SUNDAY OT SERMON: James Montgomery Boice on Genesis 1:1-2 “VIEWS OF CREATIONISM: SIX-DAY CREATIONISM”

SERIES: GENESIS – PART 8

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. – Genesis 1:1-2

In recent years the gap theory of creation, so popuplar with the early fundamentalists, has been replaced by a school of thought known as six-day creationism or flood geology. This theory views the Genesis account as involving six literal days, posits a relatively young earth (maximum age twelve thousand years), and explains the fossil record as having been formed by the great flood in Genesis 6 conceived as having been universal and of immensely destructive proportions. This theory is biblical, but it does not base its interpretation of Genesis on unusual schemes of thought, as the gap theorists do. True, its geology may be unusual (perhaps even forced, as some would claim). But because it is biblical, as well as scientific, creationism deserves the most serious consideration by Christian people.

Two organizations have been effective in advancing the creationists’ viewpoint: the Creation Research Society of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Institute for Creation Research of San Diego, California. The first of these was founded in 1963 with Dr. Walter E. Lammerts as its first president. It has a current membership of five hundred scientists, who have the right to vote, and sixteen hundred nonscientists, who do not have the right to vote. The society issues a quarterly journal and in 1970 published a school textbook entitled Biology: A Search for Order in Complexity. It has produced several other volumes. As indicated by the name, the members of the Creation Research Society engage largely in research relating to creation matters.

The second organization has been more active and is therefore better known. It is a division of Christian Heritage College, also of San Diego, and has as its leaders Dr. Duane T. Gish, who serves on the board of directors of the Christian Research Society, and Dr. Henry M. Morris, the institute’s director. This organization sponsors frequent debates on evolution. The results of these debates, sometimes attended by many thousands of people, are printed, along with other items and articles in support of scientific creationism, in a monthly newsletter known as Acts & Facts. In the last ten years the institute has published more than thirty books on creationism, most of them written by Gish and Morris, though the best-known work, The Genesis Flood, was coauthored by Morris and Dr. John C. Whitcomb, former professor of Old Testament at Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Indiana.

These organizations have offered a powerful challenge to prevailing evolutionary theory and have carried their challenge into the public sphere as evidenced by the California biology textbook controversy, which began in November 1969, and other recent court cases.

The Creationists’ Message

The message of the creationists, whether in debate or in their publications, is that evolution is impossible and that the facts (as we know them) best fit the creationist model.

Here is a lengthy but valuable summation of the creationists’ position from the Whitcomb and Morris volume: “Although there may be considerable latitude of opinion about details, the Biblical record does provide a basic outline of earth history, within which all the scientific data ought to be interpreted. It describes an initial Creation, accomplished by processes which no longer are in operation and which, therefore, cannot possibly be understood in terms of present physical or biological mechanisms. It describes the entrance into this initial Creation of the supervening principle of decay and deterioration: the ‘curse’ pronounced by God on the ‘whole creation,’ resulting from the sin and rebellion of man, the intended master of the terrestrial economy, against his Creator.

“The record of the great Flood plainly asserts that it was so universal and cataclysmic in its cause, scope, and results that it also marked a profound hiatus in terrestrial history. Thus the Creation, the Fall, and the Flood constitute the truly basic facts, to which all the other details of early historical data must be referred…It seems most reasonable to attribute the formations of the crystalline basement rocks, and perhaps some of the Pre-Cambrian non-fossiliferous sedimentaries, to the Creation period, enough later substantially modified by the tectonic upheavals of the Deluge period. The fossil-bearing strata were apparently laid down in large measure during the Flood, with the apparent sequences attributed not to evolution but rather to hydrodynamic selectivity, ecologic habitats, and differential mobility and strength of the various creatures.”

So far as evolution is concerned, Whitcomb and Morris write that “evolution is the great ‘escape mechanism’ of modern man. This is the pervasive philosophic principle by which man either consciously or sub-consciously seeks intellectual justification for escape from personal responsibility to his Creator and escape from the ‘way of the Cross’ as the necessary and sufficient means of his personal redemption. … The decision between alternative theories does not therefore depend only on the scientific data but is ultimately a moral and emotional decision. … We therefore urge the reader to face up to the fact that the actual data of geology can be interpreted in such a way as to harmonize quite effectively with a literal interpretation of the Biblical records and then also to recognize the spiritual implications and consequences of this fact” (John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, The Geneisis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Applications. Philadelphia: P&R, 1961, 327-30).

A Detailed Message

There are several points in this summary that ought to guide us in an evaluation of the theory. First, there is a concern for biblical teaching. More than this, creationists want to make biblical teaching determinative. This is the point at which the summary begins, for it seeks to make an initial creation, the fall, and the flood the three great points around which everything else is to be interpreted.

We have to admit here that the exegetical basis of the creationists is strong. They take the creation account of Genesis as literally as possible, arguing that the Hebrew word for “day” (yom) must refer to an actual twenty-four-hour day unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. They do not deny that yom can refer to an indefinite period, in which case it might be more properly translated “age,” but they consider this usage to be relatively rare. Moreover, even where it does mean an indefinite period, this can hardly be stretched to include the billions of years that uniformitarian geology would assign to periods represented by the “days” of Genesis. Besides, in Genesis 1 the days are each said to have an evening and a morning. Whitcomb and Morris say, “Since God’s revealed Word describes this Creation as taking place in six ‘days’ and since there apparently is no contextual basis for understanding these days in any sort of symbolic sense, it is an act of both faith and reason to accept them, literally, as real days (Ibid, 228).”

The perspicuity of Scripture has bearing here. True, not all Scripture is equally clear, but the creationist would argue that it is very clear at this point. “Suppose the creation did take place in six twenty-four-hour days,” he might say. “How could God possibly tell us that more clearly or directly than by the language we have in Genesis?”

**Second, the summary shows the weaknesses and perhaps even the ultimate failure of evolution, the “great escape mechanism” of modern man**. Where does evolution fail? In addition to its failure to provide adequate supporting data from the fossil record, which I have already alluded to, Whitcomb and Morris lay particular stress on the problem evolution has with the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics is energy conservation. It says that energy is neither created nor lost. It is simply changed from one form to another. The second law states that in spite of this conservation the energy available for useful work does decrease so that the universe can properly be said to be “running down.” To give just one illustration, the energy of the sun is not being destroyed by the combustion going on on its surface—the energy latent in the sun’s matter is being converted to heat—but the heat largely dissipates into space and becomes useless.

A consequence of this second law is that in any closed system order tends to move in the direction of disorder or disarrangement. Take the example that Robert Kofahl and Kelly Segraves give in their book, The Creation Explanation. They ask us to imagine an orderly pile of ping-pong balls resting at the head of a flight of stairs. For the sake of the illustration they also ask us to imagine that the balls are perfectly resilient so that they are capable of bouncing forever without losing their original energy. Imagine that someone jars the balls so that the pile collapses and the balls begin to roll down over the first step and then bounce on down to the bottom of the stairs and so on around the room. What will happen? The balls will continue bouncing but in increasing disorder. They will not bounce back up into their original position and assemble themselves on the upper step, even though they continue bouncing for billions of years. There is a mathematical possibility of that happening, but it is a practical impossibility, which is to say: It does not happen. Yet evolution would have us believe that the complex order of the universe has come about from just such random happenings (Robert E. Kofahl and Kelly L. Segraves, The Creation Explanation: A Scientific Alternative to Evolution. Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1975, 33-35).

Whitcomb and Morris conclude, “The plain facts of the situation, therefore, are that evolution has been simply assumed as the universal principle of change in nature, despite the fact that there is no experimental evidence supporting it and despite the still more amazing fact that universal experience and experimentation have demonstrated this universal principle of change to be its very opposite: namely, that of deterioration” (Whitcomb and Morris, The Genesis Flood, 227).

But if the earth is young (only twelve thousand years or so) and if it is the result of God’s special acts of creation taking place within the short period of only six literal twenty-four-hour days, where did the various strata of the earth’s crust come from? Even more important, where did the various fossil-bearing strata come from? Didn’t these require long periods of time, hundreds of thousands if not billions of years in time, for their formation? The creationists’ answer is that although the strata may have been laid down in various epochs—at the time of the initial creation (by fiat), during the work of the six literal days, or in our own relatively modern period—the significant, fossil-bearing strata are largely the result of the flood.

The idea here is that a flood of worldwide proportions would be immensely destructive. It would require huge amounts of water pushed up from beneath and precipitated from above, presumably by the condensation of a vapor or cloud cover, with cataclysmic effects on the earth’s crust. The amount of water necessary to cover the earth would carry virtually all soil with it into the oceans by erosion, where it would pile up in strata. Various creatures would be buried in those strata, the simpler and smaller on the bottom, the larger and more vigorous on top—hence, the appearance of various ages in which life developed from simpler to more complex forms. After the flood new land masses would have emerged, and some of these newly formed strata would have been exposed.

Creationists believe that their views are reinforced by additional considerations:

1. Present-day conditions are forming very few potential fossil deposits, and most of these are unusual. Nothing comparable to the known fossil beds of ancient times is being formed today, which makes us think that some past catastrophe was necessary to produce them.

2. The facts of geology do not support the view of essentially harmonious strata with the older levels on the bottom and the most recent on the top. There is a tendency in this direction, but the facts reflect a far more unruly situation. A universal flood accounts for these facts more adequately than the theory of lengthy geological ages and slow evolutionary development.

3. The existence of huge fossil deposits containing thousands of large, complex species, such as the mammoth deposits in Siberia, is best explained either by the flood or by the abnormal weather conditions that must have followed it.

After presenting this and other evidence, Kofahl and Segraves conclude, “The foregoing features of the fossil and geological records all seem to be in agreement more with the catastrophic than with the uniformitatrion concept of geological processes of the past. Thus, in this respect, fossils corroborate the structural data given previously and lend themselves readily to the framework of biblical catastrophism.”

How Old is the Earth?

In spite of the careful biblical and scientific research that has accumulated in support of the creationists’ view, there are problems that make the theory wrong to most (including many evangelical) scientists. We conclude by listing the most important.

Data from various disciplines point to a very old earth and an even older universe. Some of the conclusions from this data, as well as some of the data itself, were presented in earlier chapters. There is astronomical data. One line of astronomical data concerns the speed of light. Light travels in a vacuum at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Therefore, 1) if the speed of light is constant, and 2) the light we observe coming from the stars actually comes from those stars, and 3) if our distance measurements for these stars are substantially accurate, then the universe is at least as old as the light-travel-time coming to us from the most distant objects. The most distant objects we are able to observe are quasars. The travel time for light coming from these objects is more than 10 billion years. Therefore, the age of the universe by this mode of reckoning is at least more than that. A second line of data is based on the apparent expansion of the universe. All parts of the universe are retreating from us and from one another at enormous speeds, the most distant observable galaxies at speeds in excess of 100 million miles per hour. by working backward from their present position and speed to the initial “big bang,” the origin of the universe can be set at between 15 and 20 billion years ago. A third line of astronomical data concerns the nature and normal life of stars. Stars are of various ages, having been formed over the whole history of the universe from 15 to 20 billion years ago until today. Our own Milky Way galaxy is about as old as the universe. Our sun is considerably younger, about 5 to 10 billion years old.

The point of combining this data is that, although it is related in some ways, it is based on different approaches to the problem of age and on different assumptions. Yet it gives a roughly consistent picture. According to these methods, the universe would be about 15 to 20 billion years old, the sun about 5 to 10 billion years old, and our solar system about 5 billion years old.

Second, there is the evidence of radioactive methods of dating earth (or moon) rocks. This method is based on the observation that certain kinds of unstable or radioactive elements decay from an unstable to a stable form at measurable rates. By measuring the amount of the original element and the amount of the derivative or “daughter” element in any given sample, an approximate age of the sample may be given. This is an admittedly uncertain method. Many criticisms have been given. But valid or not, the data it gives points to an earth that is about 4.55 billion years old, which is in line with the astrological evidence. Even allowing for large percentages of error, this is still a long way from an earth that is only a few thousand years old.

Third, there is the evidence of nonradiometric dating. Types of data available in this category are: carbonate deposits, sediments, deposits of evaporites, the development of coral reefs, seafloor spreading, and other matters. These all suggest an earth older than that allowed by the creationist model.

We must say, as we summarize this first problem with the creationist view, that the creationists have given answers to each of these lines of evidence for an old earth and an even older universe. They have spoken of a lack of uniformity of scientific laws in past ages; of a universe created “in motion,” as it were, with light already in progress from a distant point; of radioactive dating methods as unreliable, sometimes giving wildly conflicting data, and so on. But when everything is considered, it seems to many persons (myself included) that the creationists are running against too many lines of more or less independent evidence against their case on behalf of a young earth. Therefore, whatever else may be true about their viewpoint, it is hard to believe that the creation of the earth and universe was recent.

Remaining Problems

A second problem, which bothers most geologists and some other people as well, is the use of the flood to explain the various strata of the earth’s outer crust, particularly those that contain fossils. Let us assume that the flood was universal and immensely destructive. Let us also assume that the flood carried most of the earth’s soil and millions of dead or soon-to-be drowned organisms before it. Let us even assume that the simpler and less mobile organisms were buried first (and are therefore found in the lower layers of sedimentary rocks) and that the larger and more mobile creatures survived longer but were eventually overcome and buried in higher layers of rock. Assuming all of that—and some of it is questionable—how is it that plants, which are not mobile, show the same general distribution from the less complex to the more complex forms, or that fish (which the Bible does not say were killed and need not have been) are nevertheless included in the same general fossil distribution?

L. Duane Thuman raises these questions and asks, “How did the plants survive such a destructive flood and become re-established so quickly that the dove could bring back an olive leaf? A worldwide flood which buried both plants and animals under sediment sometimes thousands of feet deep makes this highly improbable.”

A third and final problem, which we have not discussed up to now but that is very important to the creationists’ view of Genesis 1, is the appearance of age. Since the universe is extremely complex, it gives the impression of having gotten to its present form through changes taking place over a long period of time. For example, a tree possessing hundreds of rings in its trunk gives the impression of its having reached that form by growing taller and thicker bit by bit over a period of many years. But according to the creationists, everything we see (including the original tree) was brought into being within six literal days. Therefore, it was either brought to a mature state extremely quickly, within minutes or hours, or else was created to look as if it had gone through a long and complex history. To Adam, newly created, the Garden of Eden may have seemed to have been around for years, but in reality it had been created for him in a mature form or was quickly brought to a mature form only three days previously. In the same way, say the creationists, the universe does indeed appear to have had a beginning 15 to 20 billion years ago, but it was created in motion and is actually only 10 or 15 thousand years old. The same approach can be applied to the age of rocks, coral reefs, and other apparent evidence for an older earth or universe.

At this point it is possible to ridicule the six-day creationism theory. Some have! But this should not be done too quickly, particularly not by those who believe in the createdness of Adam. How old was Adam when he was created? There is no need to think of him as a baby. From whom would he have come? Presumably he was created fully grown. But if that is so, then it is not impossible to think that God might have created the rest of the universe “fully grown” also, according to the same pattern.

