given us the sign of baptism. God says so often in the Old Testament that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the believing descendants of Israel always rejoiced to hear that. The Lord was their God. Their God was for them, no matter what circumstances they happened to be in. You are a Christian. You have been given the name of Christ. You are baptized into him. You have eaten his body and drank his blood. The Lord God has revealed himself to you thoroughly. What he reveals about himself is that he forgives you and graciously receives you. No matter what happens to you, you cannot be separated from this God, because he has joined himself to you. Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.” He really means it. Rejoice in the Lord always. Death can be really hard. It can be really painful. But in the midst of this sorrow and sadness you can look to your God's salvation of you like it's a north star. It is a true guide. It will not lead you astray. It's the only true guide. It's not uncommon the hear people say that they hope that they die in their sleep or that they will die very suddenly. There's nothing wrong, per se, about dying in your sleep or very suddenly, but I think it's overrated. This kind of talk makes people hope for something that doesn't happen all that often. Plus it makes people afraid to die in a slower way. That's not good. We're already screwed up enough as it is when it comes to our feeble attempts to cope with dying and death. We don't need to have Christians fear it on top of all that. A good death is one where a person is given the opportunity to rejoice in the Lord by hearing his promises, even while their body is shutting down. A good death is one where the person who is dying is given the opportunity to believe in Jesus's victory over death, even while they are experiencing the unpleasant side effects that go along with death. The person who dies with trust in Christ the crucified dies well, no matter what the circumstances of that death might be. Helping your friends and your loved ones to die well does not take a lot of smarts. You don't have to be a gifted speaker. The main thing that it requires is courage. To help that courage along it is also very helpful to be well catechized, to know God's revelation. If a person does not feel like they know who God is and what he has revealed, they probably won't have the confidence to speak about him—especially in such a fraught and stressful situation. Regardless, the main thing that is needed is courage. I have become convinced that there are powers and principalities that shut us Christians down from talking to one another about God and what God has revealed. We are comfortable talking about the weather, about sports, about what-have-you, but if someone starts to talk about God we get very nervous. It's as though this is something that is strictly set apart. Only the pastor can speak that way. This is false, false, false. By your baptism you have been given the keys to the kingdom of God. You have been given all that Christ has. There is nothing that a pastor has that you don't already have by virtue of your baptism. The only difference is that God has given me the job of doing this full time. The Law or the Gospel that you might speak is no less effective or powerful than the Law or the Gospel that I might speak. The Sacrament that you might administer, an emergency baptism, for example, is no different from the Sacrament that I would administer. All of this is to say that you are fully equipped to tell your loved ones about the God who has revealed himself to us in Christ the crucified and risen. You may urge your loved ones to rejoice in the Lord always, just as I've urged you in this sermon. The message that makes all the difference is the one that says God has chosen you. This is what we are to believe in. I can authoritatively declare that God has chosen you because he has baptized you. You are hearing his word as it is being spoken right now. This Word of God says that he is yours and you are his. Where he is, you may remain. The foe shall not divide you. How can we not rejoice (even if it be quietly and inwardly) when we hear that we have such a great and powerful friend as God himself? If there were any circumstances over which we  could rejoice, it certainly has to be this. The mercy of God is beyond our comprehension. His power knows no bounds. He loves you and receives you, even though you are a sinner. There is peace between God and you because of the sacrifice of Jesus.

Eric and his wife run their own non-profit, Two Eight Ministries. They are highly active in the recovery movement. Their God given gifts and talents help them reach strugglers in a unique way. Their commitment to the effort is extremely solid. Eric will share their experiences with us. Two Eight Ministries is one more option. It's one that works. Check out https://www.ericjillian.com/ for more music.

When English colonizers landed in New England in 1630, they constructed a godly commonwealth according to precepts gleaned from Scripture. For these 'Puritan' Christians, religion both provided the center and defined the margins of existence. While some Puritans were called to exercise power as magistrates and ministers, and many more as husbands and fathers, women were universally called to subject themselves to the authority of others. Their God was a God of order, and out of their religious convictions and experiences Puritan leaders found a divine mandate for a firm, clear hierarchy. Yet not all lives were overwhelmed; other religious voices made themselves heard, and inspired voices that defied that hierarchy. Gifted with an extraordinary mind, an intense spiritual passion, and an awesome charisma, Anne Hutchinson arrived in Massachusetts in 1634 and established herself as a leader of women. She held private religious meetings in her home and later began to deliver her own sermons. She inspired a large number of disciples who challenged the colony's political, social, and ideological foundations, and scarcely three years after her arrival, Hutchinson was recognized as the primary disrupter of consensus and order--she was then banished as a heretic. Anne Hutchinson, deeply centered in her spirituality, heard in the word of God an imperative to ignore and move beyond the socially prescribed boundaries placed around women. The Passion of Anne Hutchinson: An Extraordinary Woman, the Puritan Patriarchs, and the World They Made and Lost (Oxford UP, 2021) examines issues of gender, patriarchal order, and empowerment in Puritan society through the story of a woman who sought to preach, inspire, and disrupt. Hannah Smith is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She can be reached at smit9201@umn.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Russian connection to Sanatana Dharma is complex,intriguing,interesting and merits detailed study. This is because there is evidence, I have written in detail abiut each of them, Vedas ,specifically the Rig Veda was composed in the Arctic, Indra's City Amravathi is near Baikal,Russia, Indra's Vaikanasa Theertha is Lake Baikal, Rig Vedic  Swasthik Mandala city is fiund in Russia, Archaim,Russia contains Havan/Homa Kund, Sage Yagnyavalkya lived in Russia, Russia was called Sthree Varsha,Kingdom of Women, Lord Krishna's son Pradhyumna built the Russian port city of Port Baijn/Barzhyn' Siberians worship Ayur Devatas, Russian language is very much closer and many terms in Russians are pure Sanskrit, Rivers mentioned in the Vedas are found in Russia, Rama's stepmother,Kaikeyi was birn in Russia, There is Narada mountain in Russia. Arjuna went on a Pilgrimage to Russia.. Russians have their Vedas,Perun Santees. They are nine in number. They seem to have been written in Gold( while Indian Vedas were transferred orally). Russians beileve that a portion of it was given to Dravidas,people of South India,whise method of worship was different. These Perun Santees date back to 600,000 years. The portion given to India dates back to 40,000 years. The similarities. Perun Santees believe in one Reality. There are expressed Gods out of this Reality. The sign of Reality is Swasthika. Their God of Thunder and Lightening ,Perun resembles Indra with his weapons. ‘In the classification scheme of Georges Dumézil, Perun was the god of the second function (physical and military power), a god of war, and as such, he was armed with several fantastic weapons. Perun's lightning bolts were believed to be stones and stone arrows. According to folk beliefs, fulgurites, belemnites, and sometimes even the remains of prehistoric stone tools found in the ground are remains of these weapons. Various Slavic countries also call these deposits “Perun's stones”, “thunderbolt stones”, “thunderbolt wedges” and “Perun's arrow”; other unrelated names for these include “devil's finger”, “God's finger”, and “Mother of God finger”, and in Lithuania, “Perkun's finger”  These thunderbolt stones were sometimes said to be transferred back to the sky by the wind after being under earth for a period of seven years. The weapons of Perun protected against bad luck, evil ,magic,disease,and – naturally enough – lightning itself.https://ramanisblog.in/2017/04/25/vedas-nine-perun-santees-russia-gave-four-to-india/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ramanispodcast/message

Introduction Do Not Fear the Virus These are certainly extraordinary times, we know that this virus is affecting life all over the world, as I just prayed. We know that cruise ships have been quarantined, people have had a hard time getting back into their countries as they've been traveling internationally. We know the stock market lost roughly 20% of its value, and we know that specifically to us, worship services just like this one are canceled all over the world, across the country and across the world. These are extraordinary times. Just checked a website a few moments ago. The world count is over 162,000, the world death count over 6,000. But beyond that, there's a terrible fear of the unknown. And it's remarkable as we're moving through the Book of James, and we see the providence of God as last week we had the opportunity to study James 4:13-17, and we're reminded that we don't know what will happen tomorrow as Andy just mentioned a second ago, our life is a mist, it's a vapor. Instead we ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” And we need sometimes these reminders that everything we see around us is temporary. This physical world is temporary, but the next world is not temporary. We need to be reminded of that because the five cents world in which we live presses in on us every day, and it's hard to live by faith. We see our physical needs that press in on us, our pains, our aches, different things come in, and we're mindful of the fact that this world shouts and clamors for our attention. And sometimes we need to be reminded that this world is temporary but our souls are eternal. And if you're watching this livestream today and you know that you're not yet born again I would urge you