“But that would mean that God is deceiving us,” object some, “and God cannot do that and be good.” Whitcomb and Morris hit this objection head-on, claiming that God cannot be accused of deceit inasmuch as he has given a revelation in the Bible of how things have actually been created. “If God reveals how and when he created the universe and its inhabitants, then to charge God with falsehood in creating ‘apparent age’ is preposterous in the extreme—even blasphemous. It is not God who has lied, but rather man who has called him a liar, through rejection of his revelation of Creation as given in Genesis and verified by the Lord Jesus Christ!”

It is a shrewd point—yet not entirely convincing. Although God may have had to create Adam as a mature individual, and presumably did so, there is no reason to think on that basis that he therefore also needed to do so in other areas. Why would God make the tree look old rather than merely giving it time to grow old? What was the hurry? Or again, even if God did create the magnificent universe we know just thousands of years ago, why make it look as if it is much older? Why make the quasars look 10 billion years old? We cannot even see them. What possible point would such a creation have?

None of this is to suggest that God could not have done things in this fashion if he chose to do so. Nor is it to say that the creationists have not made a very good case for their position. But there are problems and questions, and it is because of these that the quest for an explanation by believing scientists goes on.

What About Science?

There is one last point. The possibility of doing science in our day or any other day is undergirded by the assumption of certain laws of nature, operating in the past and continuing to operate on into the future. But according to the creationists, those laws were not operating or else were entirely different during the period of creation itself, and therefore any scientific investigation of creation is both impossible and illegitimate. Is that what our knowledge of God’s ways leads us to expect? Are we given minds that can reason, only to be told that at the point of creation the data they perceive and the basis on which they would reason are an illusion? If so, it is the end of science, at least in this area, and it may be the end of other thinking also.

If the earth and the universe look old when they actually are not, why should any of our observations be trusted? True, the Bible tells us much, and it can be trusted. But the Bible does not tell us everything. It does not even tell me that I exist. Perhaps I do not. Perhaps appearances in this area too are deceiving. Taken to its extreme, the idea of “apparent age” (or “apparent” anything) leads to skepticism, and we are not to be skeptics. We are to know and know we know—by the Word of God and by that limited but nevertheless extensive and extremely wonderful revelation of God in nature, perceived and understood by reason.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE AGE OF THE EARTH CLICK ON THIS LINK: http://creation.com/how-old-is-the-earth

About the Preacher

James Montgomery Boice, Th.D., (July 7, 1938 – June 15, 2000) was a Reformed theologian, Bible teacher, and pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1968 until his death. He is heard on The Bible Study Hour radio broadcast and was a well-known author and speaker in evangelical and Reformed circles. He also served as Chairman of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy for over ten years and was a founding member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. James Boice was one of my favorite Bible teachers. Thankfully – many of his books and expositions of Scripture are still in print and more are becoming available. The sermon above was adapted from Chapter 8 in Genesis 1-11: An Expositional Commentary. vol. 1: Creation and Fall. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006.

Under Dr. Boice’s leadership, Tenth Presbyterian Church became a model for ministry in America’s northeastern inner cities. When he assumed the pastorate of Tenth Church there were 350 people in regular attendance. At his death the church had grown to a regular Sunday attendance in three services of more than 1,200 persons, a total membership of 1,150 persons. Under his leadership, the church established a pre-school for children ages 3-5 (now defunct), a high school known as City Center Academy, a full range of adult fellowship groups and classes, and specialized outreach ministries to international students, women with crisis pregnancies, homosexual and HIV-positive clients, and the homeless. Many of these ministries are now free-standing from the church.

Dr. Boice gave leadership to groups beyond his own organization. For ten years he served as Chairman of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, from its founding in 1977 until the completion of its work in 1988. ICBI produced three classic, creedal documents: “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,” “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics” and “The Chicago Statement on the Application of the Bible to Contemporary Issues.” The organization published many books, held regional “Authority of Scripture” seminars across the country, and sponsored the large lay “Congress on the Bible I,” which met in Washington, D.C., in September 1987. He also served on the Board of Bible Study Fellowship.

He founded the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals (Alliance) in 1994, initially a group of pastors and theologians who were focused on bringing the 20th and now 21st century church to a new reformation. In 1996 this group met and wrote the Cambridge Declaration. Following the Cambridge meetings, the Alliance assumed leadership of the programs and publications formerly under Evangelical Ministries, Inc. (Dr. Boice) and Christians United for Reformation (Horton) in late 1996.

Dr. Boice was a prodigious world traveler. He journeyed to more than thirty countries in most of the world’s continents, and he taught the Bible in such countries as England, France, Canada, Japan, Australia, Guatemala, Korea and Saudi Arabia. He lived in Switzerland for three years while pursuing his doctoral studies.

Dr. Boice held degrees from Harvard University (A.B.), Princeton Theological Seminary (B.D.), the University of Basel, Switzerland (D. Theol.) and the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church (D.D., honorary).

A prolific author, Dr. Boice had contributed nearly forty books on a wide variety of Bible related themes. Most are in the form of expositional commentaries, growing out of his preaching: Psalms (1 volume), Romans (4 volumes), Genesis (3 volumes), Daniel, The Minor Prophets (2 volumes), The Sermon on the Mount, John (5 volumes, reissued in one), Ephesians, Phillippians and The Epistles of John. Many more popular volumes: Hearing God When You Hurt, Mind Renewal in a Mindless Christian Life, Standing on the Rock, The Parables of Jesus, The Christ of Christmas, The Christ of the Open Tomb and Christ’s Call to Discipleship. He also authored Foundations of the Christian Faith a 740-page book of theology for laypersons. Many of these books have been translated into other languages, such as: French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

He was married to Linda Ann Boice (born McNamara), who continues to teach at the high school they co-founded.

Sources: Taken directly from the Aliance of Confessing Evangelicals’ Website

Boice’s Books:

from the Tenth Presbyterian Church website
Books
1970 Witness and Revelation in the Gospel of John (Zondervan)
1971 Philippians: An Expositional Commentary (Zondervan)
1972 The Sermon on the Mount (Zondervan)
1973 How to Live the Christian Life (Moody; originally, How to Live It Up,
Zondervan)
1974 Ordinary Men Called by God (Victor; originally, How God Can Use
Nobodies)
1974 The Last and Future World (Zondervan)
1975-79 The Gospel of John: An Expositional Commentary (5 volumes,
Zondervan; issued in one volume, 1985; 5 volumes, Baker 1999)
1976 “Galatians” in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Zondervan)
1977 Can You Run Away from God? (Victor)
1977 Does Inerrancy Matter? (Tyndale)
1977 Our Sovereign God, editor (Baker)
1978 The Foundation of Biblical Authority, editor (Zondervan)
1979 The Epistles of John: An Expositional Commentary (Zondervan)
1979 Making God’s Word Plain, editor (Tenth Presbyterian Church)
1980 Our Savior God: Studies on Man, Christ and the Atonement, editor (Baker)
1982-87 Genesis: An Expositional Commentary (3 volumes, Zondervan)
1983 The Parables of Jesus (Moody)
1983 The Christ of Christmas (Moody)
1983-86 The Minor Prophets: An Expositional Commentary (2 volumes,
Zondervan)
1984 Standing on the Rock (Tyndale). Reissued 1994 (Baker)
1985 The Christ of the Open Tomb (Moody)
1986 Foundations of the Christian Faith (4 volumes in one, InterVarsity
Press; original volumes issued, 1978-81)
1986 Christ’s Call to Discipleship (Moody)
1988 Transforming Our World: A Call to Action, editor (Multnomah)
1988, 98 Ephesians: An Expositional Commentary (Baker)
1989 Daniel: An Expositional Commentary (Zondervan)
1989 Joshua: We Will Serve the Lord (Revell)
1990 Nehemiah: Learning to Lead (Revell)
1992-94 Romans (4 volumes, Baker)
1992 The King Has Come (Christian Focus Publications)
1993 Amazing Grace (Tyndale)
1993 Mind Renewal in a Mindless Age (Baker)
1994-98 Psalms (3 volumes, Baker)
1994 Sure I Believe, So What! (Christian Focus Publications)
1995 Hearing God When You Hurt (Baker)
1996 Two Cities, Two Loves (InterVarsity)
1996 Here We Stand: A Call from Confessing Evangelicals, editor with
Benjamin E. Sasse (Baker)
1997 Living By the Book (Baker)
1997 Acts: An Expositional Commentary (Baker)
1999 The Heart of the Cross, with Philip Graham Ryken (Crossway)
1999 What Makes a Church Evangelical?
2000 Hymns for a Modern Reformation, with Paul S. Jones
2001 Matthew: An Expositional Commentary (2 volumes, Baker)
2001 Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? (Crossway)
2002 The Doctrines of Grace, with Philip Graham Ryken (Crossway)
2002 Jesus on Trial, with Philip Graham Ryken (Crossway)

Chapters

1985 “The Future of Reformed Theology” in David F. Wells, editor,
Reformed Theology in America: A History of Its Modern Development
(Eerdmans)
1986 “The Preacher and Scholarship” in Samuel T. Logan, editor, The
Preacher and Preaching: Reviving the Art in the Twentieth Century
(Presbyterian and Reformed)
1992 “A Better Way: The Power of Word and Spirit” in Michael Scott
Horton, editor, Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church?
(Moody)
1994 “The Sovereignty of God” in John D. Carson and David W. Hall,
editors, To Glorify and Enjoy God: A Commemoration of the 350th
Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly (Banner of Truth Trust)

Charles Spurgeon: “Going Home–A Christmas Sermon” on Mark 5:19

The New Park Street Pulpit 1

GOING HOME—A CHRISTMAS SERMON

NO. 109

A SERMON DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, DECEMBER 21, 1856,

BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE MUSIC HALL, ROYAL SURREY GARDENS.

“Go home to your friends and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and has had compassion on you.” Mark 5:19.

THE case of the man here referred to is a very extraordinary one—it occupies a place among the memorabilia of Christ’s life, perhaps as high as anything which is recorded by either of the Evangelists! This poor wretch, being possessed with a legion of evil spirits, had been driven to something worse than madness. He fixed his home among the tombs where he dwelt by night and day and was the terror of all those who passed by. The authorities had attempted to curb him. He had been bound with fetters and chains, but in the paroxysms of his madness, he had torn the chains in sunder and broken the fetters in pieces. Attempts had been made to reclaim him, but no man could tame him. He was worse than the wild beasts—for they might be tamed. But his fierce nature would not yield. He was a misery to himself for he would run upon the mountains by night and day—crying and howling fearfully—cutting himself with the sharp flints and tor- turing his poor body in the most frightful manner. Jesus Christ passed by. He said to the devils, “Come out of him.” The man was healed in a moment—he fell down at Jesus’ feet. He became a rational being—an intelligent man. Yes, what is more—a convert to the Savior! Out of gratitude to his Deliverer, he said, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go. I will be Your constant companion and Your servant, permit me to be so.” “No,” said Christ, “I esteem your motive, it is one of gratitude to Me, but if you would show your gratitude, go home to your friends and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and has had compassion on you.”

Now this teaches us a very important fact, namely this—that true religion does not break in sunder the bonds of family relationship. True religion seldom encroaches upon that sacred, I had almost said, Divine institution called home. It does not separate men from their families and make them aliens to their flesh and blood. Superstition has done that. An awful superstition, which calls itself, Christianity, has sundered men from their kind. But true religion has never done so! Why, if I might be allowed to do such a thing, I would seek out the hermit in his lonely cavern and I would go to him and say, “Friend, if you are what you profess to be—a true servant of the living God and not a hypocrite, as I guess you are—if you are a true Believer in Christ and would show forth what He has done for you, upset that pitcher, eat the last piece of your bread. Leave this dreary cave, wash your face, untie your hemp belt—and if you would show your grati- tude, go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you! Can you edify the sere leaves of the forest? Can the beasts learn to adore that God whom your gratitude should strive to honor? Do you hope to convert these rocks and wake the echoes into songs? No, go back—dwell with your friends, reclaim your kinship with men and unite, again, with your fellows—for this is Christ’s approved way of showing gratitude.” And I would go to every mon- astery and every nunnery and say to the monks, “Come out Brethren, come out! If you are what you say you are, servants of God, go home to your friends! No more of this absurd discipline. It is not Christ’s rule! You are acting differently from what He would have you do—go home to your friends!” And to the sisters of mercy we would say, “Be sisters of mercy to your own sisters—go home to your friends—take care of your aged parents! Turn your own houses into con- vents—do not sit here nursing your pride by a disobedience to Christ’s rule, which says, “go home to your friends.” “Go home to your friends and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and has had compassion on you.” The love of a solitary and ascetic life—which is by some considered to be a Divine virtue—is neither more nor less than a disease of the mind! In the ages when there was but little benevolence and, consequently, few hands to build lunatic asy- lums, superstition supplied the lack of charity and silly men and women were allowed the indulgence of their fancies in secluded haunts or in easy laziness! Young has most truly said—

“The first sure symptoms of a mind in health Are rest of heart and pleasure found at home.”

Avoid, my Friends, above all things, those romantic and absurd conceptions of virtue which are the offspring of supersti- tion and the enemies of righteousness! Be not without natural affection, but love those who are knit to you by ties of na- ture.

True religion cannot be inconsistent with nature! It can never demand that I should abstain from weeping when my friend is dead. “Jesus wept.” It cannot deny me the privilege of a smile when Providence looks favorably upon me. For once Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, “Father, I thank You.” It does not make a man say to his father and mother, “I am no longer your son.” That is not Christianity, but something worse than what beasts would do—which would lead us to be entirely sundered from our fellows—to walk among them as if we had no kinship with them. To all who think a soli- tary life must be a life of piety, I would say, “It is the greatest delusion!” To all who think that those must be good people who break the ties of relationship, let us say, “Those are the best who maintain them.” Christianity makes a husband a better husband! It makes a wife a better wife than she was before! It does not free me from my duties as a son. It makes me a better son and my parents better parents. Instead of weakening my love, it gives me fresh reason for my affection. And he whom I loved before as my father, I now love as my Brother and co-worker in Christ Jesus. And she whom I reverenced as my mother, I now love as my Sister in the Covenant of Grace to be mine forever in the state that is to come. Oh, sup- pose not any of you, that Christianity was ever meant to interfere with households! It is intended to cement them and to make them households which death, itself, shall never sever—for it binds them up in the bundle of life with the Lord, their God, and re-unites the several individuals on the other side of the flood.

Now, I will tell you the reason why I selected my text. I thought within myself there are a large number of young men who always come to hear me preach. They always crowd the aisles of my Chapel and many of them, by His Grace, have been converted to God. Now, here is Christmas Day come round, again, and they are going home to see their friends. When they get home they will want a Christmas Carol in the evening. I think I will suggest one to them—more especially to such of them as have been lately converted—I will give them a theme for their discourse on Christmas evening. It may not be quite so amusing as, “The Wreck of the Golden Mary,” but it will be quite as interesting to Christian people. It shall be this—“Go home and tell your friends what the Lord has done for your souls and how He has had compassion on you.” For my part, I wish there were 20 Christmas days in the year! It is seldom that young men can meet with their friends. It is rarely they can all be united as happy families. And though I have no respect to the religious observance of the day, yet I love it as a family institution! It is one of England’s brightest days—the great Sabbath of the year—when the plow rests in its furrow. When the din of business is hushed—when the mechanic and the working man go out to re- fresh themselves upon the green sward of the glad earth! If any of you are employers, you will pardon me for the digres- sion when I most respectfully beg you to pay your employees the same wages on Christmas Day as if they were at work. I am sure it will make their houses glad if you will do so. It is unfair for you to make them feast or fast, unless you give them wherewithal to feast and make themselves glad on that day of joy!

But now to come to the subject. We are going home to see our friends and here is the story some of us have to tell. “Go home to your friends and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and has had compassion on you.” First, here is what they are to tell. Then, secondly, why they are to tell it. And then thirdly, how they ought to tell it.

I. First, then, HERE IS WHAT THEY ARE TO TELL. It is to be a story of personal experience. “Go home to your friends and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and has had compassion on you.” You are not to repair to your houses and forthwith begin to preach. That you are not commanded to do! You are not to begin to take up Doc- trinal subjects and speak at length on them and endeavor to bring persons to your peculiar views and sentiments. You are not to go home with sundry Doctrines you have lately learned and try to teach these. At least you are not commanded to do so. You may, if you please and none shall hinder you. But you are to go home and tell not what you have believed but what you have felt—what you really know to be your own! Not what great things you have read, but what great things the Lord has done for you. Not, alone, what you have seen done in the great congregation and how great sinners have turned to God, but what the Lord has done for you. And mark this—there is never a more interesting story than that which a man tells about himself! The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner derives much of its interest because the man who told it was, himself, the mariner. He sat down, that man whose finger was skinny, like the finger of death and began to tell that dismal story of the ship at sea in the great calm when slimy things did crawl with legs over the shiny sea. The wed- ding guests sat still to listen, for the old man was, himself, a story. There is always a great deal of interest excited by a personal narrative. Virgil, the poet, knew this and, therefore, he wisely makes Aeneas tell his own story and makes him begin it by saying, “In which I also had a great part, myself.” So, if you would interest your friends, tell them what you

felt yourself. Tell them how you were once a lost, abandoned sinner, how the Lord met with you, how you bowed your knees and poured out your soul before God and how, at last, you leaped with joy, for you thought you heard Him say within you, “I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My name’s sake.” Tell your friends a story of your own personal experience!

Note, next, it must be a story of Free Grace. It is not, “Tell your friends how great things you have done yourself,” but, “how great things the Lord has done for you.” The man who always dwells upon free will and the power of the crea- ture, but denies the Doctrines of Grace, invariably mixes up a great deal of what he has done, himself, in telling his expe- rience. But the Believer in Free Grace, who holds the great cardinal Truths of the Gospel, ignores this and declares, “I will tell what the Lord has done for me. It is true I must tell how I was first made to pray. But I will tell it thus—

“Grace taught my soul to pray

Grace made my eyes overflow.” It is true, I must tell in how many troubles and trials God has been with me. But I will tell it thus—

“It was Grace which kept me to this day,

And will not let me go.” He says nothing about his own doings, or willings, or prayers, or seeking—but ascribes it all to the love and Grace of

the great God who looks on sinners in love and makes them His children—heirs of everlasting life! Go home, young man, and tell the poor sinner’s story! Go home, young woman, and open your diary and give your friends stories of Di- vine Grace. Tell them of the mighty works of God’s hand which He has worked in you from His own free, Sovereign, un- deserved Love. Make it a Free Grace story around your family fire!

In the next place, this poor man’s tale was a grateful story. I know it was grateful because the man said, “I will tell you how great things the Lord has done for me.” And (not meaning a pun in the least degree) I may observe that a man who is grateful, is always full of the greatness of the mercy which God has shown him. He always thinks that what God has done for him is immensely good and supremely great. Perhaps when you are telling the story, one of your friends will say, “And what of that?” And your answer will be, “It may not be a great thing to you, but it is to me. You say it is little to repent but I have not found it so. It is a great and precious thing to be brought to know myself to be a sinner and to confess it—do you say it is a little thing to have found a Savior?” Look them in the face and say, “If you had found Him, too, you would not think it little. You think it little I have lost the burden from my back? If you had suffered with it and felt its weight as I have, for many a long year, you would think it no little thing to be emancipated and free through a sight of the Cross.” Tell them it is a great story and if they cannot see its greatness, shed great tears and tell it to them with great earnestness and I hope they may be brought to believe that you, at least, are grateful, if they are not. May God grant that you may tell a grateful story. No story is more worth hearing than a tale of gratitude!

And lastly, upon this point—it must be a tale told by a poor sinner who feels himself not to have deserved what he has received. “How He has had compassion on you.” It was not a mere act of kindness, but an act of free compassion to- wards one who was in misery. Oh, I have heard men tell the story of their conversion and of their spiritual life in such a way that my heart has loathed them and their story, too, for they have told of their sins as if they did boast in the great- ness of their crime! And they have mentioned the love of God not with a tear of gratitude—not with the simple thanks- giving of the really humble heart—but as if they as much exalted themselves as they exalted God. Oh, when we tell the story of our own conversion, I would have it done with deep sorrow—remembering what we used to be—and with great joy and gratitude, remembering how little we deserve these things. I was once preaching upon conversion and salvation and I felt within myself, as preachers often do, that it was but dry work to tell this story and a dull, dull tale it was to me, but all of a sudden the thought crossed my mind, “Why, you are a poor lost ruined sinner, yourself! Tell it, tell it, as you received it! Begin to tell of the Grace of God as you trust you feel it, yourself.” Why, then, my eyes began to be fountains of tears—those hearers who had nodded their heads began to brighten up and they listened because they were hearing something which the man felt, himself, and which they recognized as being true to him—if it were not true to them. Tell your story, my Hearers, as lost sinners! Do not go to your home and walk into your house with a supercilious air, as much as to say, “Here’s a saint come home to the poor sinners to tell them a story.” But go home like a poor sinner! And when you go in, your mother remembers what you used to be—you need not tell her there is a change—she will notice it—if it is only one day you are with her. And perhaps she will say, “John, what is this change that is in you?” And if she is a pious mother, you will begin to tell her the story and I know, man though you are, you will not blush when I say it— she will put her arms round your neck and kiss you as she never did before—for you are her twice-born son! Hers from whom she shall never part, even though death, itself, shall divide you for a brief moment. “Go home, then, and tell your friends what great things the Lord has done for you and how He has had compassion on you.”

II. But now, in the second place—Why SHOULD WE TELL THIS STORY? For I hear many of my congregation say, “Sir, I could relate that story to anyone sooner than I could to my own friends! I could come to your vestry and tell you something of what I have tasted and handled of the Word of God, but I could not tell my father, nor my mother, nor my brothers, nor my sisters.” Come, then. I will try and argue with you to induce you to do so—that I may send you home this Christmas Day to be missionaries in the localities to which you belong and to be real preachers! Dear Friends, do tell this story when you go home.

First, for your Master’s sake. Oh, I know you love Him. I am sure you do—if you have proof that He loves you! You can never think of Gethsemane and of its bloody sweat, of Gabbatha and of the mangled back of Christ, flayed by the whip—you can never think of Calvary and His pierced hands and feet without loving Him! And it is a strong argument when I say to you, for His dear sake, who loved you so much, go home and tell it. What? Do you think we can have so much done for us and yet not tell it? Our children, if anything should be done for them, do not stay many minutes before they are telling all the company, “such an one has given me such a present and bestowed on me such-and-such a favor.” And should the children of God be backward in declaring how they were saved when their feet made haste to Hell and how redeeming mercy snatched them as brands from the burning? You love Jesus, young man! I put it to you, then, will you refuse to tell the tale of His love to you? Shall your lips be dumb when His honor is concerned? Will you not, wherev- er you go, tell of the God who loved you and died for you? This poor man, we are told, “departed and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him and all men did marvel.” So with you. If Christ has done much for you, you cannot help it—you must tell it! My esteemed friend, Mr. Oneken, a minister in Germany, told us last Monday evening that as soon as he was converted, himself, the first impulse of his new-born soul was to do good to others. And where should he do that good? Well, he thought he would go to Germany! It was his own native land and he thought the command was, “Go home to your friends and tell them.” Well, there was not a single Baptist in all Germany, nor any with whom he could sympathize, for the Lutherans had swerved from the faith of Luther and gone aside from the Truth of God. But he went there and preached—and he has now 70 or 80 churches established on the continent! What made him do it? Nothing but love for his Master who had done so much for him could have forced him to go and tell his kins- men the marvelous tale of Divine Goodness!

But, in the next place, are your friends pious? Then go home and tell them, in order to make their hearts glad. I re- ceived last night a short letter, written with a trembling hand, by one who is past the natural age of man living in the county of Essex. His son, under God, had been converted by hearing of the Word preached and the good man could not help writing to the minister, thanking him and blessing, most of all, his God, that his son had been regenerated. “Sir,” he begins, “an old rebel writes to thank you and, above all, to thank his God, that his dear son has been converted.” I shall treasure up that epistle. It goes on to say, “Go on! And the Lord bless you.” And there was another case I heard some time ago where a young woman went home to her parents and when her mother saw her, she said, “There! If the minister had made me a present of all London, I should not have thought so much of it as I do of this—to think that you have really become a changed character and are living in the fear of God!” Oh, if you want to make your mother’s heart leap within her and to make your father glad—if you would make that sister happy who sent you so many letters which sometimes you read against a lamp-post, with your pipe in your mouth—go home and tell your mother that her wishes are all accomplished! That her prayers are heard, that you will no longer tease her about her Sunday school class and no longer laugh at her because she loves the Lord! Tell her that you will go with her to the House of God, for you love God and you have said, “Your people shall be my people and your God shall be my God, for I have a hope that your Heaven shall be my Heaven forever.” Oh, what a happy thing it would be if some here who had gone astray should thus go home! It was my privilege a little while ago to preach for a noble institution for the reception of women who had led abandoned lives. Before I preached the sermon, I prayed to God to bless it and in the printed sermon you will notice that at the end of it, there is an account of two persons who were blessed by that sermon and restored. Now, let me tell you a story of what once happened to Mr. Vanderkist, a city missionary, who toils all night long to do good in that great work. There had been a drunken broil in the street. He stepped between the men to part them and said something to a woman who stood there, concerning how dreadful a thing it was that men should thus be intemperate. She walked with him a little way and he, with her, and she began to tell him such a tale of woe, and sin, too—how she had been lured away from her parents’ home in Somersetshire and had been brought up here to her soul’s eternal hurt. He took her home with him and taught her the fear and love of Christ. And what was the first thing she did, when she returned to the paths of godliness and found Christ to be the sinner’s Savior? She said, “Now, I must go home to my friends.” Her friends were written to—they came to meet her at the station at Bristol and you can hardly conceive what a happy meeting it was! The father and mother had lost their daughter—they had never heard from her. And there she was, brought back by the agency of this institution [The London Female Dormitory] and restored to the bosom of her family! Ah, is there such an one here? I know not, among such a multitude, if there may be such an one. Woman! Have you strayed from your family? Have you left them long? “Go home to your friends,” I beseech you, before your father totters to his grave and before your moth- er’s gray hairs sleep on the snow-white pillow of her coffin. Go back, I beseech you! Tell her you are penitent. Tell her that God has met with you—that the young minister said, “Go back to your friends.” And if so, I shall not blush to have said these things, though you may think I ought not to have mentioned them. For if I may but win one such soul, I will bless God to all eternity! “Go home to your friends! Go home and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you.”

Can you imagine the scene, when the poor demoniac mentioned in my text went home? He had been a raving mad- man! And when he came and knocked at the door, don’t you think you see his friends calling to one another in affright, “Oh, there he is again,” and the mother running upstairs and locking all the doors because her son had come back who was raving mad? And the little ones crying because they knew what he had been before—how he cut himself with stones because he was possessed with devils. And can you picture their joy when the man said, “Mother! Jesus Christ has healed me! Let me in. By His Grace I am no more a lunatic!” And when the father opened the door, he said, “Father! I am not what I was—all the evil spirits are gone! By God’s Grace I shall live in the tombs no longer. I need to tell you how the glorious Man who worked my deliverance accomplished the miracle—how He said to the devils, ‘Get you hence,’ and they ran down a steep place into the sea. And I am come home healed and saved!” Oh, if such an one, possessed with sin, were here this morning and would go home to his friends to tell them of his release—I think the scene would be some- what similar.

Once more, dear Friends. I hear one of you say. “Ah, Sir, would to God I could go home to pious friends! But when I go home, I go into the worst of places. For my home is among those who never knew God, themselves, and, consequently, never prayed for me and never taught me anything concerning Heaven.” Well, young man, go home to your friends. If they are ever so bad, they are still your friends. I sometimes meet with young men wishing to join the Church who say when I ask them about their father, “Oh, Sir, I am parted from my father.” Then I say, “Young man, you may just go and see your father before I have anything to do with you. If you are at ill-will with your father and mother, I will not receive you into the Church. If they are ever so bad, they are still your parents.” Go home to them and tell them, not to make them glad, for they will very likely be angry with you—but tell them for their soul’s salvation. I hope, when you are tell- ing the story of what God did for you, that they will be led by the Spirit to desire the same mercy, themselves! But I will give you a piece of advice. Do not tell this story to your ungodly friends when they are all together, for they will laugh at you. Take them one by one, when you can get them alone, and begin to tell it to them and they will hear you seriously. There was once a very pious lady who kept a lodging-house for young men. All the young men were very merry and giddy and she wanted to say something to them concerning religion. She introduced the subject and it was passed off immedi- ately with a laugh. She thought within herself, “I have made a mistake.” The next morning, after breakfast, when they were all leaving, she said to one of them, “Sir, I should like to speak with you a moment or two,” and taking him aside into another room she talked with him. The next morning she took another and the next morning another and it pleased God to bless her simple statement—when it was given individually! But without doubt, if she had spoken to them all together, they would have backed each other up in laughing her to scorn. Reprove a man alone! A verse may hit him while a sermon flies right by him. You may be the means of bringing a man to Christ who has often heard the Word and only laughed at it, but who cannot resist a gentle admonition.

In one of the States of America there was an infidel who was a great despiser of God, a hater of the Sabbath and all religious institutions. What to do with him, the ministers did not know. They met together and prayed for him. But among the rest, one Elder resolved to spend a long time in prayer for the man. After that, he got on horseback and rode down to the man’s forge, for he was a blacksmith. He left his horse outside and said, “Neighbor, I am under very great concern about your soul’s salvation. I tell you, I pray day and night for your soul’s salvation.” He left him and rode home on his horse. The man went inside to his house after a minute or two and said to one of his faithful friends, “Here’s a new argument. Here’s Elder Bob been down here. He did not dispute and never said a word to me except this, ‘I say, I am under great concern about your soul. I cannot bear you should be lost.’ Oh, that fellow,” he said, “I cannot answer him.” And the tears began to roll down his cheeks. He went to his wife and said, “I can’t make this out. I never cared about my soul but here’s an Elder that has no connection with me, but I have always laughed at him and he has come five miles this morning, on horseback, just to tell me he is under concern about my salvation.” After a little while he thought it was time he should be under concern about his salvation, too! He went in, shut the door, began to pray and the next day he was at the Elder’s house telling him that he, too, was under concern about his salvation and asking him to tell him what he must do to be saved. Oh, that the everlasting God might make use of some of those now present in the same way—that they might be induced to—

“Tell to others round What a dear Savior they have found! To point to His redeeming blood, And say, Behold the way to God!”