to consider what Jesus said, "What would it profit someone if he should gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" Or what would someone give in exchange for their soul? Your soul is worth more than the whole world. And Jesus at one point was talking about persecution, so I'm going to transfer it a little bit to the virus where he said, "Do not fear those who kill the body and after that there's nothing more they can do to you, but I'll tell you who to the fear, fear the one who after the death of the body has the power to destroy both soul and body in Hell." Yes, I tell you fear him. So what I would say to that is, "Let's not fear the virus ultimately, we're all going to die of something. But if you are not yet a believer in Christ, you should fear death because the Bible reveals plainly, “it is appointed for each one of us to die, and after that, to face judgment.” And the good news of the Gospel is that God sent his Son, the lord and savior Jesus Christ into the world to live a sinless life, he was fully God, fully man, “to be tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin,” but ultimately to give His life as a ransom for many. And that He was raised from the dead on the third day, meaning that Christians never need to fear death again. That if we're Christians, we know that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, we don't fear death because we know that Judgment Day, we will not be condemned. But what about you, dear friend? Have you come to faith in Christ, have you trusted in him for the salvation of your soul? I. Rich Oppressors Wanted The Most Dreadful Passage in James Now, as we move through the Book of James we're coming to one of the most convicting passages in the entire Bible. You just heard it read, it's a severe warning that Almighty God is giving to the entire human race through his servant, James, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's a warning to rich oppressors. And as you read these words that you just heard read a moment ago, these are words that really could cause sheer terror if you take them seriously. They are words that actually offer no hope whatsoever just within these verses. There's no actual call to repentance, there's no promise of forgiveness of sins, if you do. It's just a stark warning. Now, there are words of comfort and consolation in other places in the Bible and they're true as well, but here, just a severe warning. "Now listen, you rich, weep and wail because of the misery that's coming upon you." Threatened with Eternity in the Fire of Hell And as you look at the text as well, the Lord Almighty, the Lord of Hosts is summoned, is mentioned, the commander of the armies of Heaven mobilized against these rich oppressors. And what is threatened in this text is nothing less than eternity in the fire of Hell. "Weep and wail,” the text says, "because of the misery that's coming upon you." This weeping and howling certainly reminds me of Jesus' description of the suffering of the torments of Hell in many places, but Matthew 22:13. It says, "Tie him hand and foot and throw him outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So, for me as I read this text I think about that, the warnings about Hell and what it's going to be like. Jesus warned sinners many times about that, the misery that is coming upon you. The word misery is actually an eternal, infinite understatement for Hell's fire. The Book of Revelation speaks of a Lake of Fire. And Jesus says that the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. The Book of Revelation, Revelation 14:11 says, "The smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest, day or night,” for those that are suffering the torments of Hell. And the text says, your flesh will be “eaten like fire.” This is the effect of being thrown in the Lake of Fire, yet, when it says the worm does not die, the flesh is not consumed, it doesn't ever end. It goes on forever and ever, it's a severe warning. It reminds me also of Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-25, there the text says this, "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. And at his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus who was covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hell where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus by his side, so he called him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me, send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime, you received your good things while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here and you are in agony.’" So I think there's a lot of similarities between that parable which continues beyond that point but also James Chapter 5. It says also that these rich individuals have fattened themselves in the day of slaughter. Listen to James 5:5, "You've lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence, you have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter." What an image that is? You've fed your flesh in such a way that it would attract special notice from the judgment of God. The image that's in my mind is of a lightning rod, which is specially designed by the engineers to be very high up on a building and attract the lightning strike. The image is more of, I think, of a pig pen and of hogs, pigs different ones, and you can imagine one very large hog that shoulders all the other pigs out of the way and just eats and eats until its stomach is full, and then the others can get whatever's left. And then when the time, the day of slaughter comes, that hog will get special attention. On the day of slaughter, it grew fatter and fatter and did not realize what was coming. James as a Prophet of Doom So this text speaks therefore of the inevitable outcome for rich oppressors: slaughter. And a slaughter that does not last for an instance but for all eternity. So James really is standing here as a prophet of doom. As he speaks to these rich individuals, these rich oppressors, he stands in a long lineage, a powerful heritage of prophets whom God raised up to speak a word of warning. Now though there are no words of mercy in the text, there's no command to repent, there's no opportunity for forgiveness in the text, yet there's still hope because God is warning people ahead of time, and there is implicit in that warning, an opportunity to repent while there's time and to find salvation through faith in Christ. But Old Testament prophets did this again and again. Think of Isaiah 5:8-9 says, "Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing, surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants." Or again, later in that same prophecy, Isaiah 10, verses 1-4, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches? Nothing will remain, but to cringe among the captives, or fall among the slain. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still up, raised.” Isaiah 10:1-4. Or again, the prophet Amos had much to say about social injustice and oppression in Amos 2:6-7, this is what the Lord says, "For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath, they sell the righteous for silver and the need for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed." Or again later, Amos 5:11-12, "You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain, therefore though you have built stone mansions you will not live in them. And though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine, for I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts." So James stands on the shoulders of this lineage, of prophets of the Lord, prophets of doom who came along to warn rich oppressors of the judgment that was certainly coming on them. Jesus’ Warnings About Earthly Wealth Jesus also warned of the dangers of wealth in this present age. In the parable of the seed and the soils, you remember the thorny ground soil, and what happened to the seed there, Mark 4:18-19, "Still others like seeds sown among the thorns hear the word but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke the word making it unfruitful." Or again, Luke 6:24-25, Jesus said, "Woe to you who are rich for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are are well-fed now for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now for you will mourn and weep." And again in the passage about the rich young ruler as you remember who came and could not give up his wealth to become a follower of Jesus, he turned away and went away sad. Jesus said, to his disciples, Matthew 19:23-24, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The disciples were amazed at that moment and said, "Who then can be saved?" And Jesus said, giving great comfort to us, "With man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Now we, in our present age here in America, we are all about accumulation, all about wealth acquisition. Jesus warned about this, in Luke 12:15, he said, "Watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." It seems like Madison Avenue and Internet, Amazon Prime, all of that set up to try to refute that. “Actually your life does consist in the abundance of your possessions.” We're basically sold that every day and we have to swim upstream against that constantly. II. Rich Oppressors Described There is Nothing Intrinsically Wrong with Wealth Alright, so, as James addresses this, he just says, "Woe to you rich" or he says, "Watch out, and now listen you rich," he doesn't add anything. I say that this is a severe warning against rich oppressors. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with wealth per se, it is tempting, but just because you're wealthy it doesn't mean you're going to Hell. Deuteronomy 8:17-18 says, God gives wealth, He gives us the ability to make it. Listen to what he says, "You may say to yourself, 'My power and the strength of my hands have produced wealth for me. But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth.'" So if there's something wrong with producing wealth, then that would not be spoken in that way. God wouldn't give us the ability. It is essential for us to earn money just to provide for our families, and meet our own basic needs. As a matter of fact, 1 Timothy 5:8 says, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” So, it's vital for believers to provide for their immediate family. Later in that same passage, it's talking about widows who need care from the church versus those that shouldn't need care from the church. And he said, "If any woman who is a believer has widows in her family she should help them and not let the church be burdened with them so that the church can help those widows who are really in need." So it's vital for every family unit to stand on its own two feet financially and not burden the church. And in order to do that you have to acquire wealth. Also the scripture makes it plain that it's wise to store up some money for the future. You can't live day-to-day, I said this last week, in James 4. We can't assume that there won't be life tomorrow, that life will almost certainly end today. That's different than presuming upon tomorrow. So as I quoted last week, again today, Proverbs 6:6-8, "Go to the ant you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise, it has no commander, no overseer, no ruler yet it stores up its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” So there's nothing wrong with having barns, having storage units, having a bank account or even having a retirement. Although we've seen what the virus can do. Twenty percent of people's retirement down in value in one week. Twenty percent. As the scripture says, "Cast but a glance at riches and they fly away." We know and we should know anyway if we're biblically mature we can't rely on money. But it's not wrong to accumulate it to a point. We should realize that God gives us the ability to produce an abundance more than we need for our immediate needs essentially so that we can share it with others. As 2 Corinthians 8:15 says, "He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little." Rich Oppressors Hoard Wealth Until It’s Useless But the rich oppressors that are being addressed in this text have no such view of their wealth, not at all. It's not for other people it's all about them. That's the way they think. Their God was their money, and they did whatever they could possibly do to gain more and more, no matter what the human cost, and that's the whole point here. They hoarded their wealth until their wealth became useless. Hoarding is accumulating a pile of silver and gold, just watching it grow as though it had some intrinsic value to bring happiness. Think about Ebenezer Scrooge who was overwhelmingly accumulating wealth. He was a miser. He didn't spend his money on himself even, he just watched the pile get bigger. And so James says in verse 2-3, "Your wealth has rotted and moths have eaten your clothes. Your silver and gold are corroded, their corrosion will test against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days." The image that James uses here is devastating and a bit ironic actually, speaks of wealth rotting. The only things that rot are living things, so he makes their wealth as though it were alive, and it had a prime moment like a piece of fruit or vegetables to be eaten and then it went way past that. Remember how God provided the manna for the Israelites every single day, you remember that story. As they're in the desert and God miraculously fed them. And when He began that process of feeding them with manna, bread from Heaven, which they were supposed to go out every day and collect except for the Sabbath Day, that was an exception. But every normal day, they were just to go out and collect what they needed for that day. And God was very plain about that. He said, "Just collect what you need for yourself and your family, and do not store it overnight." But some of the Israelites didn't listen. They didn't follow the instructions, and so they hoarded it for the next day. And when they went to eat the next day, it was covered with maggots and it stank. So you get the image of wealth like that. It was hoarded and became maggot-covered and it stunk. He also says that their precious metals, their gold and silver, have rusted. Which is really ironic because anyone who knows anything about gold say, "No, it doesn't rust, ever. It could be around for a thousand years and it's still shiny." Silver gets a black kind of sheen on but it can be wiped off, it doesn't rust straight through. But James uses that kind of language. It corrodes all the way through. It definitely reminds us of the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:19-21, "Do not store for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." So basically, the idea is material wealth has a shelf-life, spiritually. A spiritual shelf life, think of it that way. Your material wealth has value in this present age, as it's in service to the glory of God and to the benefit of your neighbor. But if you hoard it, it goes bad. It has a shelf life. I remember recently, I think it was last week, hearing about a pastor in England who was helping his very elderly mother who lived in the same cottage, I think, for a long time. Went into her pantry and found an array of canned goods, and found a drink in the back that was best to be drunk by December of 1987. So I think he felt it was best to throw that out. I think you would agree that was a wise decision. That's why I think of shelf life. Wealth comes into your life, you've got a window of opportunity to use it for the glory of God, especially by helping others. God doesn't need money. And James says, "If you don't do that, it's going to go beyond its Use By date. And that fact, that spiritual corrosion, that spiritual rot will testify against you on the Day of Judgment.” That's what he's saying. They hoarded wealth in the last days. Now, some people, I've actually had two people that have emailed me wondering if the coronavirus was evidence that we were in the last days. But we don't need the coronavirus. The scripture again, again like this passage here says, "We are in the last days." And we've been in the last days for 2000 years. The next thing that's going to happen, big picture, is the second coming of Christ. Judgment Day is coming. So, we're in the last days. If you're asking me, do I believe that the coronavirus shows that we are the final generation, that I cannot tell. Could very well be a year from now, we'll just remember this is an extraordinary time, but the thing, and we're praying for this, will just recede. But in any case, the last days are here, and this is a terrible time to be hoarding wealth because the last days have come. Rich Oppressors Often Gain Wealth by Injustice Now, I call them rich oppressors because they gain their wealth by injustice. Look at verse 4. "Behold” or “Look, the wages you fail to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty." That's why I call them rich oppressors. They not only hoarded wealth, they gained it through injustice. They have the power enough to defraud their workers who brought in their harvest, to defraud them with impunity. They had gamed the system so much through bribery and maybe the judges are part of the whole thing, and there was nothing these poor people could do. Maybe they just simply held on to the wage for a week or a month, and then eventually paid it or paid a portion of it. In any case, it was rank injustice. Now, the Law of Moses set up a very clear command, a set of commands, about wealth owed to workers. Pay it immediately. Pay it when you said you would pay it. Pay it when they're expecting to get it. Leviticus 19:13 says, "Do not defraud your neighbor or rob him. Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight." Just not even overnight. Again, Deuteronomy 24:14-15, "Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy. Whether he's a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns." “Pay him his wages each day,” listen to this, “before sunset, because he is poor and is counting on it. Otherwise, he may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.” That's the backdrop of the very thing James is saying. "They've cried out to God against you and God is interested." That's a threat. The Lord Almighty has heard their cries. I can't help but think of the injustice of chattel slavery and the wealthy plantations that are part of the history of our nation in which slave owners got wealthy on the backs of their slaves and never paid them a cent for their back-breaking labor out in the fields. I was reading recently an article about the wealth of Charleston, South Carolina. It was called Carolina's Gold Coast, it was speaking of rice plantations. From the 1720s to the 1860s, the rice plantations shaped and reshaped the Low Country geography there in the area around Charleston, South Carolina, and it made Charleston one of the richest cities in the world. Certainly, indigo, cotton, forest products, other manufactured goods, contributed to the economy, but nothing came close to the lavish wealth brought in by rice. But it was all predicated on slave labor. Slaves had used rough tools to clear immense wooded swamps, then they constructed massive hydrological systems, dams, dikes, floodgates, sluice gates, those kinds of things used to properly irrigate the rice fields. Then they had to plant the rice plants with their backs bent over double, and then when the plant stocks grew tall, they had to weed. Weeding rice fields in the blazing sun, and the overpowering humidity was torturous work. And after weeks of soaking rain, the Carolina gold rice, the stocks were waist-high, but tall weeds also grew up, threatening to smother the harvest. And so the slaves had to get in there and pull each of those weeds by hand. To make matters worse, these low-lying swampy areas were breeding grounds for malaria and yellow fever, and the mosquitoes that carry them. Thousands of slaves died of these diseases. Their Wealth Was Self-Indulgently Spent In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Carolina Low Country was the deadliest disease region in the North American mainland. Some said at that time, South Carolina was a paradise in the spring, a hell in the summer, and a hospital in the fall. After working brutally long days, the Low Country slaves were still required to grow their own food, make their own clothing because, of course, they were paid nothing for their labor. And they lived in rags and they suffered from near starvation while the rice plantation owners became among the wealthiest people in America. One contemporary observer wrote, "The Carolina rice plantation masters lived their lives in wanton luxury, spending their days only to make money, to dance, to gamble, to run horses while the women only wanted to spend money, play piano, and contemplate their own beauty." Many of them live more or less permanently away from their own rice plantation, so they never saw the back-breaking labor of the slaves that enabled them to live their luxurious lifestyles. Some of them had incredible homes on The Battery in Charleston, some of the most elegant mansions in America. To some degree, the Charleston rice plantations led the way in relying on slave labor long before cotton was the main staple of Southern wealth. So here again, the words of James. And see how they fit. "Behold, the wages you fail to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence, you have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter." And in the text, their wealth was self-indulgently spent. There's a life of luxury. The best clothing, the most affluent lifestyle. They spared themselves no luxury. They felt they deserved the best of meats and the finest of wines. And they enjoyed the life of leisure while others did their hard labor for them. Again, I think about Amos. Amos 4:1-2 says this, "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, 'Bring us some drinks.' The sovereign Lord is sworn by his holiness. The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fish hooks." And again, Amos 6:4-7, "You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and you lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves, you