III. I shall not detain you much longer, but there is a third point, upon which we must be very brief. HOW IS THIS STORY TO BE TOLD?

First, tell it truthfully. Do not tell more than you know. Do not tell John Bunyan’s experience, when you ought to tell your own! Do not tell your mother you have felt what only Rutherford felt. Tell her no more than the truth. Tell your experience truthfully, for maybe one single fly in the pot of ointment will spoil it and one statement you may make which is not true may ruin it all. Tell the story truthfully.

In the next place, tell it very humbly. I have said that before. Do not intrude yourselves upon those who are older and know more, but tell your story humbly. Not as a preacher, not ex-cathedra but as a friend and as a son.

Next, tell it very earnestly. Let them see you mean it. Do not talk about religion flippantly. You will do no good if you do. Do not make puns on texts. Do not quote Scripture by way of joke—if you do, you may talk till you are dumb— you will do no good if you in the least degree give them occasion to laugh by laughing at holy things yourself. Tell it very earnestly.

And then, tell it very devoutly. Do not try to tell your tale to man till you have told it, first, to God. When you are at home on Christmas Day let no one see your face till God has seen it. Be up in the morning. Wrestle with God. And if your friends are not converted, wrestle with God for them—and then you will find it easy work to wrestle with them for God. Seek, if you can, to get them one by one and tell them the story. Do not be afraid—only think of the good you may possibly do, by God’s Grace. Remember, he that saves a soul from death has covered a multitude of sins and he shall have stars in his crown forever and ever. Seek to be under God—to be the means of leading your own beloved brothers and sisters to seek and to find the Lord Jesus Christ. And then one day, when you shall meet in Paradise, it will be a joy and blessedness to think that you are there and that your friends are there, too, whom God will have made you the instru- ment of saving. Let your reliance in the Holy Spirit be entire and honest. Trust not yourself, but fear not to trust Him. He can give you words. He can apply those words to their heart and so enable you to “minister Grace to the hearers.”

To close up, by a short and, I think, a pleasant turning of the text, I will suggest another meaning to it. Soon, dear Friends, very soon with some of us, the Master will say, “Go home to your friends.” You know where the Home is. It is up above the stars—

“Where our best friends, our kindred dwell,

Where God our Savior reigns.”

Yonder gray-headed man has buried all his friends. He has said, “I shall go to them but they will not return to me.” Soon his Master will say, “You have had enough tarrying here in this vale of tears—go home to your friends!” Oh, hap- py hour! Oh, blessed moment when that shall be the word—“Go home to your friends!” And when we go home to our friends in Paradise, what shall we do? Why, first we will repair to that blessed seat where Jesus sits, take off our crown and cast it at His feet and crown Him Lord of All! And when we have done that, what shall be our next employ? Why, we will tell the blessed ones in Heaven what the Lord has done for us and how He has had compassion on us. And shall such tales be told in Heaven? Shall that be the Christmas Carol of the angels? Yes it shall be. It has been published there be- fore—blush not to tell it yet again—for Jesus has told it before. “When He comes home, He calls together His friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep which was lost.” And you, poor Sheep, when you shall be gathered in, will you not tell how your Shepherd sought you and how He found you? Will you not sit in the grassy meads of Heaven and tell the story of your own redemption? Will you not talk with your Brothers and your Sisters and tell them how God loved you and has brought you there? Perhaps, you say, “It will be a very short story.” Ah, it would be if you could write it now. A little book might be the whole of your biography. But up there when your memory shall be enlarged, when your passion shall be purified and your understanding clear—you will find that what was but a tract on earth, will be a huge volume in Heaven! You will tell a long story, there, of God’s sustaining, restrain- ing, constraining Grace. And I think that when you pause to let another tell his tale and then another and then another, you will, at last, when you have been in Heaven a thousand years, break out and exclaim, “O Saints, I have something else to say.” Again they will tell their tales and again you will interrupt them with, “Oh, Beloved, I have thought of another case of God’s delivering mercy.” And so you will go on, giving them themes for songs, finding them the material for the warp and woof of Heavenly sonnets! “Go home,” He will soon say, “go home to your friends and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and has had compassion on you.” Wait awhile. Tarry His leisure and you shall soon be gathered to the land of the hereafter to the home of the blessed—where endless felicity shall be your portion! God grant a blessing for His name’s sake. Amen.

Adapted from The C. H. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0, Ages Software.

PRAY THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL USE THIS SERMON TO BRING MANY TO A SAVING KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST.

By the Grace of God, for all 63 volumes of C. H. Spurgeon sermons in modern English, and more than 400 Spanish translations, visit: http://www.spurgeongems.org

Volume 3

http://www.spurgeongems.org 7

TIM KELLER ON CHRISTMAS AND SUFFERING

When September 11th happened and New Yorkers started to suffer, you heard two voices. You heard the conventional moralistic voices saying, “When I see you suffer, it tells me about a judging God. You must not be living right, and so God is judging you.” When they see suffering they see a judgmental God. The secular voice said, “When I see people suffering I see God is missing.” When they see suffering, they see an absent, indifferent God.

WHAT CHRISTMAS DOES FOR SUFFERING

But when we see Jesus Christ dying on the cross through an act of violence and injustice, what kind of God do we see then? A condemning God? No, we see a God of love paying for sin. Do we see a missing God? Absolutely not! We see a God who is not remote but involved. We sometimes wonder why God doesn’t just end suffering, but we know that whatever the reason, it isn’t one of indifference or remoteness. God so hates suffering and evil that he was willing to come into it and become enmeshed in it. Dorothy Sayers wrote:

For whatever reason, God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—he [God] had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace, and thought it was worthwhile.

The gift of Christmas gives you a resource—a comfort and consolation—for dealing with suffering, because in it we see God’s willingness to enter this world of suffering to suffer with us and for us. No other religion—whether secularism, Greco-Roman paganism, Eastern religion, Judaism, or Islam—believes God became breakable or suffered or had a body. Eastern religion believes the physical is illusion. Greco-Romans believe the physical is bad. Judaism and Islam don’t believe God would do such a thing as live in the flesh. But Christmas teaches that God is concerned not only with the spiritual, because he is not just a spirit anymore. He has a body. He knows what it’s like to be poor, to be a refugee, to face persecution and hunger, to be beaten and stabbed. He knows what it is like to be dead. Therefore, when we put together the incarnation and the resurrection, we see that God is not just concerned about the spirit, but he also cares about the body. He created the spirit and the body, and he will redeem the spirit and the body.

Christmas shows us that God is not just concerned about spiritual problems but physical problems too. So we can talk about redeeming people from guilt and unbelief, as well as creating safe streets and affordable housing for the poor, in the same breath. because Jesus himself is not just a spirit but also has a body, the gift of Christmas is a passion for justice. There are a lot of people in this world who have a passion for justice and a compassion for the poor but have absolutely no assurance that justice will one day triumph. They just believe that if we work hard enough long enough, we’ll pull ourselves together and bring some justice to this world. For these people, there’s no consolation when things don’t go well. But Christians have not only a passion for justice but also the knowledge that, in the end, justice will triumph. Confidence in the justice of God makes the most realistic passion for justice possible.

WHAT CHRISTMAS DOES FOR THE DESPISED (& THE DESPISER)

Lastly, in the package of Christmas, there’s the ability to reconnect with the part of the human race you despise. Have you ever noticed how women-centric the incarnation and resurrection narratives are? Do you realize that women, not men, are at the very center of these stories? For example, in the story of the resurrection, who was the only person in the world who knew that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead? Mary Magdelene, a former mental patient, is the one Jesus tells to take this news to the world. Everyone else in the whole world learns it from her. Women are the first people to see Jesus risen from the dead.

In the incarnation, the annunciation comes to a woman. God penetrates the world through the womb of a poor, unwed, Jewish, teenage girl. The first theological reflection group trying to wrap their minds around this to figure out what this means and what is going on is Mary and Elizabeth. We know that in those days women had a very, very low status. They were marginalized and oppressed. For example, we know that a woman’s testimony was not admissible in court. Why? Because of prejudice against women.

We say to ourselves, aren’t we glad we’re past all that? Yes, but here’s what we have to realize: God is deliberately working with people the world despises. The very first witnesses to his nativity and resurrection are people whom the world says you can’t trust, people the world looks down on. Because we don’t look down on women today, we don’t look at this part of the story and realize what we’re being told. But here’s what we’re being told: Christmas is the end of snobbishness. Christmas is the end of thinking, “Oh, that kind of person.” You don’t despise women, but you despise somebody. (Oh, yes you do!) you may not be a racist, but you certainly despise racists. You may not be a bigot, but you have certain people about which you think, “They’re the reason for the problems in the world.”

There’s a place in one of Martin Luther’s nativity sermons where he asks something like, “Do know what a stable smells like? You know what that family would have smelled like after the birth when they went out into the city? And if they were standing next to you, how would you have felt about them and regarded them?” He is saying, I want you to see Christ in the neighbor you tend to despise—in the political party you despise, in the race you despise, in the class of people you despise.

Christmas is the end of thinking you are better than someone else, because Christmas is telling you that you could never get to heaven on your own. God had to come to you. It is telling you that people who are saved are not those who have arisen through their own ability to be what God wants them to be. Salvation comes to those who are willing to admit how weak they are.

In Christmas there is a resource for something most of us don’t even feel the need of. We might be able to admit we have trouble being vulnerable or that we need help handling suffering or that we need more passion for justice. But almost nobody says, “What am I going to do about my prejudice and snobbery? I really need help with that.”

Do you remember what an incredible snob you were when you were a teenager? Teenagers generally want nothing to do with people who don’t dress right and look cool. Do you think you ever got over that? You’re not really over that. You just found more socially acceptable ways to express it. You see, teenagers let that aspect of human nature out and don’t realize how stupid they look, and after a while they get rid of it. But really they are just papering over it. There are all kinds of people you look down on and want nothing to do with—and you know it. But in Christmas you have this amazing resource to decimate that—to remove it and take it away.

These are the gifts that come in the package of Christmas— vulnerability for intimacy, strength for suffering, passion for justice, and power over prejudice. And you are blessed if you open this gift and take it into your life. If you do, you’ll be blessed. You’ll be transformed.

SOURCE: This adapted sermon is an excerpt from Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace & Promise of Christmas. Edited by Nancy Guthrie, Crossways. Copyright © by Timothy Keller, 2007.

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Tim Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and three young sons. For over twenty years he has led a diverse congregation of young professionals that has grown to a weekly attendance of over 5,000.

THE RAPTURE: THE SIGNS OF THE COMING OF CHRIST

SERIES: THE RAPTURE – PART 3

This article is a lightly edited transcript of Dr. McRae’s audio message on the Rapture. Appreciation for the transcription work goes to Marilyn Fine.

Introduction

This morning we continue our study on the Rapture of the Church. This is lesson number three in our four-lesson series and we are beginning to study this morning the signs of His coming. We shall continue that next week, as well, and that will conclude our study on the Rapture of the Church.

From the earliest days, earnest Christians have diligently sought to know when their Lord was going to return. It seems our Lord has directly answered that question in many respects when He spoke and said, “No man knoweth the day nor the hour.” He further elucidated upon the subject when He said that “in such an hour as you think not, then I shall come.” His coming shall be as a thief in the night. Now, we do not have any difficulty understanding why our Lord has kept the date of His return for the Church a secret. All we need to do is examine our own hearts and we see ample evidence for His wisdom in keeping that date a secret. He, obviously, has wanted, during the duration of the history of the Church, for believers (generation after generation) to be waiting patiently, watching expectantly, and just standing firmly anticipating His return.

Although we do not know the exact time of our Lord’s return, I think it is significant that when the apostle Paul writes to the Thessalonians he says, “We are not in the darkness that it should overtake us as a thief.” There is no doubt that the Rapture of the Church is going to be sudden and shall take the unbeliever by surprise. But to the believer, to the Christian, certain signs have been given that indicate the arrival of the Lord and the knowledge of those signs bring that believer from out of the darkness into the light so that he will not be overtaken by surprise and the Rapture will not surprise him.

I think that a believer who knows his Bible is very much like a person who is sitting down and just enjoying Handel’s Messiah with the musical score on his lap. After a couple of hours of delightful music, his companion sitting beside, leans over (having enjoyed what has been going on) saying, “how much longer do you think this shall go on?” The person says “about five more minutes.” “Five minutes, is that all? Why it has been going on full speed now for two hours and it just seems like it is going to go on forever. How much longer? Why do you say only five minutes?” The man, of course, would say, “because I have the score in my hands. Do you remember the solo just a few moments ago? Do you remember that last chorus? Well, I know that it is only going to last just a few more minutes now because, you see, here is the music score and it tells me that the very chorus they are singing now is the last chorus and I know it is just about over.”

The believer, you see, has a music score. He has the Word of God. He has the scriptures and it is through the scriptures that the indications are given whereby I believe a Christian can know that the coming of the Lord is very, very near. They are indications, finger boards, sign posts along the way that indicate the coming of the Lord.

Now, the question, of course, is how soon? What we would like to do this morning is to look at the score and just see what the indications are concerning the coming again of our Lord. I believe, friends, that we shall be able to demonstrate from our study of the scriptures this morning, as well as next week, that you and I are standing on the very threshold of the Rapture of the Church. He is at the door. I believe with all my heart that the coming of our Lord is very, very near. Let me see if I can demonstrate to you the basis for that belief.

First Sign: Israel

Turn in your Bible, will you please, for the most significant indication in our generation that the coming of the Lord is very near. Daniel 9 will be the passage from which this first and most significant sign emerges. Daniel 9 records the very important prophetic announcement, through the prophet Daniel, of the seventy weeks or the seven-year periods. That is altogether a program of 490 years. You will notice in Daniel 9:24 that we read about “seventy weeks” The Hebrew word here suggests a bunch of seven. Because of the historical fulfillment, we do know that it is weeks or groups of seven years.

Seventy groups of seven years, 490 years, “are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city” for several things. At the end of the 69 weeks, and that will bring us down to Daniel 9:26, “after seven and three score and two weeks,” that is after 69 weeks, “shall Messiah be cut off but not for Himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city” (Jerusalem) “and the sanctuary;” (the temple) “and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.” Sixty-nine weeks, 483 years, from the beginning of this period of time to the cutting off of the Messiah have been fulfilled. This leaves one seven-year period remaining. That one seven-year period, the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy, still lies in the future. Our Lord describes it as time of great tribulation such as the world has never seen nor ever shall see.

That great Tribulation period, that 70th week is presented to us in Daniel 9:27 where we read, “And he” (that is the prince of the Roman Empire; this will be the revived Roman Empire) “shall confirm” (or the Hebrew “shall strengthen”) “the covenant with many for one week.” This indicates that the beginning of the Tribulation period, the beginning of the 70th week of Daniel, will come with the confirming of a covenant by the leader of the revived Roman Empire (the anti-Christ, the world’s dictator, the one who is at the head of the western alliance of nations). He shall confirm a covenant with the nation of Israel. It is a divided Israel that is suggested in the phrase “with many.” He shall confirm that covenant for one week.

Verse 27 presents to us the basic concept of the Tribulation period and the 70th week in Daniel’s prophecy. We are not expounding this passage, obviously, and it has been expounded here in the Chapel recently on two different occasions. So, we are not going through Daniel 9 to expound the seventy weeks. What we are trying to find out at this point is this— that the Tribulation period begins with the establishment with the confirming of a covenant which is already being established between the prince of the revived Roman Empire and the many, the divided Israel who are in their land, and upon whom the 70th week, as well as the 483 years, those seven years are determined. If that is so, then Daniel 9:27 and the Tribulation period presupposes some very important things. My basic thesis this morning is that what is presupposed, what is demanded, is essentially a reality today. That is, what is presupposed for the beginning of the 70th week, what is demanded for the Tribulation period to begin, essentially already now within our generation has become a reality. Notice some of the points.

Statehood

The first thing in this is that we have the statehood of Israel. Such a covenant could not be confirmed prior to Israel beginning a state. For 1,900 long years, Israel was never listed among the nations of the world. On May 14, 1948, by right of the UN Charter, the statehood of Israel comes into a reality. Today, we have the nation of Israel and that is presupposed. It is basic. The Tribulation period is dependent upon that.

Land

The second thing that this supposes is that they will be in the land. That is precisely where they are today. Just after the turn of our century, there were some 41,000 Jews in the land. Today, there are over 3,000,000 Jews that have returned to the land of Israel. They are in the land. The land has become the focal point of international affairs. It is the crossroad of the world. The deserts of the land have begun to blossom. The situation is being prepared as far as Israel is concerned.

Allies

Thirdly, it is very obvious from our passage here that Israel will be aligned with the western allies. It is the prince of the revived Roman Empire. It is the head of that European confederacy of nations that will confirm the covenant. So, the alliance obviously will be between Israel and the western allies. That is precisely the way the situation is structured today in our present time. It is certainly going to be obvious that that the nation of Israel will be subjected to tremendous persecutions. That will be the background for the confirming of the covenant.

I suspect, as Dr. Waltke suggested and other Bible teachers have taught, that the covenant that will be confirmed will be the covenant that was made by the United Nations on May 14, 1948, which gave to Israel their right to statehood. I suspect this because of all of the threats against Israel’s very existence—Egypt just within the last two weeks has announced that the only solution is to wipe Israel out. In the place of all the persecutions, there is going to come a time when the dictator, the leader of the revived Roman Empire, is going to confirm the covenant that was made by the United Nations guaranteeing Israel its statehood. So, to support the right to independent existence, there will be all of the military powers of the western alliances behind the existence of the Nation of Israel. The background of this is, I suspect that we should expect Israel to be under intense persecution. That is precisely the situation as all of us know right at this very moment.

Temple

A fourth thing that is going to be demanded, or needed for the fulfillment of this, as well as other prophecies in relation of Israel, will be the building of their temple. Now, note that temple is not demanded until the middle of the Tribulation period. That is, after three-and-a-half years of the Tribulation period the beast, the anti-Christ, is going to set up his image in the temple. By the mid point of Tribulation period, Israel will have their temple. One of the most significant things that is happening today in Israel is their plan for building a temple. They now have the site. They did not have that site until just three years ago. Now they have the site for the building of the temple. They have the plans for the building of that temple. One of the greatest aspirations of Israel is the erection of their temple and the very scene seems to be set.

Military

Another point in relation to the nation of Israel is that they will become a very mighty military power. We do not need to expand upon that because that is obvious to us at the very present time. Another point in relation to this situation and Israel in the scriptures during the Tribulation period is that they will become the world evangelists. Revelation pictures the 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel who will be the world evangelists who carry the gospel to the corners of the earth. It is a striking to realize that within Israel today there is an unusual revival of interest in the scriptures. Every Jew in a state school takes six hours of Bible study every week in his school. That is more than most Americans have. There is a tremendous revival in the study of the scriptures and we are going to be talking on that a little more next week when we talk about the great sign, the second greatest of all signs, the apostasy of our present time. The great revival in the scriptures in Israel seems almost to be preparing the way for their moving into their strategic role of evangelism in the Tribulation period. Orthodoxy is the viable situation today in Israel. Only six reformed synagogues exist in all the land and reformed Judaism is no longer a viable option as far as Israelites in the land is concerned. There is in the dictionary of Judaism today a term called “a Messianic Jew.” A Messianic Jew is a person, by their definition, who nationally is a Jew but religiously is a Christian. There is a band of Messianic Jews who move through the land with two basic goals: to share their personal faith in Jesus Christ with their fellow Jews and to flood the land with Bibles.

Summary

What I am simply suggesting is that this could very well be the backdrop against which the movement shall come in the Tribulation period when the Jewish people shall be the world evangelists as they carry the gospel to the corners of the earth.

What I am then proposing to you this morning, my friends, is that the first, the greatest and the most significant sign that the coming of Jesus Christ is very near and that the Rapture of the Church is upon us— is the rise of the nation Israel. Because we read it every day in our newspapers, because we have become so well acquainted with it, we have lost the impact of it. That it was not 25 years ago that the nation did not exist! It is within our generation that they have come into existence, they have possessed their land, they have the site for the temple, they have a commitment to the scriptures and a study of the scriptures, they have the alignment with the western allies, and the pieces are all fit together for the beginning of the Tribulation period. Prior to the confirming of that covenant, the trumpet shall sound and the Church shall be raptured. I believe with all my heart that as we scan the world’s international horizons this morning through the telescope of the sure word of prophecy, that we can say with great assurance that the coming of the Lord draws very, very near.

* * * * *

There are many other signs though, so will you go in your Bibles, please, to Matthew 24 where we find a significant list of signs given to us by our Lord Himself. These signs are primarily given to the tribulation saints and they are primarily in relation to the revelation, the second aspect of the Second Coming when He shall come with his Church to the earth to establish His kingdom. But, I would like you to notice that these signs in the Tribulation period become universal in their intensity and unprecedented in their proportions. These signs at this very present time are moving in this direction. I suspect that every one of the signs that we are going to point out now has existed from time in memorial. We can go back in history and find that they have always existed. The point that our Lord makes is that in the Tribulation period these signs will become universal and will reach unprecedented proportions and intensity. My basic proposal to you from these signs is that we are seeing that happen at this very present time. Notice, for example, one of the signs as we come to it in Matthew 24: 6-7. He says,

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not troubled for all these things must come to past, but the end of not yet. For nations shall rise against nations and kingdom against kingdom.”

Second Sign: Profusion of War

The second great sign I would like to present to you this morning then is the profusion of wars. Of course, from the very beginning of time from Cain’s murder of Abel, war has existed. I suspect that we are not surprised at this as a particular sign. The Geneva Tribune sometime ago reported that the society of international law in its surveys concluded that in the last 3,400 years there has been only 268 years of peace. There have been over 8,000 peace treaties signed and everyone of them signed for eternity, but the average duration of the treaties has been less than 10 years. What should we say of the twentieth century in which we live? In this century, 71 years old, there have been over 100 million lives snuffed out by war. It is our century and our generation that has seen two wars that can rightly be called world wars. During the last 30 years, we have not been able to pick up our newspaper without reading on the front page an account of a major war some place on the face of the earth. What we have seen then is the movement of something that has existed from time immemorial into an unprecedented state of universality and intensity. It is the buildup for the great world war that is presented to us in the scriptures. It is referred to in Revelation 16 as the battle of Armageddon. It is going to be the culmination of what started with Cain which today has moved into a worldwide confrontation. In the Tribulation period it shall become the third, perhaps the fourth, but certainly at least the third great world war.

The striking thing is that in the preparation for that third world war we are seeing the scene set in our very day. The place where it is going to take place has already become the focal point of international affairs. Armageddon is the hill of Megiddo, which is in the northern part of the land of Israel. Joel tells us that it is going to take place in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which is a large valley to the east of Jerusalem. That is in the southern part of the land. Isaiah tells us that it is going to extend right down into Edom. It is Ezekiel the prophet who tells us that when they moved into the land they are going to cover the entire land. If you put together all of the Old Testament prophesies, the conclusion is that the place where this last great world war will take place is in Israel in the land previously known as Palestine and it shall stretch from the north through the south right down into the land of Edom. Israel is exactly in that position today. It is the focal point of international affairs. All of the nations of the earth have their guns set toward the Middle East and even during the crises in southeast Asia, we have been warned by the leaders of the United States that the real hot spot, the real problem area is the Middle East. We have never lost sight of the fact that that is the focal point of attention. We are seeing already in our generation the focal point of that great war in the Tribulation period now coming into focus.

The precedent for that war has already been set. Revelation 16 pictures it as the kings of the earth and the whole world, says the prophet. The kings of the earth and the whole world shall converge upon that spot. The precedent for a worldwide war has already been set. I think the most significant thing is that the participants in that great confrontation are already taking their place on the stage of history. We cannot take time to read it, but if you have not read, then you must read Daniel 11:36 through the end of the chapter where you have the details of that third great world war given to us. If you read it carefully, you will discover that there are five alignments or individual nations that are presented.

The first, of course, will be Israel. That is where the battle shall take place. They shall be in the glorious land. There they are in their land. Israel will be the center of attraction. In Daniel 11:36, Israel is aligned with the prince of the revived Roman Empire and that will be the first alignment of nations. It is the western alliance. We know from Daniel 2, Daniel 7 and several passages in the book of Revelation that that western alliance will be composed of 10 nations— pictured in the vision that Daniel has as the 10 toes or as the 10 crowns. There will be 10 nations that will comprise that confederacy. Since men have been expounding on prophesy, they had been predicting a United States of Europe, a confederacy of 10 nations that shall find their headquarters in the leader of the revived Roman Empire. Currently, the most common way of viewing this will be the fruition of the European Common Market. I think we are seeing significant things happen there. Until just two months ago, they European Common Market was composed of six nations. Within two months, four new nations were recommended for acceptance into the European Common Market. If those four nations accept, Britain among them, we shall soon have a United States of Europe comprised of 10 nations. Now in the future, those 10 nations may change. But what we are certainly seeing at this very present time is the emergence of a European confederacy of 10 nations that has their headquarters in the very place where the revived Roman Empire found its rooting. That is going to be one of the great alignment of nations.

If you move down through Daniel 11, you will come into verse 40 and find that there is going to be a northern alliance and a southern alliance. The striking thing about these two alliances as they are related to Israel in the center is that they shall be aligned with each other and both against Israel and the western alliance. One does not need to know much about contemporary scenes in our international alignments to realize that that is exactly what we have today. We have the Russian alliance to the north. We have the United Arab Republic alignment to the south. They are, to some degree, aligned with each other against Israel and against the western alliance. When you come further down through Daniel 11 to verse 44, you read of the kings of the east. That takes in all the oriental powers over to the east of Israel. The striking thing that Daniel 11 presents is that in the Tribulation period Israel, a mighty military power, will be the focal point around which there will be an alignment of nations. There will be a western alliance, a northern alliance, a southern alliance and an eastern alliance. My friends, we have it today. That very situation is in existence. The participants in that great world war that shall take place toward the end of the Tribulation, the participants are already taking their place on the stage of history. I proposed to you again then that as we scan the world’s political horizons through the telescope of the sure word of prophesy, we can say with certainty that the coming of the Lord draws very, very near.

Third Sign: Famine

If you come to the end of Matthew 24:7, you will come to a third sign that needs to be noted. The third sign of this. “And there shall be famines.” The third sign that I would like to present to you then is the threat of famine. It is obvious, I think, from the passage that the famines will be closely connected with the wars that are presented in Matthew 24:6-7. That does not surprise us because famines have always followed in the wake of war. In 1921, the famine in Russia took 30,000 lives every day. It came in the wake of war. The official estimate for the great famine in Greece in 1942 was between 150,000 and 200,000 deaths and it came in the wake of war. We read our newspapers and listen to the situation in Pakistan, in Nigeria, in Biafra, and we realize that it is war that precipitates famines. What the scriptures teach is this that as the wars shall expand and become more intense and more universal that famine shall follow in its wake. We are seeing in this very present time through the profusion of war the threat for famine in an unprecedented level in our world.

There are two other factors which are very much involved in the coming of a famine. The first factor– population. We do not pick up many magazines today without reading something of the danger of the population explosion. The question of anthropologist and sociologists is how shall we ever feed them in 1980 or by 2000 AD. Population explosion. The second and great issue involved in famines is the ecology crisis and that is something that confronts us. It is a global problem as well as a national problem. It was President Nixon in his State of the Union address in 1970 who said “in the coming decade we must make peace with nature.” Albert Schweitzer some years ago wrote, “Man has lost his capacity to foresee and forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.” Arnold Toynbee, the great eminent British historian, writes, “The human race’s prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenseless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenseless against ourselves.” He says it in relation to the pollution problem in the world.

Revelation 8:10-11 predict a worldwide pollution during the Tribulation period.

“The third trumpet will bring down bitterness into the waters of the earth so that one-third of the waters of the earth shall be so polluted that many, many, many shall die.”

Now, what I am suggesting then is that the three great factors that are involved in famine today are the primary issues in our contemporary world: The profusion of war, the population explosion and the ecology crisis. We have seen these things come to the headlines and move to the surface in our present day. So, when I read about famines, I do not quickly pass it over. I do not say, well, we have always had famines. I recognize that in the Tribulation period famine shall follow in the wake of war and they shall become so universal and so intense that they will reach unprecedented proportions. We have at our disposal and at our fingertips today the mechanism to make that happen. With a population explosion, with the ecology crisis, and with the profusion of war, we have the wherewithal that this can become a reality today on a universal scale in the Tribulation period.

So, once again, I believe as we scan the world’s “economic and physical horizons” through the telescope of the sure word of prophesy we are constrained to say that the coming of the Lord is very, very near.

Fourth Sign: Earthquakes

Do you notice the next phrase in Daniel 24:7? Pestilence probably ought not to be in our text at this point, although it is certainly in the text in Luke’s account, but the next phrase in the most ancient manuscripts is, “and earthquakes in various places.” We look at that and I suspect that we are inclined to quickly bypass that and say, “have there not always been earthquakes?” I am not sure whether we can really say that or not because it is within recent technological era that seismology has become a science and that we have been able to register and to date our earthquakes. Perhaps they always have existed, but it is within our generation and in our century that they are reaching proportions that are astounding to us. The frightful earthquake that shook the city of Quetta in India just not too long ago took 60,000 lives plus many millions of dollars worth of property. That reminds us that within our century, within the twentieth century, there have been 250,000 lives snuffed out through earthquakes upon the face of the earth.

Scientists who study the earth’s crust and record the seismic disturbances tell us that earthquakes felt simultaneously in many places, particularly around the Mediterranean and Great Britain, are forerunners of a great, far greater, earthquake which might be also universal. Now, the Bible predicts such a universal earthquake. Revelation 16:18 says, “And there was a great earthquake such as was not since upon the earth so mighty an earthquake and so great.” Again, in Zachariah 14, the prophet Zachariah predicts that at the coming of our Lord there will be an earthquake that is going to shatter the Mount of Olives so that it will splinter in half and provide a valley for the escape of Jews who are besieged in the city of Jerusalem. We know today that there is a massive fault line that goes right through the midst of the Mount of Olives and that is the preparation for a universal earthquake that is going to rock the face of the earth during the Tribulatin period. I am rather inclined to feel, although I am sure we have had earthquakes all along, that the suggestions of the scientists that what we are seeing now with simultaneous earthquakes in parts of the world may be a forerunner of a universal earthquake of unprecedented proportions. I am rather inclined to believe that this could be tied in with our Lord’s prediction.