strum away on your harps like David, and you improvise on musical instruments. You drink wine by the bowl full, and you use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore, you'll be among the first to go into exile. Your feasting and lounging will end." The day of the slaughter comes on people who live like this. Their self-indulgence has just been storing up wrath against them. As Paul says in Romans 2:5-6, "Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you're storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done." Even worse, they used violence to gain wealth. Look at verse 6, "You have condemned and murdered innocent people who are not opposing you." So they're willing to go to the nth degree, condemning and murdering. I think about wicked king Ahab, you remember who together with his wicked wife Jezebel, plotted to take the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite. He didn't want to sell to them. And so Jezebel especially, but Ahab was a willing accomplice, orchestrated Naboth's murder by having some worthless men accuse him of cursing both God and the king, and then use the justice system to execute him, and then they came and took the vineyard. Honoré de Balzac, French writer, said, "Behind every great fortune, there is a crime." Behind every great fortune, there is a crime. Mario Puzo began his novel, The Godfather, quoting these words, speaking of the fictitious crime family, the Corleone. Now, this may be an overstatement. It is an overstatement. There are some wealth, there are some wealth that's accumulated without crime. I think about how wealthy Job was, and he was blameless and upright, a man who feared God. Abraham was quite wealthy, and he acquired his wealth without crime. But it stands, and we must imagine around the world today, in ways that are appropriate to our 21st century setting, in which chattel slavery is illegal, should be. There is still economic oppression going on in ways we can hardly imagine. And so these words from James are living and active today. III. How Christians Should Read this Warning Who is James Writing To? Alright. Now, the question in front of us is, how should we, Christians, hear this text? How do we read this? Who is James writing to? Is it actually possible that someone who lives like this could, at the same time, claim to be a Christian? Now, many commentators say James is writing to churches. And so therefore, he thinks there are certain people that are attending Christian worship that are secretly living this kind of life. And it is quite possible that even now, all over the world, in the 21st century, there are people that are getting wealthy through this kind of oppression. Going on now. And yet they're claiming to be Christians. So people like that just need to read this warning, and heed it, and flee to Christ while there's time. I think about the Zacchaeus. And even though there's no promise of mercy or grace in the text, yet, think about what happened with Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector who was defrauding people every day. And when he heard of the grace that was available, as Jesus was a friend of tax collectors and sinners, he invited Jesus to come to his home. Actually, Jesus invited himself over. "I must eat with you today." And Zacchaeus said, "Look, Lord. Here and now, I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." Jesus said to him, "Today, salvation has come to this house because this man, too, is a son of Abraham." So that is quite possible. Think of Nebuchadnezzar, the most oppressive man on planet Earth, who for some reason, I think it's because God was working through Daniel, I hope, and I trust to ultimately bring Nebuchadnezzar to a saving faith. When Nebuchadnezzar had this terrifying dream in Daniel 4, in verse 27, Daniel came and warned the king, he said, "Therefore, O King, be pleased to accept my advice. Renounce your sins by doing what is right and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then, your prosperity will continue." Nebuchadnezzar was humbled to the ground. A year later, a year of oppression later, God is so patient. He was stricken, his mind was changed, he ate grass like a cow for seven years. And when he came back, he was deeply humbled. And we trust, we have no record of it, we trust that he walked in that humility and faith the rest of his life. So if you look at your life and you realize that you have lived a life of luxury and self-indulgence, and the Holy Spirit is charging you with sin, and charging you with self-indulgence and luxury, and charging you with fattening yourself in the day of slaughter, then repent! Though there is no promise of forgiveness here, there are many others in the scriptures. Jesus came to save sinners. If you know yourself to be sick, Jesus said, "It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." James May Not Be Speaking to Church-Goers Now, I do believe that James isn't necessarily speaking to people who are coming to their Christian churches. I think he was just a prophet and his eyes were on the whole world. And even whatever he understood what he was writing, the Holy Spirit certainly had a multi-generational vision to warn rich oppressors. Jeremiah was a prophet to the nations, and he spoke oracles directly against pagan kingdoms without any expectation they would read his prophecy. So also Isaiah, Amos, all the others. And James could be doing that. He's not talking to anybody who's coming to Christian church on Sunday, but just talking to the human race. It's just as likely that James is seeking to encourage the poor in his congregation, that the rich oppressors who are crushing them and dragging them into court will someday be judged by God. Like the persistent widow, you remember that? Luke 18:7-8. "Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night. Will He keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly." So around the world, our Christian brothers and sisters are in different settings. And there may be some places where people are being directly oppressed. And they're yearning for relief. And God is using James 5, to speak a word of comfort to them that Judgment Day is coming for these rich oppressors. IV. Application How Should Christians View Money and Luxury? Well, how then should we, Christians, see money? How should we see luxury? How shall we understand those things? If you have any amount of money more than you need for your basic needs, food, clothing, shelter, and that of your family, then you are technically biblically rich. And we have far more than that. We're among the wealthiest Christians that have ever walked planet Earth. And so it is good for us to read a text like this with a certain measure of fear and trembling. But we begin, I think, by being humble and thankful. In the spirit of Deuteronomy 8, it is, "Let's not be arrogant that we have wealth. Let's be thankful." Let's realize God gave us educational opportunities, he gave us gifts and talents and skills that enabled us to accumulate more money than we needed. We also lived in a country where there was freedom, there's political structure, there were things that kept anarchists from the streets and all that. It's been a blessed place to grow up and live. So Ecclesiastes 5:19 says, "When God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work, this is a gift from God." So we should be thankful. But beyond that, we should ask the Lord how He wants us to use our abundance for His glory. I would urge you, if you are a wealthy Christian, to read, maybe even memorize 1 Timothy 6:17-19. Listen to those words. "Command those who are rich in this present world...". Let me just stop there. Paul is talking to Timothy as a pastor, saying, "You are going to pastor wealthy people." Okay? They're not wicked going to hell because they're wealthy, but let me tell you what they should do with their wealth. "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." So, don't trust in your money. It's easier now than a couple of weeks ago to say, "Hey, we're not in a lavish expansive market now." Negative 20% in one week should teach you an important lesson. So don't trust in your money, but trust in God. "Command them to do good," 1 Timothy 6:18, "to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share. And in this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life." So be generous with your money toward the poor and needy. That's a consistent teaching. Ask the Lord to show you who he wants you to give money to. Support the Church Certainly, we want you, as Andy mentioned earlier, to support our church. If you're a member of First Baptist Durham, please be certain that you take the steps necessary to keep giving your tithes and offerings. We need it. Our church needs to continue to support the works that we are doing, and we've pledged to do this in our church covenant, but beyond that, there's going to be opportunities to further missions, to give to ministries to the poor and needy, to others. Ask the Lord to show you who he wants you to be generous toward. Be sacrificial. Be faith-filled. We're part of a vast conglomeration of Baptist churches that pull our money to send missionaries. And so let's be generous and keep sending missionaries to unreached people groups. Money is Not Yours Forever And then think about your money in the proper way. It has a shelf life. And as Randy Alcorn said, "You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead." So if the Lord has a block of money He means for you to give away, and you don't give it away, He may just take it from you with car repair, or a house repair, or just a negative 20% on the market, He may just take it. So when you have an opportunity to give, give. And in so doing, you will store up treasure in Heaven. As Randy Alcorn said in Money, Possessions, and Eternity, he said, "Could it be that God increases your wealth not to increase your standard of living, but your standard of giving?" So let's be faithful, let's be generous with the money that God gives to us so that we can glorify Him. Now, as I close, I do so mindful of our circumstances here, we are facing extraordinary times. Let's ask the Lord even this week to give us a chance to share the Gospel with somebody who's afraid, afraid of dying. Be alert to those opportunities. Let's speak the words of life. Let's be a light shining in a dark place, for his glory and the spread of his Gospel. Prayer Close with me now in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time we've had to study your word. We thank You for the hope it gives us. We pray that you would enable us to be generous with our money, to not trust in it, to follow the clear advice in 1 Timothy 6:17-19. Father, we pray that we would make the most of the time we have and the resources that we have, but especially the Gospel. Give us a chance to share the Gospel with people who are afraid of death, so that they won't be afraid anymore, but find eternal life through faith in Christ. It's in your name, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.