One of the most striking things that I read in preparing for our message this morning is that that recently earthquakes in the area of Jerusalem and in the area of the Mount of Olives have caused severe damage to the buildings upon the Mount of Olives. I think that is very significant. That is, as one moves into this area and sees the buildings on the Mount of Olives bearing the marks of earthquakes, I believe that God is giving us again an indication that we are having the scene set for what is going to take place in the Tribulation period. Make no mistake about it, prior to that moment the Lord is going to return and He is going to rapture the Church. So, once again, I propose to you that as we scan the world’s scientific horizons through the telescope of the sure word of prophecy we are constrained to say that the coming of the Lord draws very, very near.

Fifth Sign: Iniquity

Come with me further down through our passage and notice what it says, please, in verse 12. And it says,

“And because iniquities shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold, but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

The word for “iniquity” here is the word for “lawlessness.” It is the opposite to righteousness. The Lord predicts that iniquity or lawlessness will abound. It will increase. It will grow. It will increase in grow to such proportions that He says the love of many shall grow cold. He is here dealing with the professing Church. The love of the professing Church shall be literally blowing cold by the spreading of lawlessness and the spreading of iniquity. The growth of coldness, the drawing away from the faith and from the things of God by the professing Church will be the demonstration that they are only a professing Church. The great test of genuine faith is given to us in verse 13. It is continuance. It is perseverance, “but he that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved.” Those who do not endure, those who do not continue, those who do not persevere given testimony to the fact that all it was, was profession.

What our Lord is saying here is that iniquity shall sweep the professing Church off their feet into a state of coldness and apostasy and a state of turning away from God. We know, Paul says to the Thessalonians, that this principle of iniquity does already work, but he tells us in II Thessalonians 2 that there is someone who is hindering it. There are many different interpretations, perhaps the most common is that it is the Church indwelled by the Holy Spirit that has its hands up and it is hindering the full impact of this principle of lawlessness and iniquity. There is coming a day, says our Lord through Paul, that the hinderer is going to be removed. That is the Rapture. At the removal of the hinderer, the Holy Spirit in the Church, then iniquity shall sweep across the face of the earth in a universal, intensified, unprecedented proportion. I believe, friends, that we are seeing that very movement today. I think we are seeing iniquity, lawlessness move in that unprecedented proportion before us at the very present time.

What shall we say about moral iniquity or lawlessness? From this Greek word we get our word “antinomian,” which means “against laws.” The greatest philosophy that exists on college campuses and in our secular society is the philosophy of antinomianism. That is that there are no absolutes. It is the Playboy philosophy in relation to sex. It is a policy that rejects all absolutes and makes everything liberal, everything relative. That is lawlessness and we are seeing it move and sweep across the face of the earth. It is sweeping professing churches off their feet so that there is a growing coldness and a blowing away of any profession of their faith and their commitment to the scriptures.

In a magazine entitled, “The Church and Society,” published by two of our major United States denominations, a prominent woman employee of the church wrote this article just recently, “Female and Single, What Then?” In this magazine, she advocates that the Church encourage lonely, retired persons to live together unmarried to provide loving companionship and sexual enjoyment. She also suggests that single women should be permitted to establish sustained relationships with married men and that the Church should be open to such arrangements. Finally, the author derides fidelity to the marriage vows and urges the Church to consider establishment of communes patterned after those in Scandinavia and these communes men and women form families without marriage. Now, that is a Church magazine published by two of our major denominations in the United States. What we are seeing is the professing Church being swept off its feet by the tide of iniquity that is moving across the face of the earth.

Not only is their moral iniquity, but what shall we say of civil iniquity, civil lawlessness? In the last month, US News and World Report has featured two articles: “Crime in the Colleges” and “Crime on the Streets of the World’s Cities.” We are seeing as we read in our magazines that this is a tide that is sweeping across the face of the earth. I think that as we look at the whole civil, social, and religious contexts through the telescope of the sure word of prophesy that we are constrained to say, friends, that the coming of the Lord is very, very near.

Sixth Sign: Gospel Spread

There is still a further sign and let me mention it rather quickly, please, in verse 14. In verse 14 we read, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to all the world for a witness unto all nations.” This sixth sign which I have given is the spread of the gospel. It is obvious from our passages that in the Tribulation period the gospel shall be spread universally around the face of this earth. What I am suggesting and bringing to your attention this morning is this. For the first time in all of history, that now is possible. Now this very situation is possible. We have 53 Christian radio stations scattered around the earth. Theodore Epps’ Back to the Bible broadcast is available to 90% of the world’s population. Dr. Peters, our missions professor, at the seminary estimates that more people have heard the gospel in the last 30 years than they have in the previous 900 years. In the days of Luther, the Bible was translated in four languages. Today we have it in 1,200 languages. The great motivation behind Campus Crusade’s “Explo ‘72” is evangelize the world in our generation. That is the vision of Bill Bright. It is possible today. That is what we are saying. Now, it is possible, but in the Tribulation period, it shall be a reality. I do not believe for a moment that the gospel must be preached to all the world before the Rapture will take place. It is before Christ returns to the earth, that that must take place. However, what a thing to see a man with a vision to evangelize the world. We have the means today for the first time in history for that type of thing to take place. His vision is by 1980 that become a reality. By 1980, the Tribulation could be over and it will be a reality. But, the vision is absolutely spectacular as I look at the world’s evangelism horizons through the telescope of the sure word of prophesy. My friend, I am constrained to say that the coming of the Lord must be very, very near.

Seventh Sign: Economy

One last one comes from the book of Revelation where we read in Chapter 13, in relation to the economy of the world, that there will be a very strictly controlled economy. Revelation 13:16-17 tell us that during the Tribulation period men will be able to neither buy nor sell without the mark of the beast. That suggests the most stringent controls on world economy that the world has ever seen. In our prophetic conference down at Pine Cove, Dr. Johnson stated and commented that we are now entering into a stage of international controlled economics. We have a world bank. We look for a worldwide currency. We have the computers now that soon will eliminate the need for money and for currency.

One of the men in the audience who is involved with the telephone company tells me that the telephone company has come out with devices whereby soon we will be able to go into a store and buy something with our little ticket. It will be inserted into a telephone that will go directly to our bank. Then it will confirm whether the money is in our bank account. Finally, it will be deducted from the bank account at that moment. So, there will be no currency. What he is simply saying is that if you do not have that card you could not buy or sell. What the scripture says is that you will not be given such a card unless you will bow down and worship the image of the beast. There is a stringent control on economics that will certainly become a worldwide reality in the Tribulation period and we have the mechanism today in our generation for that to become a reality.

Conclusion

As I look at the fingerposts and I see the signs, as we look at what is happening about us today, one is constrained to say that the coming of the Lord must be very, very near. Men have always expected His coming and other men have believed that they are living in the last days. But, will you come with me just for a moment and take a good look at the rise of the nation of Israel. Take a look at the profusion of wars. Take a look at the threat of famines. Take a look at the spread of the gospel. Take a look at the presence of earthquakes. Take a look at the growth in iniquity. Take a look at the control in economy. I believe, friend, that you will join with me and you will say that every indication is that the Rapture of the church must be very, very near. If so, then what manner of persons ought we to be? What manner of persons ought we to be? If it is so, if the coming of the Lord is very near, then, my friend, how does that affect your life this week? More than anything else, God wants us to live expecting His return so that this week in the decisions that we make, the priorities that we establish, the values that we esteem, we shall do it in the light of the fact that the coming of the Lord is very, very near.

Horatius Bonar used to arise in the morning and raise his blind and look and say, “Perhaps today, Lord?” The last thing he did before he went to bed as he pulled his blind down was look heavenward and say, “Perhaps tonight, Lord?” That is living expectantly. May God help us to live that kind of life this week.

But, my friend, perhaps the greatest thing that you need to realize this morning is this. That the coming of Jesus Christ for His Church, the Rapture of the Church will seal off forever your eternal destiny if you have not received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. I believe with all of my heart that the Rapture of the Church is very, very near and I believe just as strongly that if you do not receive Jesus Christ prior to that moment that you shall never have such an opportunity during the Tribulation period. You will, in the world of II Thessalonians 2 be compelled to believe a lie, the lie, the lie of the anti-Christ. If the coming of the Lord draws very near, my friend, I ask you are you ready for it? If it should be today, would you go to be with Him? Only if you have recognized before Him that you are a guilty sinner and that you have realized that when He died upon the cross He died for you. Only if you have simply received Him personally as your Savior and you are depending upon His work upon the cross alone for the salvation of your soul. Is that where you stand this morning? If so, you are ready for the coming of the Lord. If not, we invite you this very morning to receive Him personally as your Savior so that when the trumpet sounds, when the shout is heard you, too, will be caught up together to be with Him and to be like Him forever and ever.

Let’s bow, shall we in closing prayer. Father, we do pray that You will illuminate our hearts, that You will take from us the dross that so often moves into our lives as we are involved in living busy lives and help us to look upon this world in which we live and to realize that the coming of the Lord draws very near. God, grant that we may have the grace and the wisdom this week to live in the light of the fact that He shall soon return and our lives shall be evaluated by Him. For we ask it in His name, amen.

SOURCE: April 5, 2010 @ https://bible.org/node/18388

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Bill McRae graduated from D.T.S. in 1970 (ThM) and 1983 (D.Min). After 5 years of ministry in Dallas at Believer’s Chapel, he returned to his home in Canada where he continued in a pastoral ministry. In 1983 he was appointed President of Tyndale University College and Seminary located in Toronto, Canada. While president, he taught in the Pastoral Theology department and the Bible department. He continues to be their President Emeritus engaging in an itinerant Bible teaching ministry. From 1990 – 2000 he was the chairman of the Vision 2000 evangelism committee of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. For several years he taught annually at the Billy Graham Schools of Evangelism. His wife is Marilyn and together they have 4 married children and 13 grandchildren. His books include: Preparing for your Marriage (Zondervan) Dynamics Of Spiritual Gifts (Zondervan) A Book To Die For (Clements) It’s a study of How we Got our Bible with a Prologue containing the story of William Tyndale.

THE RAPTURE: “A MESSAGE OF COMFORT” – 1Thessalonians 4:14-18

SERIES: THE RAPTURE – PART 1

This article is a lightly edited transcript of Dr. Bill McRae’s audio message on the Rapture. Appreciation for the transcription work goes to Marilyn Fine.

Introduction

Once again, we would like to welcome you to our adult Bible class this morning. We are delighted to have you. If you are here for the first time, we give you a special welcome. You are here at the beginning of a new series. During this month we are going to study together in four Sundays the subject, or part of the subject at least, of the doctrine of the Rapture of the church. So, we are going to begin with this as our first study in a topical, prophetic study. Let us open our Bibles, shall we, to I Thessalonians 4. We shall lean on it as our central passage for our exposition this morning.

Our subject for our first lesson this morning is “The Rapture: a Message of Comfort.” That title, of course, is rooted in what we shall see in I Thessalonians 4. However, before we come to that passage and look at it in detail, there are some preliminaries that we should note. Certainly, one of the surest words in all of the Bible is that Jesus is coming again. Someone has said that there are at least 1,527 Old Testament references and 380 New Testament references to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Take the New Testament alone. We are not just limited to the personal testimony of our Lord who said, “I will come again,” but listen to the words of the angels who were present at the moment of His ascension when they announced to those anxious disciples, “This same Jesus which is taken up from you shall so come in light manner as ye have seen Him go.” It is the apostle Paul who refers to the Second Coming as a “blessed hope.” When the apostle Peter writes he reminds us that our faith someday shall be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of our Lord Jesus. When the apostle John writes to us he exhorts us to so live so that we will not be ashamed before Him at His coming. When the writer to the Hebrews pens his epistle, he speaks in a chronological significance and says that unto them that look for Him He shall appear the second time. So, the uniform testimony of the New Testament writers, as well as the Old Testament writers, is that Jesus is coming again.

Now, the Second Coming of our Lord, which is one single event, can be looked upon as taking place in two phases or two aspects. Just at the conclusion of the church period, the first aspect of the Second Coming shall occur and it will be at that first aspect that our Lord shall return from the heavens to the air. He shall come privately and He shall come for His Church. It is at that moment that the Church will be caught up to meet him in the air.

The second aspect of the Second Coming will be when He shall return to the earth and this shall be a public coming and He shall come with His saints or with the Church. Between the two aspects of the Second Coming, there will be a seven-year period or the Great Tribulation period. Now, there are several words— some in the scriptures and some in theological language— that will help us to understand the aspects of the Second Coming of our Lord. What I would like to do by way of introduction is outline for you five major words that are used to delineate certain aspects of the Second Coming or to describe the significance of each of these aspects.

Five Major Words

The first word that we want to talk about very simply and briefly is the word, “coming.” That is a word that comes from a Greek verb that occurs oftentimes through the New Testament and the Old Testament to describe this very significant event. It is a very general term and has no particular technical significance. The verb “the coming” is used to refer to both aspects—the first aspect and the second aspect. The Lord Jesus said in relation to the communion service and the Lord’s Supper, “this do ‘til I come.” On again another occasion He says, “Behold I come quickly.” So, that verb “come” is used many times in relation to the first aspect. He shall come through the air and He shall come for His Church. The same verb is used on many occasions for the second aspect of His coming. Matthew 24 and 25 give us the details of that second aspect and frequently through those two chapters you have the use of that verb “come.” So, when we speak of the Second Coming we are speaking of one single event that has two aspects to it. The verb “coming” neatly ties together these two aspects and they give us the one single event.

The second word that we want to note is really a transliteration of a Greek word and the word is the “Parousia.” The “Parousia” is a transliteration of the Greek word “parosea” which means basically “presence.” This was a cultic expression that was used for the visit of a hidden deity who would come and visit and by his visit make his presence known. In that cult, they would either celebrate his presence in the cult or they would be aware of his presence by some supernatural divine demonstration of power. When they referred to the presence of that deity, they spoke of it in terms of the “Parousia” or the “parosea.” It also was an official term or an official expression for the visit of a person of high rank like a governor or an emperor or a king who would visit a province in an official state visit. The arrival of that official for that official state visit would be described in terms of the “parosea” or the “Parousia”— The Presence of that dignitary.

Now, when you come to the New Testament, that same word is used in relation to the Second Coming of our Lord. What it does is anticipate the arrival of a dignitary. It emphasizes the presence of this dignitary who now has been absent. Strikingly, this word is used of both aspects of the coming of our Lord. In I Thessalonians 4, as we shall read in a few moments, we find it in verse 15 when the apostle Paul speaks of those who shall be alive at the coming, and that is that word “the Parousia”— the coming of our Lord or the presence of our Lord. In II Thessalonians 2:1 and 8, it is used in relation to His coming to the earth with His Church.

So, the Parousia, I believe, is a term that draws together both aspects of the Second Coming and considers the whole advent event as one. The Parousia or the Greek word “parosea” suggests then the presence of a dignitary who has been absent and that is exactly what shall transpire when our Lord returns. He who has been absent for 2,000 years shall become present. The event that will initiate the presence again of our Lord on this earth will be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. So, when we use that word, “parosea” or “Parousia”, we are thinking particularly of His presence. I think it draws together both aspects and considers it as one event.