I. Life in a Mixed World: The Wheat and the Weeds So as we resume this morning, our study in the book of Isaiah, we come immediately to Isaiah 56, and next time also Isaiah 57, and I'm only doing Isaiah 56 today, but in these two chapters we're going to see a rhythm going back and forth between the righteous and the unrighteous, between the wise and the foolish, between what Jesus would call in one of His parables, the wheat and the tares of the weeds, between the wheat and the weeds. Friends, we really do live in a mixed-up World and it seems more evident as time unfolds here in our country. And Jesus told a parable about the mixed-up nature of our world, spiritually in Matthew 13, the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, he described the kingdom of heaven in this way like a Man Who sowed good seed in his field. But at night while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away and then when the wheat sprouted and formed heads and the weeds became evident. And his servants came to him and said, "Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?" And the owner of the field said, "An enemy did this." servant said, "Do you want us to go and pull them up?" He said "No… because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn." Now, Jesus in interpreting the parable said, "The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. [We will call Christians] The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The wheat and the weeds grow together in close proximity, side by side. We live life together, but in the end, we will be separated one from another. And the righteous will go into the kingdom of heaven, but the wicked will be burned up with unquenchable fire in hell. "The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Our Decaying Orbit with the Surrounding Culture Now, this mixed existence that we experience as Christians is part of what makes this life so difficult. It's difficult for us but friends, it's hardly a new phenomenon. It's been going on a long time. Isaiah saw the same thing in his day. And we're going to see in the rhythm of these two chapters Isaiah 56, and then next time Isaiah 57. As Isaiah goes back and forth between the wheat and the weeds. We're going to look at two of those aspects this time and then next time more. One of the great challenges for us as we come to Isaiah is to try to understand the prophet in his own day, in his own language, his own words, his own setting, but then also see the timeless eternal vision of God, the words of God to every generation of God's people who don't live exactly when Isaiah lived but that timeless message that goes on through all generations. So we're going to see Old Covenantal type language here in Isaiah 56, but we're going to see principles that must be only fulfilled through the New Covenant and through the timeless message of Christ across every generation. He's going to speak clearly about those that are outsiders that would have been excluded in the Old Covenant being welcomed in and worshipping with God, as you heard in the text. He's also going to speak clearly about the great wickedness of Israel's Watchmen, of their shepherds, their leaders, and how they were living self-indulgent lives of feasting and following Canaanite religions. Now, these things happened, I think, right before the exile to Babylon. And so he's going to use language speaking about the sins that led to the exile to Babylon, and then speak about the re-gathering of Jews coming back in, and all of that is relevant to Isaiah's immediate circumstance. But if you look bigger, I think, they all pre-figure the in-gathering of people all over the world into the church of Jesus Christ through faith in Christ. So you've got to hold your mind in both, in both worlds, Isaiah's world and then the world that we live in today. Now, let's speak for a moment about the world that we live in today. I said that it's pretty obvious it's getting more obvious all the time, that we live in a mixed-up world, that we live side by side with people who do not love and cherish Jesus Christ as we do. And their lifestyles make it very plain that they do not cherish God's word, the way we do, and the fact that they are living out their rebellion against God, and unbelief right in front of us, right around us makes our lives far more difficult. Jesus knew that in the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. This is a mixed-up world. And for us as American Christians, it's especially challenging, because we live in a time in which we can look back where Christianity had a direct influence on our culture, on our government, our politics, on our lives very directly, especially here in the South, in an area that we used to call the Bible Belt, where the history of the saturation of the gospel and the influence of Christianity and culture was more evident. And government, not just here in the south but throughout the country, a little more supportive of Christianity used language that was taken from the Bible, public officials frequently sought days of fasting and prayer to the God of Heaven. Christianity was directly held in honor in government schools, and in the marketplace. Judeo-Christian values, you've heard that phrase so-called were honored in the schools and in public culture. There was a Christian ethic behind most of the laws of our country, even what became eventually known as misguided laws like prohibition had a very strong Christian basis in a Christian root. There was a strong church backing to the damage that alcohol did and that's what led to prohibition. However, as American citizens, we have to realize that the documents which established our nation such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, are in no way overtly Christian, keyword being, "overtly." None of these documents mention Jesus or Christ or Christianity or the Trinity or salvation. The anti-establishment clause which says that the federal government will set up or establish no religion for the people, clearly means we're not overtly Christian, we're not establishing and clearly revering Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and the American government never have. Yet we're well aware of how influential Christianity was in the lives of people who wrote those words, in the lives of those who governed according to their principles. In many cases, they were clearly Christian people in other cases not so. And yet for all of that, the general esteem with which Christianity has been held here in America is clearly a decaying orbit and I believe it's going to get worse, not better. I think it's going to become harder and harder to be clearly Christian in America. It's going to take courage, and it's going to take perspective, we need to understand what's going on. We live in a mixed-up world. We're going to be surrounded by unbelievers, they're going to be living out their unbelief in front of us. And friends for us this is a tremendous opportunity for the gospel. It's a chance for us to show the light in a very dark place. Alan Cooperman who is a director of religious research for the Pew Foundation said this, "Overall, there are more than four... "Listen to this, "More than four former Christians to every convert to Christianity in this country." So what that means is there are more... A four-to-one ratio, of those that are renouncing a previous allegiance to Christianity, then there are those that are saying that they are taking on a new allegiance to Christianity. Four to one. A Newsweek poll says that there's a great rise in the unaffiliated group, sometimes called the religious nones. Now, you shouldn't think like a Roman Catholic nun. N-U-N. It's more that you answer in the poll, religious affiliation none, none. The rise of the nones, it's happening more and more in our country, it's accelerating, especially among what's called the millennials. So that's the younger generation they're coming into their 20s, or just post-college, etcetera. More than 35% of that group of people are unaffiliated with any religion at all. So that's what we're looking at. And issues that we've been very well aware of that have been pressing on the consciences of evangelicals, like abortion and gay marriage and now especially in our state, transgender bathrooms and the whole issue of transgender-ism, have revealed I think the decaying nature of the relationship between biblical Christianity and American culture. So we're in for a rocky ride, I think. And frankly, I think we're in for the same rocky ride that most of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world have been experiencing every day of their lives. Brothers and sisters in China and Muslim countries or in other places, even in atheistic West, like in the Czech Republic other places where it's just much harder to live out a Christian life. They've known about this all their Christian lives. And so we're going to be experiencing that more and more. What we need then is we need to turn to the word of God, as never before, and find out what God is doing in the world. And derive hope and strength and purpose from that. And I think it's a great time for us to be turning back to Isaiah, and looking at and picking up where we were. We got up to Isaiah 55. And let me just give a little bit of review on the first 55 chapters of the book of Isaiah. No I'm not going to do that. Starting in chapter one, no that would take a while. But what I actually want to do is zero in on the central theme, I think of the entire book of Isaiah, and really of the whole Bible, and that is the way that the book of Isaiah, reveals Christ the savior. And we've been following that magnificently in the book of Isaiah with an individual called the suffering servant. So look with me at Isaiah 42. I'm just going to trace this out very quickly. Isaiah 42, we're introduced to the servant of the Lord, verse one, "Behold my servant whom I uphold my chosen one in whom I delight, I will put my Spirit on Him and He will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise His voice in the streets. A bruised reed, He will not break, and a smoldering wick, He will not snuff out. In faithfulness He will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged, until he establishes justice on earth. And in His law, the islands will put their hope." Friend just reading those words, I get happier and happier the more I read. This is Jesus, Matthew 12 says very clearly Jesus. He is the suffering servant, who comes to bring justice and righteousness to all the Earth, but who advances His kingdom in a very gentle tender loving way. He doesn't quarrel or cry out in the streets. That's not... He's not a rabble rouser, or a rebel or something like that. He just proclaims justice and tenderness and mercy. He doesn't destroy broken-hearted weak sinners, but He binds them up and saves them. Isaiah 42. Then if you look at Isaiah 49, we have the servant of the Lord, Isaiah 50 portrays Him. Let's start with Isaiah 49, especially verse six. This is the Lord, speaking to the servant of the Lord says, “And now the Lord says, he who formed me in the womb to be Him servant to bring Jacob back to Him and gather Israel to Himself for I'm honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength. 