The third word that we should know and that will help us in our understanding of this subject is the word, “Rapture.” Now the word “Rapture” is the only one of the five words that we are going to speak on which does not occur in the New Testament. However, the word, Rapture, is an English word derived from a Latin translation of I Thessalonians 4:16-17 where we read that “we who are alive and remain shall be caught up, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds.” The Latin translation of that verb is “rapio.” That is the root verb from which the translation comes and we have derived an English word from that Latin word. The English word that we have derived is “Rapture.”

Now, the Greek word that is used here for “caught up” is a very picturesque word. It is a word that suggests two primary thoughts. The first thought is the idea of a robbery. It is used in Matthew 12 when the Lord talks about thieves breaking into a house and stealing something. That is the idea. There is a connotation of robbery that is involved. Also, the second thought is that of something that is violent, something that is sudden and something that is almost catastrophic. The Lord anticipates that usage when He uses this very word in John 6:15 where we read that when he perceived that they would “take Him by force” to make Him king He departed from them. He uses this same word. So, the word that is used here suggests the idea of a robbery and something that is taken away by force. That, of course, is exactly the significance of the Latin verb “rapio.” It means to come and to seize and to carry off. And, therefore, we have used, we have derived an English word from that— and the English word is “Rapture.”

Now, the Rapture fits in as a descriptive phrase for the first aspect of the Second Coming of our Lord. The first aspect is the Rapture. It is at that moment that He shall come to the earth and He shall seize and carry off those who are believers in Jesus Christ. They shall be caught up together with Him. It is going to be a robbery. It is going to be something that will be violent and sudden and that is why it is described as that which initiates the day of the Lord which, in I Thessalonians 5, is described as coming as a thief in the night. The thing that is going to initiate the day of the Lord will be the Rapture of the church. That will take place as a thief in the night. The Lord shall come in the air and He shall, in an act of sudden robbery, snatch away from the earth those who are believers in Him. So, when we use the word Rapture we are speaking of the first aspect of the Second Coming of our Lord. He shall come in the air privately for His saints in the Rapture.

The fourth word that we want to speak of is a word that is oftentimes attached with the names of churches. That word is “epiphany.” The word “epiphany” is again a transliteration of a Greek word— “Epiphania”— which means appearance. This is used in several occasions in relation to the second aspect of the Second Coming. It is used, for example, in that beautiful text in Titus 2:13 where Paul says, “Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing.” That is the word. It is the appearing of our Lord. It was a technical term that was used in the days of the New Testament for the visible manifestation of a hidden deity.

So, when the apostle Paul and the Spirit of God takes this word out of its secular use and applies it to the coming again of our Lord Jesus, the connotation is that that hidden deity someday shall appear and He shall be seen. That will take place in the second aspect of the Second Coming of our Lord. This will be an “epiphany.” It will be an appearance of the Lord. That makes it in contrast with the Rapture because the Rapture shall be something that will be private. That shall be unseen by the world. In the second aspect, He shall appear and the world shall see Him. Revelation tells us that every eye shall behold Him and so the “epiphany” is the appearance of Jesus Christ on earth before the eyes of the world. This will be the next time that the world sees Him. The last time they saw Him was on a cross and the world never saw the resurrected Christ. The world shall never see Him until that moment when He appears in the second aspect of His Second Coming.

The last word that we should notice also describes the second aspect of His Second Coming and that is the word “revelation.” This is used on many occasions also in the scriptures to refer to the Second Coming of our Lord. One of the most beautiful is in II Thessalonians 1:7 where we read, “And He shall be revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels.” This will be a revelation. He who has been now hidden and unknown by the world shall be revealed to the world. The word “revelation” suggests an unveiling. The unveiling shall take place when Jesus Christ returns to the earth. He who is rejected by the world, He who is unknown by the world shall someday be revealed to the world. That is what the Second Coming shall be. It is in that moment that the “revelation” takes place and the world, then, shall realize He is God. It is at that moment that the Jewish nation shall recognize He is their messiah and they shall mourn over Him whom they have crucified. So, the second aspect of the Second Coming of our Lord will be an appearance. He shall visibly appear and it will be a “revelation.” He who is unknown and hidden from the world shall be revealed to them and they shall know Him to be the Son of God to be the messiah and to be the savior of the world.

Now, if we can keep in our minds these words, then we will be able to use them intelligently when we speak of the Second Coming of our Lord. The Second Coming is one event with two aspects. The first aspect is a Rapture. The second aspect is a revelation and an appearance. Together, they form the Parousia which initiates the presence of the absent God. He shall then become present on the earth and establish his millennial kingdom and reign on earth for 1,000 years.

Now, what we would like to do for these four lessons we have together is to focus our attention upon the first aspect of the Second Coming. That is the Rapture. We would like to do it by studying this morning the Rapture as a message of comfort. Next week we would like to study the Rapture as a subject for controversy. We are going to consider the major controversy related to the Rapture next week whether it takes place at the beginning of the tribulation, at the middle of the tribulation or at the end of the tribulation and who is that will be Raptured when the Rapture takes place whether it will be all of the church or just part of the church. There are four major views in relation to the Rapture. There is the pre-tribulation, the mid-tribulation, the post-tribulation and the partial Rapture theory. What we would like to do next week, then, is to consider these four views and we shall spend our time considering it as a subject of controversy. Then, our last two lessons on this subject will be the signs of His coming. We would like to go through the scriptures and pinpoint many of the signs that indicate, I believe, that we are on the very threshold of the Rapture for the conclusions of the church age and we can well expect, I believe, the Rapture to take place very, very soon.

Message of Comfort

This morning, though, we are going to be studying it as a message of comfort. We will be reading from I Thessalonians 4:13-18. In these verses, the apostle Paul in discussing the Rapture and this is the central passage on the subject, gives us three things. In verses 13 and 14, he gives us a bold declaration. Listen to it.

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep that ye saw not even as others who have no hope, for if we believe, or because we do believe, that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus, or who sleep through Jesus, as it literally is, those who sleep through Jesus will God bring with Him.”

That is his bold declaration. Now, in verses 15 through 17, you have a very explicit explanation of how this shall take place.

“For this we say unto you, by the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto the coming,” (there it is, “Parousia”) “of the Lord shall not precede” (the old King James uses an old English word, prevent, which means precede) “them who are asleep for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. The dead in Christ shall rise first. Then, we who are alive and remain shall be Raptured” (That is the way the Latin translation renders it— shall be Raptured, or shall be seized and carried off) “together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Verse 18 gives us His very direct exertion,

“Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.”

What we would like to do then in our exposition of this passage is look at the declaration, at the explanation, and the exhortation as they are given to us in these verses.

THE DECLARATION

The declaration in verses 13 and 14 is based upon a very serious question that has come to the minds of the Thessalonians. It will be obvious to us that this question concerns them who are asleep. That is exactly what we read in verse 13, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep.” The question they have in their mind is concerning them who are asleep. Now, this verb “to be asleep” is only used in the New Testament of believers. It suggests the peacefulness, the tranquility of a person who has died believing in Jesus Christ. We would speak of it as phenomenal language. That is from our point of view, from the point of view of a person who is alive on earth. One who has died believing in Jesus Christ has fallen asleep. That is, I think, exactly what is implied in the phrase in verse 14 when he speaks of those who “sleep through Jesus.”

The imagery is that of a mother who is rocking her little baby off to sleep in a rocking chair after having given the baby the bottle and singing a song or two and reading a little story. Then, she leans back in her chair and she lulls her baby off to sleep. That is exactly the imagery that Paul is picturing of the death of a believer. He has lulled off to sleep by Jesus. It is these persons that the Thessalonians are very concerned about. Their concern somehow seems to be concerning the relationship of those who have been lulled off to sleep believing in Jesus who have died as believers in Him and their relationship with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. When Paul was in Thessalonica, he certainly and obviously spoke much of the Second Coming of Christ, but, apparently, he never spoke of the relationship between someone who dies as a believer and that Second Coming of Christ.

Now, in the absence of the apostle Paul many have died. Now the question has come what shall be the relationship of those who have died as believers, those who have been lulled off to sleep by Jesus and His Second Coming to establish the kingdom and to reign on earth? These people had suffered for the sake of the kingdom. Some perhaps had been persecuted and even had been martyred for the cause of Christ. Now, the question in the mind of the Thessalonians is this, “shall they miss out on the kingdom?” “Shall they miss out on all the glory of His Second Coming?” “Shall they have no part in the great honor or seeing Him establish His kingdom and reign on earth?” That was the thing that was concerning them so desperately.

One can imagine a wife or a husband or a parent who has been lulled to sleep by Jesus or has been martyred for the cause of Christ. As soon as they return home after the funeral services the question that would immediately rise in the discussion is what shall be the relationship of that person with the coming of our Lord to establish His kingdom. He preached the kingdom. He suffered for the kingdom. He prayed for the coming of the kingdom. Now, is he going to miss out on it? Shall he not see the Lord establish it and reign on earth? That was the thing that was concerning these Thessalonians. It was a very serious question because it was tending toward a grief or a sorrow that was like the sorrow of a pagan who had no hope. That is why Paul was concerned about this question. Apparently, it had not reached that type of sorrow, but it was tending toward that sorrow. The pagan world in the days of the Thessalonians and Paul had no hope. The Romans and the Greeks had no concept of the resurrection of a body after a person died. They had very little hope for the soul. There was a conditional existence after death, but even that was only temporary. So, to describe the pagan world as having no hope for life after death is very accurate.

Now, Paul recognizes that this question in the minds of the Thessalonians is a very serious question because it is causing them to be grieved and to sorrow so that their grief and their sorrow is tending toward the same type of hopelessness that characterizes the unbelievers who, in fact, have no hope. So, Paul says I do not want you to be like those unbelievers. I do not want you to be grieving and sorrowing as those people who have no hope. Let me tell you exactly what the relationship shall be of those who have been lulled to sleep in Jesus and His Second Coming and establishment of the kingdom. He makes his declaration in the concluding phrase of verse 14 when he says, “Even so them also who sleep through Jesus will God bring with Him.” So, Paul’s declaration is very simple. He has completely answered their question. The answer is that when Jesus returns God will bring with Him those who have slept in Christ. They shall return to the earth with Him and they shall share in the kingdom and they shall see all of the glories of His kingdom reign. That is the answer that Paul offers to the Thessalonians. When He returns to the earth and establishes His kingdom, they shall be with Him and they shall see the glory of the millennial kingdom and they shall share with Him in that glorious millennial reign.

He has answered their question. Only, of course, to raise a hundred other questions. How can it all take place? What will be the sequence of events? They have died, but how shall they come back with Him? So, in order to explain how this shall take place, Paul gives us his explanation in verses 15 through 17. It is in this explanation that he tells us the sequence of events, the course of events that shall take place whereby those who sleep in Jesus shall, indeed, come back with Him. The explanation, then, is covered in verses 15 through 17. I think we can divide the explanation in two. In verse 15, you have a general statement. Then, in verses 16 and 17, you have the explanation in detail. Let us look at his explanation in general in verse 15. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord,” so he introduces His explanation with this statement that what he is about now to tell us is by the word of the Lord. “This, we say unto you, by the word of the Lord,” and anyone, of course, who is a reader of the Old Testament scriptures just revels in a phrase like that because the entire connotation of that phrase is that this is a direct revelation that is given by God to the prophet. We read it all through the prophetic books. The word of the Lord came to… and he stood up and he preached. “And the word of the Lord came upon,” and he delivered the message. Paul says what I am about to tell you, the sequence of events that I am about to explore, the revelation that I am about to give to you has come by a direct revelation from God. This we speak unto you by the word of the Lord.

The second thing he gives us in his general statement in verse 15 is that the living saints at the time of the coming of our Lord shall not precede them who are asleep. That is, he is simply telling us that the translation of the living saints shall not precede the resurrection of the dead saints. Now, that is a very important thing for these Thessalonians to realize. If the translation of the living saints preceded the resurrection of the dead saints then it suggested that the dead saints may miss out on the advent to the earth and the establishment of the kingdom. Paul says no such thing is possible and the reason why it could never happen is because the resurrection will take place before the translation. Those who sleep in Jesus shall be raised before those who are alive at that time shall be translated to meet Him. So, in the general statement in verse 15, then, he has said two things. He has told us that what he is going to give us in detail in the next two verses is by direct revelation from God. The second thing is that those who are living will not precede the resurrection of the dead. Rather, the resurrection of the dead shall, in fact, precede the translation of the living saints.

THE EXPLANATION

Now, what does it all mean? Well, let us put it together in verses 16 and 17 as the apostle Paul does for us. In verses 16 and 17, then, we have the specific events, the specific details. Really, you have a sequence of events that will take place whereby when our Lord returns to the earth in His epiphany and revelation those who have died in Christ shall come back with Him. What will be that sequence of events? If you look carefully in these verses you will find there are five events given to us in a sequence of order.

THE DESCENDING

The first event in verse 16, “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God.” That is the first event in the sequence. It is, of course, the descending of Jesus Christ. That is what is suggested on our chart here as the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven. Now, we know from the later text that He does not descend to the earth. He descends only into the air, but He shall descend from heaven to the air and the text says it will be the Lord Himself who shall descend to the air. Three things, apparently, will accompany that moment of descending. The first thing is that He shall descend with a shout. That is a very graphic word in the original language. It means a shouted command just as a command would be shouted by the captain of a ship to his oarsmen or as a command would be shouted by a hunter to his dogs or as the command would be shouted by the general to his troops. So, someday Christ is going to descend with a shouted command. What will the command relate to? It shall relate to the resurrection of those who are asleep in Jesus. He shall descend to the air with a shouted command that will command those who are asleep in Jesus, speaking of course of their physical bodies, to be raised again from the dead. This was what was predicted in John 5:28 when our Lord says, “All who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come out.” This is the moment that it shall take place. I think it was illustrated at the tomb of Lazarus. He had been dead now for some days, Our Lord comes and He stands by the tomb of that man whom he loves so dearly, wiping the tears from His eyes and strengthening His voice. It says in the scriptures that He shouted with a loud shout. That is. A shouted command, “Lazarus, come forth.” And Lazarus came forth. It was the restoration to life. That is a very faint illustration of what shall happen when our Lord descends to the air and He shall issue His shouted command. It will be directed toward those who are asleep in Jesus and it will be His command for them to come forth.

The second thing that will be associated with that descension is it will be with the voice of an archangel. The archangel perhaps is Michael, the only archangel named in scripture. The voice of the archangel I suggest to you perhaps may be the thing that will gather together from all the courts of heaven and all of the corners of the earth, the angelic forces. I argue this because in every massive movement of Jesus Christ, through His life and after His life, as well as on many of the momentous events of the Old Testament, there was angelic accompaniment. Now, there is no specific indication in the scriptures that when the Rapture takes place our Lord shall be accompanied by angels. But, as you know from the life of Christ and in relation to the epiphany and revelation, He shall be accompanied by angels. So, I suggest that that will also be true of the Rapture. The thing that will congregate the angels around Him for the wonderful moment of descension from heaven to the air will be the voice of the archangel. The archangel, Michael, shall give his command and all of the angels in heaven and earth shall all gather around Him and they shall accompany the Lord in that wonderful moment of descend.