'It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel, I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.'" So here's the servant of the Lord, and it's too small to work for Him to be just Israel's savior, Israel's Messiah. God has bigger plans than that for the servant of the Lord. And that is to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. To restore and bring back even Gentiles. He is the light for the Gentiles. Isaiah 50. The servant of the Lord is revealed as clearly a suffering servant. He doesn't hide His face from mocking and spitting or His back from being beaten. He's going to pay a price to redeem sinners in the world. Then you get to Isaiah 50, 52 and 53, if you look at Isaiah 53, just go right in 53:6. Isaiah 53:6, 53 five and six, let's do that. "He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him, the iniquity of us all." So that's a substitutionary atoning work of Jesus. We are no better than those that are living sinful lives around us, no better than them at all. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and God has laid on Jesus, the suffering servant, the iniquity of us all. He is our substitutionary atonement. He was pierced for our transgressions. This is the Gospel, and Isaiah 54 makes it plain. I'm not going to go through that chapter. But that Zion, the people of God, the tent that takes in the people of God needs to get a lot bigger, and larger tent make it bigger. There's going to be a lot more people coming in. And then in Isaiah 55, there's this beautiful invitation, "Come. All you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why spend yourselves on what doesn't satisfy?" And then in 55:6, he says so beautifully, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon." So this is the focus, and this is right where we're at in Isaiah 56. Now, here's the thing. With the wheat and the weeds, some people are going to be drawn in by that beautiful message of Christ crucified, resurrected, salvation offered freely to any who repent and believe. They're going to come, and they're going to feast from all over the earth. And others are not going to accept it. They're going to have a hard hearts. They're going to live out their rebellion to the end of their days, and they're going to make life miserable for Christ's people. That's just what's going to happen. And so we have this mixed-up experience. So that brings us now to Isaiah 56. II. The Wheat: Humble Outcasts Welcomed In (vs. 1-8) Now, as we look at verses 1-8, we see the effect of the Gospel going to people who in the old covenant would have been excluded. We're going to talk about that, but God has this beautiful, magnificent salvation plan that he fashioned as we learned clearly from the book of Ephesians. He fashioned before the foundation of the world. From before the foundation of the world, He set his love on us in Christ, and He poured out spiritual blessings on us when we were still unborn in his own mind and heart. In Christ, he did us every good that we would ever need. Even long before he said, we were created. Before he even said, "Let there be light," God had this salvation plan. And that plan was to redeem us by the blood of Christ. Now, the redemptive plan of God began when Adam and Eve fell into sin. There's no need for redemption before that. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. They were kicked out. They were excluded. They're on the outside. And God put an angel there with a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. So they would not be permitted to re-enter Eden and eat from the Tree of Life. So I just want you to picture that in your mind because we're going to talk about people excluded, but I want you to include yourself in that category. We were all of us kicked out. As a human race, we were excluded from heaven. We are excluded from fellowship with God because of our sins. We're on the outside. Now, in redemptive plan, the redemptive plan of God, God chose out a specific people, the Jews. And he did it with the call of Abraham. At that point, his name was Abram. In Genesis 12, God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans and said, "Leave your country and your people, and go to the land I will show you." And he says this, "I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. Whoever curses you, I will curse. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." So the Jewish nation then became a launching pad for the salvation of the world. God intended to save his chosen people, that he chose in Christ before the creation of world to save them through a Jewish plan of salvation, ultimately through a Jewish Savior as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, "Salvation is from the Jews." And so God brought Israel up out of Egypt, up out of the promised land... Up out of Egypt into the promised land, through the Red Sea, brought them into the promised land. And, at the mountain of the 10 Commandments, he said this to them. He said, "If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole Earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." So what that means is, "I'm going to bless you, oh Jewish people, so that you can be a blessing to the whole earth." That was God's purpose. Psalm 67 captures it very, very well. It says, "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on Earth, your salvation among all nations. May the peoples praise you, Oh God, may all the peoples praise you." The peoples are the Gentiles, the non-Jewish nation. Oh God, be gracious to us, the Jews, so that we might be a blessing to the Gentiles. That was the idea of the concept. And we've seen that in Christ, that desire is fulfilled. Jesus is the son of Abraham. He's the Son of David, He is Jewish, and he is the savior of the earth. Now look at Verse 1. "This is what the Lord says, 'Maintain justice and do what is right for my salvation is close at hand, and my righteousness will soon be revealed." That's powerful. "My salvation is drawing near now. My righteousness is coming close." Isaiah lived six centuries before Jesus was born. But in God's mind, a day is like a 1000 years, and a 1000 years is like a day. The time for salvation is drawing near. Now, we could say that the prophet might have been talking about the deliverance from the exile of Babylon, and I think that might be part of what he had in mind. The deliverance from Babylon is a picture though of the greater deliverance that Jesus works for all of us from sin, from the captivity of sin. And so, we could say that both of them are in His mind. The Jews are going to come back from Babylon, they're going to rebuild the destroyed city of Jerusalem, they're going to live there, and that's an important thing, but that's not the fulfillment of the glorious words of Isaiah 56, not at all. Something bigger is going to happen. The Jewish nation that would be established under Ezra and Nehemiah would continue living under the old covenant, under the laws of Moses. They would continue to offer animal sacrifice, to keep the Sabbath regulations, they would continue to follow the old covenant. But all of this has in view the day in which those old covenant strictures would be abolished, would be removed. And so, godly Jews are described here, in verse one and two. This is what the Lord says, "Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand, and my righteousness will soon be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, the man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil." This is the call for the people of God, the Jews of Isaiah's day, or those that would come back under Ezra and Nehemiah, the godly Jewish nation, to live godly, upright lives under His law, as they waited for His redemption. The nation had been wicked, they've been sent into exile, disobeying God's laws, they had plundered the weak and helpless, they'd taken advantage of the widow and the orphan, they had shed innocent blood, they'd been sexually immoral, they'd been idolaters, that had led to the exile. "Okay, when I bring you back in, lead righteous, godly lives now, and in that way, my salvation will draw near, the nation will be able to continue." Now, for us as Christians, we have to hear this in a Christian new covenant sort of sense. We're not waiting for the restoration from Babylon, that's done, that's in the rearview mirror. What are we waiting for? We're waiting for Jesus to come back. We're waiting for the second coming of Christ. Well, what kind of lives should we live while we wait for that? 2 Peter 3 makes it very plain. It's going to be very similar type of language here. "Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?" Second Peter 3:11-12. "You ought to live godly and upright lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming." So, we ought to be holy and we have to do evangelism and missions, that's what that verse says. And then, Second Peter 3:14, "So then, dear friends, since you're looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with Him." That's Peter writing to new covenant saints. We get the same kind of language here, in Isaiah 56, one and two. "Live godly, upright lives as you wait for righteousness of God to come near. As you wait for the next event in redemptive history to come, live godly and upright lives," that's what the call is here. Godly Outcasts Welcomed Now, in verse three, we see godly outcasts welcome. Now, this is where it gets really fascinating. Look at verse three. "Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say, 'The Lord will surely exclude me from His people.' And let not any eunuch complain, 'I am only a dry tree.'" So now, we're looking at foreigners, by that I mean, the text means Gentiles, outsiders, and eunuchs, eunuchs. It speaks of people, then, that are categorically excluded in the old covenant from the assembly of the Lord. They're out, they're outsiders, they can't come in. They're not allowed to come in. Eunuchs are specifically mentioned as excluded in every case in Deuteronomy 23:1. And then, specific Gentiles are excluded in Deuteronomy 23:2 and Deuteronomy 23:3. For example, 23:2 says, "No one born of a forbidden marriage or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the 10th generation." And then, verse three of Deuteronomy 23, "No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the 10th generation." These are what we would call aliens and strangers, they're outsiders, they're excluded from fellowship with the people of God because of the law. Now, we believe in Christ, all of those exclusions are abolished, they're removed. We believe that this chapter foresees the day when those exclusions are taken away. "Let no foreigner say, 'I'm excluded.'" "I'm no longer excluded." Why not? Because Jesus came and fulfilled the old covenant and brought in with His blood a new covenant. And in that new covenant, there are no such restrictions. We saw this plainly in Ephesians chapter 2, let me read that again. By the way, I'm not going back to Ephesians, I just can't seem to let it go. I love the Book of Ephesians. But Ephesians 2:11 and following is the clearest passage on the fact that these exclusions are being removed. Says in Ephesians, 2:11-12, "Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called 'uncircumcised' by those who call themselves 'the circumcision.' Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world." That's how it used to be, oh Gentiles, how you used to be excluded by the law of Moses. Deuteronomy 23. The law of Moses kept such people out of the assembly of the Lord. It was what Paul called a barrier, a dividing wall of hostility. You couldn't come in. Yet through Isaiah the Prophet, even centuries before Jesus was born, there was foretold the day when those restrictions would be removed. The barrier would be taken away, and you would be allowed, as a Gentile, an uncircumcised Gentile, to enter the assembly of the Lord. You'd be welcome to come in. Now, God doesn't allow these outsiders in without transforming them. They have become radically different people; God has cleansed them of all their pagan defilements, He's washed them clean by the blood of Christ, they're made new in their hearts. John the Baptist said that God is able out of this stones to raise up children for Abraham, and so He has done. He has removed our hearts of stone and given us a heart of flesh. That's the condition for coming in now: Transformation by the Spirit of God. Ezekiel put it this way, about outsiders coming in. He said, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean…" Ezekiel 36:25 and following, "I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols, I will give you a new heart and I'll put a new Spirit in you and I will remove from you the heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh and I'll put my Spirit in you and I will move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." That's the transformation of the new covenant, the transformation, the change wrought by the spirit of God, or again in Ephesians 2, 13-15, "but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ, for He himself is our peace, who has made the two one," [Jew and Gentile] and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the commandments and regulations that kept us out his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace." This is the redemptive work of Christ. The Rewards of Inclusion Now, look at the rewards of being included say, "Well what do I get if I'm included?" Look at it, it's beautiful, these are rich blessings for those humble transformed outsiders. Each of these are carefully described before, the blessings are listed. The fact is you have to be changed in order to qualify, not every eunuch is blessed, not every outsider is brought near, that's not true. What does it say? Verses 4-5 "This is what the Lord says: 'to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath, and choose what pleases me, and hold fast to my covenant, to them I will give within my temple and its walls, a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off." So the conditions are covenantal language. Now in Isaiah's day that was old covenantal language; keep the Sabbath, do the sacrificial system, all that. We know that that's just a type and a shadow of the salvation, Jesus came to bring for us in the New Covenant. The requirement is simple. Believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, trust in Him. Repent of your sins, believe in Christ and you will be brought near, you'll be given a new heart, the Holy Spirit will change you from the inside out, you'll be transformed, and you will meet the requirements and look at the rewards a place in God's temple, a spot within its walls a secure permanent place of honor, and everlasting name that will never be cut off, never be forgotten. It's amazing. Now this is very similar to the promises made to the church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3:12. Listen to this. "To him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God. And the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God, I will also write on him a new name." That's very similar to Isaiah 56, isn't it? So what's happening, we're talking about heaven that's coming, the new Heaven, the new Earth, the new Jerusalem, if you become in Christ brought near, transformed from the inside out, God is going to adopt you as one of his sons or daughters, he's going to give you an everlasting name better than a biological son or daughter. You'll be his forever and ever. Biological names are forgotten, if you don't think so read First Chronicles and all those genealogies you know exactly, who are these people? If the Lord doesn't return any time soon, within three or four generations probably, no one on Earth will know your name, no one. Everyone will forget you, everyone you knew will be dead, long gone. That's just the way of the earth, that's the way of death. This is talking about an eternal remembrance. An eternal relationship. This is adoption by an eternal father, and the giving of a name that you will have forever and ever. And it will never be forgotten. That's eternity, that's heaven, that's a new Jerusalem. And it must refer to that spiritual temple as we've talked about again and again, in Ephesians 2, that new and living structure in Ephesians 2, 1 Peter 2, we are all living stones built into that habitation, that eternal habitation. We will receive a name and a place in that forever and ever if we draw near. And in heaven we will be able to offer sacrifices. 1 Peter 2:9-10, says "You are a chosen people, a royal Priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God." Think about that; once you were outsiders now you're inside, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. We are drawn in and we can offer up sacrifices, of praise to God. Ultimately in heaven, there's going to be a multitude greater than anyone can count from every tribe, language, people, and nation. And they're going to be drawn near Revelation seven. They're going to be given white robes and palm branches and they're going to cry out salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb, and they're going to stand listen to this revelation 7:13-15 this multitude greater than any cookout Where are they from? They're from the Great Tribulation, they've washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb, therefore listen to this Revelation, 7:15, they are before the throne of God and they serve Him day and night in His temple so that this is the language of Isaiah 56. The eunuchs, who are brought near, the outsiders who are brought near, we are given a place in the eternal temple of God and a name better than anyone could ever have in this world and forever we will bring our sacrifices and offerings in praise and they'll be accepted. That's what Isaiah is predicting. Verses 6 and 7, "Foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, to love the name of the Lord and to worship him all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it, and who hold fast to my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." Now, the conditions have to be met, you have to repent and believe and be drawn near in the new covenant, you have to bind yourself to the Lord by faith, you have to yearn to love him and to serve him and to follow him and to love the name of the Lord and to worship him. The Sabbath, I believe, is fulfilled in Christ. But it's also commemorated in the Lord's Day assembly around the world of Christians who come on the first day of the week to celebrate, not looking back at the old creation, but looking ahead to the new creation, first day of the week when God is going to make everything new. So, we assemble together and so we get all of these blessings and he says, "My house will be called the house of prayer for all nations." You know that Jesus quoted this, he was talking about Herod's Temple, a temple built by a wicked man, but he honored it as what it was, a beautiful type and shadow and picture of a future reality, a heavenly reality, a heavenly temple, when people from all nations would be welcomed, and would pray and worship God in that heavenly temple, and that now the temple of Herod's day, it should be a place where they're praying toward that end and where Gentiles are welcomed to worship the true and living God in light of the new covenant, Jesus had come to bring. Instead what did he find? Corruption, money changers, people trying to make money out of religion and it enraged him. And so he sat down and he braided a whip, and he overturned the benches of the money changers, and he drove out the all of the animals and he cried out in the words of Isaiah 56. "My house will be a house of prayer for all nations." He's quoting Isaiah 56 as he cleanses the temple. Now eventually he would will that that temple be physically, completely destroyed. Its days were over, it was obsolete, the Old Covenant was done, and so the Romans finished it off. New Exiles Gathered In But the vision was still there, that in the heavenly realm there would be, all nations assembled to worship God and there would be in verse 8, new exiles drawn and look at verse 8, "The sovereign lord declares, he who gathers the exiles of Israel. I'm going to gather still others to them besides those already gathered." I'm going to do a kind of a second re-gathering. So we're going to bring in the Jews from Babylon, and they'll be re-gathered but then I'm going to do a second re-gathering I'm going to gather other exiles and bring them in. Well, who are they? Well, In Isaiah 11:12, it says that God "will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel, he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four corners of the earth." So there's this banner raised for the Gentiles and a gathering of people from all over the world and then even more plain in John 11:51-52, it said that "Jesus would die for the Jewish nation and not for that nation only, but also for the scattered children of God to bring them together and make them one." Non-Jews, who are called the scattered children of God, they are the elect, chosen before the creation of the world, they would be gathered in Jesus's name, to one place. That's what verse 8 is talking about. I'm going to gather still others beyond those already gathered. So Verses 1 through 8 show the delights of the plan of salvation, for humble people once excluded, for exiles scattered all over the Earth, rich blessings of fellowship an eternally secure place in God's eternal temple where you will worship forever and ever. My question to you is, are you included or are you still an outsider? Are you on the outside looking in or have you been drawn in through faith in Christ? That's what you have to ask. This is visionary Old Testament prophetic language, let me speak quite plainly. Do you know yourself to be a Christian? Do you know yourself to be forgiven through faith in Christ? Have you been drawn in through faith in Christ, having repented of your sins have you found forgiveness through Christ? Are you spiritually now offering sacrifices to God, are you spiritually feasting on Christ? Are you looking forward to the day when you are literally sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Is that you? If not, If you know yourself to be an outsider believe that God brought you here for this moment and I'm calling on you while there's time, call on the Lord while he is near. Forsake your evil ways and find forgiveness in Christ. III. The Weeds: Self-Indulgent Leaders Devoured (vs. 9-12) The rest of the chapter deals with weeds, deals with people who hear that kind of invitation, hear that kind of gospel presentation and don't believe. Now they're a special category. They are leaders, they are the watchmen of Israel, but they're wicked, look at them described. They're self-indulgent leaders verses 10-12. "Israel's Watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge they're all mute dogs, they cannot bark, they lie around and dream, they love to sleep, they are dogs with mighty appetites, they never have enough, they are shepherds who lack understanding, they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain. Come, each one cries, let me get wine, let us drink our fill of beer and tomorrow will be like today or even far better." Well, final paragraph to this chapter is a judgment on the watchmen of Israel. I believe it's speaking to the leaders of the Jewish nation, their kings, their prophets, their warriors, their leaders who were given positions of power and authority in the nation to serve the people not to take advantage of them or to fleece them. Israel's watchmen are the guardians of the nation, those who stand on the walls, to protect her from danger and from slaughter in the night. They are called on therefore, to deprive themselves of sleep during the night. What good is a sleeping watchman? They're supposed to be up on the walls, but they're asleep. They're supposed to be sacrificing themselves, they're supposed to be alert and courageous and wise and self-sacrificial. But instead these watchmen are deplorable. Ezekiel the Prophet was called a watchman for Israel. He said, "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me." So that picture is a sleeping city, a walled fortress, and there's a possibility of an attack in the night. The watchman's job is to stand on the walls and warn the sleeping people, "Get up, there's danger." And so what God says to Ezekiel the watchman, he says, "When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. 19 But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself." So that's what a watchman does. Now, these watchmen are deplorable, they are blind. I mean, think about that, what good is a blind watchman? Just ponder that for a while. They are ignorant, they lack knowledge, they are mute dogs. Now, what good is a watch dog that can't bark? Isaiah calls them lazy dogs. They lie around and love to sleep, like the sluggard, they can't even pull their hand out of the dish and bring it to their mouth. They can barely rouse themselves out of bed, they're lazy. He calls them dogs with mighty appetites. Like Paul says in Philippians 3, "Their God is their stomach." They love a good meal. They love to feast. They're living for themselves, they're greedy. They never get enough. And not only that, they think the feast will never end. I like the NIV on verse 12, I really do. "Come, each one cries, let me get wine, let us drink our fill of beer. And tomorrow will be like today or even far better." That's an interesting translation, I think it's a good one. In other words, I think things are just going to get better and better. Things are really good for us right now, but they're going to get better and better. No fear of the Lord, no fear of impending judgment, just complacent, lazy comfortable expectation that life, prosperous comfortable life, is just going to keep on going the way it always has. Well, verse nine speaks of a different kind of feast, it's a different kind of feast, and these watchmen are actually invited to it. But look at it, "Come all you beasts of the field, come and devour, all you beasts of the forest." So Israel's watchmen are invited to the feast, but not as honored guests, but actually as the food. They're going to be invited to be devoured by the beast, they're going to be judged by the wrath of God. This very much reminds me of Revelation 19, when there's the armies of the Earth assembled to fight against Jesus in His second coming glory. And it says there in Revelation 19:17, it says, "I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in mid-air, 'Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings and generals and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great." And so the birds came and feasted on their flesh. It's a picture of terrible judgment from God. So, simply put, at the end of the world, God is going to separate out the wheat from the weeds. And verses 9-12 give a picture, in very graphic kind of picture form, of the judgment that's going to come on those who live their lives for their stomach, for their flesh, who do not use their positions of influence and authority to glorify God. IV. Applications Alright, so applications, I've already given you the most important one. Come to the banquet of Christ while there's time. Feast on him, trust in him. Don't remain an outsider. Be welcomed by faith in Christ into God's holy temple. Accept the gifts that He wants to give you. He wants to adopt you as one of his sons or daughters. He wants to give you a name in his temple that will never end. Accept his conditions, the conditions of the new covenant, they're simple. Confess Christ as your Lord and Savior, repent of your sins, and you will be saved. Secondly, understand, Christian brothers and sisters, the mixed nature of this world. It is lamentable, we are going to grieve, it's going to cause us trouble, but it's just the reality. It's going to be like this until the end of the world. Look on it as an opportunity. Don't consider yourself superior to any of those that appear to be weeds. That's the whole thing. The reason the servants can't root them up, they can't tell the difference. Saul of Tarsus, what did he look like the morning he was converted? He looked like weeds to me. We just can't tell the difference, we never know what God's sovereign grace could do. We never know. And so, let's look on the wickedness of the people around us as an opportunity to speak the truth in love into their lives and see God save some of them. The weeds make up ISIS as they behead Christians. The weeds make-up anti-Christian college officials who issue edicts and rules that keep Christians from freely sharing the gospel on their college campuses, or professors who use their positions to speak anti-Christian doctrines to those that have to listen to them, or non-Christian government officials, not just in the US but all over the world, who use their positions of power and influence to hinder the work of God in the world. Making bad decisions, and issuing bad judgments, and bad decrees, or even to crush the Gospel overtly. The mixed up nature of this world is a constant grief to us. It's going to continue, but it's temporary. Some day the Lord is going to purge this world. In the mean time, we're going to have to bear with this suffering that comes from it and to see God use us to win people to Christ. Also, along with that, let's have a deep compassion for those that are lost, let's weep for them. Let's not feel superior to them. Let's, like Paul says, "I have a great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart." And Jesus wept over Jerusalem. So ask God to make you a little less annoyed with the weeds, a little less irritated by them, and instead pray for them. Paul says in 2 Timothy 2, "I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvations in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." You know what it is? The elect are surrounded by un-elect. The wheat that hasn't been converted yet, they're surrounded by weeds that are going to pound you as you try to reach the elect. Even the elect themselves are going to treat you badly until they're finally converted. I did the same myself. They're going to beat you up while you're rescuing them from the lagoon. You're going to swim out there, and they're going to beat you up the whole way as you drag them to safety. And then they're going to cry and thank you. But that's what happens. This is the price we pay for being evangelistically fruitful in this world. Thirdly, a warning to leaders, to watchmen, be faithful. Elders, especially I want to say a word to you who are elders in this church, let us not be anything like the watchmen that are described in this chapter. Do not live for your stomach, do not live for pleasure, do not live for temporary things. I call on me and others to live up to the holiness that this passage talks about. We ought to keep watch over ourselves and the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made us overseers. Richard Baxter in his reform pastor said this, "Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins that you preach against in others. Lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you preach God's laws and yet willfully break them? If sin be evil, then why do you live in it? And if it be not, then why do you dissuade men from it? If sin be dangerous, then how dare you venture on it? And if it be not, then why do you tell men so? If God's threatenings be true, then why do you not fear them? And if they be false, then why do you needlessly trouble men with them and put them into such frights without a cause?" So that's just a warning to all of us who are elders and leaders in spiritual positions in the church, not just in this church, but in any church. I also want to give a similar warning to political leaders. God is going to hold political leaders, senators, congressmen, presidents, elected officials to account for what they did with their position of authority. And if they used their position to hinder the work of God, God is going to judge them. Finally, a word for missions. Verse seven says, "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." I yearn for this church to be on fire for evangelism and missions. That we would be a house of prayer for all nations, for the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. I especially call on home fellowships. When you meet tonight in your home fellowships, be certain you pray for missionaries, be certain you pray for unreached people groups, that you keep your heart extended to the ends of the Earth, where Jesus has believers who have not yet been converted. Move your heart out there in prayer. My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. Close with me in prayer.