The third is the trump of God. Have you ever noticed that whenever God appeared to Israel, especially in moments like Exodus 19 to reveal Himself to them that it was the sound of a trumpet that gathered together the nation of Israel to hear what God would say to them. It was the sound of a trumpet that gave commands to Israel to break camp and to start the procession in their march. In the days of the Roman army it would be the sound of a trumpet that issued the commands for the soldiers to stop or for the soldiers to move forward or for the soldiers to make camp. The sounds of the trumpet. The trump of God shall be sounded and I suggest to you that it will be this trumpet that will be the calling signal for all of the living saints on earth to respond to this moment of our Lord’s descension. When He descends in this first act that comprises the Rapture, when He descends to the air, it will be with a shouted command directed to those who are asleep in the graves. It will be with the voice of the archangel congregating the angels. It will be with the trump of God directed to the living saints, gathering them together and issuing the command for them to come and to meet Him in the air. That will be the first event. It is the descension of our Lord.

THE RESURRECTION

Verse 16 carries us quickly into the second event in this sequence of events. It is stated in the concluding verses of verse 16, “and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” So, after the descension comes secondly the resurrection and this will be the resurrection that will take place in accompaniment with the Rapture. Several things should be noticed about this resurrection. The first is that it is the resurrection of those who are dead in Christ. That is a very technical phrase. It is a phrase which applies only to people who have believed in Christ during the church age. One becomes in Christ by means of the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit, I Corinthians 12:13 and other verses. So, when it says that the dead in Christ shall be raised first, it is referring to persons through this church period, not in the Old Testament period. Persons in the church period who have died believing in Jesus Christ. If you have a mother or father or even a child or a husband or a wife or a loved one who was a believer in Christ and who has been lulled to sleep by Him, then that person is included in this event. It is the resurrection of those who are dead in Christ during this church age. It is a resurrection only of the bodies of these persons as, of course, we must note. When a believer in Jesus Christ today dies, it is for him in his spirit and soul to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. It is only the body that is, so to speak, asleep in the grave. The fact of being asleep does not suggest soul sleep. It does not suggest that the soul is asleep. That soul and spirit is with the Lord immediately upon departure from the body. But it will be a resurrection of the body of those who have died in Christ.

It will be a resurrection to a resurrection body. This is going to be, in my estimation, one of the most dramatic demonstrations of divine power anywhere ever to be demonstrated. He shall resurrect those who have died in Christ and give to them a resurrection body. I Corinthians 15describes that resurrection body as being identical in identity with you today, which means that we shall recognize each other in heaven. I do not think there is any question about that, although the body shall be different in essence or different in its qualities, it shall be identical with the identity of a person today. It certainly shall be different in its qualities. It shall be a perfect body. All the marks of sin shall be removed from the body. It shall be a spiritual body. It shall be a body that will take on incorruption and immortality. It will be a new, miraculous work of God. I think this is going to be one of the greatest demonstrations of God’s power ever. He is going to take the ashes that have been sprinkled over the oceans and He is going to resurrect that body. He is going to take the ashes from cremations that are put in little boxes and He is going to resurrect that body so that the identity will be identical, although the qualities will be different. It undoubtedly is going to be one of the greatest demonstrations of the power of God anywhere. I think it is more miraculous than even the work of creation itself. The resurrection of the saints. This is going to be a resurrection that will precede the translation of the church and that is, of course, why He says the dead in the Christ shall rise first. He is again plugging in to the problem of the Thessalonians. Those that you are concerned about shall be raised first before the translation of the saints. They surely shall not miss out on the blessings of the kingdom when He shall return to establish it.

THE TRANSLATION

That brings us to the third event and the third event in the sequence is in verse 17 where we read, “Then, we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds” and that is the translation of the saints. This is going to be a forceful snatching away of the believers in Jesus Christ from the earth. My friend, if it happened at this moment it would be much like lowering a magnet upon a table that had on that table a sprinkling of matches and nails. That magnet would attract the nails and the matches would be left behind. When our Lord returns, He is going to give a command and the sound of the trumpet so that in response to the command the dead in Christ shall be resurrected and leave in the graves those who have died without believing in Christ for the judgment of God. He shall give the sound of a trumpet to which all of those who are believers in Christ will respond and will be immediately snatched away and will meet the Lord in the air. It is at this moment that they shall receive their transformed body. Paul says that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye we shall all be changed. If it should happen at this very moment, my friend, those of us who are believers in Christ would respond to the trumpet and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we would be transformed. We would receive bodies that are identical in identity, but that are different in quality and we would have that spiritual resurrected body that would be delivered from all of its sins.

The striking thing, I think, about this whole phrase is that this translation will be accompanied by clouds. Notice, it says, “They shall be caught up together with Him in the clouds.” Have you ever noticed that clouds invariably are associated with divine manifestation? We do not have time to demonstrate it. Clouds oftentimes are associated with the Second Coming of the Lord. Zachariah 1, Daniel 7, Joel 2, Revelation 1, in every case say that when He shall come it will be with clouds. I believe it will be with literal clouds. I do not think there is any reason at all for suggesting anything other than literal clouds at this moment. When He returns one of the things that will characterize the day then will be a cloudy phenomenon. That may explained how the Rapture takes place without the world knowing it. That may be the means whereby the hidden departure of the saints will take place. There will be such a cloudy phenomenon at that time that the Rapture will take place unknowing to the world and every indication is that that is so.

After the Rapture takes place the believers obviously will be missed, just like Elijah was missed. They searched for him, but there is no indication that there will be a repentance on the part of the unbeliever after the Rapture. Salvation during the tribulation period will be as a result of the ministry of the 144,000 to whom the gospel message will be revealed by God. There is no indication that the Rapture will cause a great turning to God so that if it took place today every indication from the scriptures is that our children would not immediately repent or the neighbors that we have been witnessing to would not immediately put their finger on it and identify this as the Rapture and turn and believe the Word of God. There is no indication that that is what shall be the result of it.

Therefore, I am rather inclined to believe, and this is purely speculation, that the Rapture of the church could very well be accompanied by some kind of natural catastrophe that will cause a great cloudy phenomenon to encompass the earth so that the disappearance of the church will be explained away naturalistically, rather than theologically. So that when the world sees that the church is gone, they will explain their disappearance naturalistically rather than recognizing this is the Rapture and, therefore, repent. I do not think that there is going to be a great newscast all over the country saying the church has gone and the believers have all disappeared. There is no indication in my estimation that this will be the response. By the way, we have a good illustration of this.

If you were around in 1947, then you will remember the great tragedy that took place in Texas City when those ships exploded. Do you remember that great tragedy? They did not expect the ships to explode. There were men who were working around the men in the explosion of the ship. There was a great catastrophe. The repercussions of it were felt for hundreds of miles. Four hundred bodies were discovered as a result of that tragedy. Over 500 people were listed as missing. Now how do you explain the discrepancy? It was officially explained that those 100 plus people were blown to pieces and that is why the bodies were not found. But several of the news commentators in writing on this incident said in all likelihood many of that 100 plus people used this catastrophe as an opportunity to drop out of society. Men who had great bills to pay, people whose marriages were on the rocks used that catastrophe to drop out. That has happened since that time in many occasions and we know that is the way the world works. What I am suggesting is this. Just as probably the disappearance and the dropping out of some people was explained naturalistically in relation to the catastrophe of the blowing up of the ship in Texas City so I am rather inclined to believe the disappearance of the church will be explained. Man has a facility to explain naturalistically supernatural things. One of the things that perhaps may permit him for such a naturalistic explanation will be the accompaniment of clouds and I am rather thinking that there just may be some kind of a cloudy phenomenon occurring into which the church will be raptured and disappear and that will be the naturalistic explanation for the disappearance of the church.

THE RENDEZVOUS

Well, I am going to have to close real quickly by pointing out to you that the next event is a great rendezvous. It is for a meeting of the Lord in the air. It is not to meet, but it is for a meeting. That is the Greek text. It is for a meeting of the Lord in the air and the word that is used here is a very technical word that suggests the welcoming committee going out to welcome a dignitary. When Paul came to Rome in Acts 28, the brethren from Rome came out for a meeting. The same word is used. They were an official delegation coming out to welcome him. That is a beautiful picture of the church. Here it shall happen. Those who are dead in Christ and those who are alive believing in Christ shall be caught up together with Him in the air and they shall be caught up for a meeting. So, I picture then the Rapture of the church as an official delegation going out from the earth to be the welcoming committee for the Lord as He returns to the earth. There shall be a seven-year interval during which time the Judgment Seat of Christ shall be held, but the Rapture is a beautiful picture of the faithful, the remnant, on earth and in the grave going out to welcome our Lord as He returns to establish His kingdom.

THE PERMANENT ASSOCIATION

The last is a permanent association and that is what you have in verse 17. “So shall we ever be with the Lord.” The permanent association is that we shall be with Him during the seven-year period in the air. We shall be with Him when He returns to the earth to establish His kingdom. We shall be with Him during the 1,000 years of His kingdom reign on earth. We shall be with Him throughout all of eternity. That, of course, is the great message that Paul has for these Thessalonians. As a result, his exhortation in verse 18 is “wherefore, comfort one another with these words.” Those that you are so anxious about and so concerned about surely shall not miss out in the kingdom. They shall be with Him when He returns to the earth and the way that that shall be accomplished is seven years prior to it they shall be resurrected before the church is translated. The living saints are translated. Together, they will go in the air for a meeting of the Lord and they shall be with Him when He returns to establish His reign on earth. That is the message of the Rapture. It is a message of comfort.

THE EXHORTATION

Down through the years, these chapters and verses have been a message of comfort for untold thousands of believers and that is exactly what the chapter is for us this morning. It is a word of comfort. Imagine for a moment the tremendous comfort that is found here in the prospect of a great reunion with those who have gone on before us, believers in Christ. I have a brother that I am going to meet in that day. It is going to be a grand reunion. Oftentimes when I stand beside a graveside and I commit a body to the earth, those are the words that I read. What great comfort there is if that person was a believer in Jesus Christ. There is going to be a great reunion that shall take place. Imagine the comfort that there is in the prospect of the great joy of being part of the welcoming committee. You are going to be part of that, my friend, if you are a believer. You will be part of a welcoming committee that you will want to welcome Him when He comes back to the earth. Imagine the joy, the comfort that there is in the prospect of the great glory of being with Him while He reigns on earth. Just think of the great joy, the comfort in the prospect of being with Him throughout all eternity. That is the message of the Rapture.

There also is the comfort, I believe, the great comfort that comes in the assurance of a great deliverance from the Tribulation period. That is that the church shall be raptured and delivered from the earth before the great Tribulation breaks upon this earth. That is a message of comfort and we shall demonstrate next week why we believe this is so. Of course, if you are not a believer in Jesus Christ this morning there is no comfort in these words. They seal your eternal doom to be without God and without hope for ever and ever. So, we encourage you this morning, my friend, if you have never believed in Jesus Christ personally as your Savior that you trust Him and accept Him as your Savior so that if it occurred today you would be with Him and like Him forever and ever.

Let us bow and pray, shall we. Father, we do ask thy blessing now upon this message and we thank you for the comfort that there is for us today, as well as for those of old in the great promise of the resurrection of the dead in Christ and the translation of those who are living and believing in Him. We pray that Thou will help us to look for that day and to live this week in the light of the fact that it may be today. For we ask it in Christ’s name, amen.

*SOURCE: Published April 5, 2010 @ https://bible.org/node/18387

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Bill McRae graduated from D.T.S. in 1970 (ThM) and 1983 (D.Min). After 5 years of ministry in Dallas at Believer’s Chapel, he returned to his home in Canada where he continued in a pastoral ministry. In 1983 he was appointed President of Tyndale University College and Seminary located in Toronto, Canada. While president, he taught in the Pastoral Theology department and the Bible department. He continues to be their President Emeritus engaging in an itinerant Bible teaching ministry. From 1990 – 2000 he was the chairman of the Vision 2000 evangelism committee of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. For several years he taught annually at the Billy Graham Schools of Evangelism. His wife is Marilyn and together they have 4 married children and 13 grandchildren. His books include: Preparing for your Marriage (Zondervan) Dynamics Of Spiritual Gifts (Zondervan) A Book To Die For (Clements) It’s a study of How we Got our Bible with a Prologue containing the story of William Tyndale.

SUNDAY NT SERMON: Tim Keller “Politics of the King” – Ephesians

Series: The King and the Kingdom – Part 7

Preached in Manhattan, NY on September 3, 1989

We’ve actually been studying Ephesians 2 for a few weeks now because it tells us so much about the church:

¹⁴For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

¹⁹Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. – Ephesians 2:14–22

What we’re doing these last few weeks of the summer in these messages is envisioning the church, getting a clear picture of what the Bible says the church ought to be. I want that picture to be so clear and bright that it burns a hole in your mind and ignites a passion in the core of your being to see that picture realized.

Recently, I read two different accounts of two individuals who lived in two different centuries, on two different continents, and yet the same thing happened to them both. They had lived all their lives in abject poverty. For one reason or another, both of them found someone died and left them a fortune. Millions. They were dressed, and it was brought to their attention now there were millions of dollars in the bank in their name, and each one of them said, “Ah, that’s great. Fine. I’ll get it when I need it,” and never drew a cent for the rest of their lives and continued to live in abject poverty.

Interesting stories. Maybe you’ve heard of one of them, and probably there are more cases than that. The reason that happened was not that they disbelieved it, but I believe, because after years and years of living on nickels and dimes and quarters, their imaginations couldn’t comprehend those figures. They knew there was something in there they could draw on when they had a need, but they really couldn’t get their imagination around it.

We’re exactly like that when it comes to the church. Exactly. Because the things the Bible says about the nature of the church are so magnificent they beggar the imagination, and without God’s help, our puny, shriveled little imaginations cannot get around it. So over the next three weeks, we’re going to take a look at Ephesians 2. For three weeks, we’re going to look at these verses I just read.

Many of you (those of you especially with a church background) have heard these things before. “The church is a holy temple. The church is the family of God. The church is one new man,” which means a new humanity. “The church is a colony of heaven. We’re citizens of heaven, and we’re a colony of heaven.” You’ve probably heard these things, right? They’re in the bank. They’re there to be drawn on, and we sit there, and we go, “Uh-huh,” and we live like beggars. Aren’t you tired of going around in rags yet?

Now Ephesians 2:13–22, is a bank account for a Christian, and all we’re going to look at this particular evening are the first few verses, especially verses 14–17, where it talks about the peace of the church. One of the things the church has is peace. It comes up three times: “For he himself is our peace …,” in verse 14; “In this one body, he reconciled both of them, and he made peace,” in verse 15; and in verse 17, “He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.”

The teaching of this passage, in summary, is the church is a place of supernatural unity and solidarity, and that supernatural unity and solidarity is craved by the world. They’re dying for it, but only the church can realize it. That is what the teaching is. Now let’s break it down.

In these verses, Paul, first of all, explains there’s a major problem mankind has with peace, a major problem, and then he gives a solution. The problem he talks about by giving us a case. He’s a casuist here. He’s giving us a case study, and what he’s doing is he gives us one particular case of the great hostility that exists between man and man, between men and women, between labor and management, between races and races. In this one case, he gives the example of the hostility between Jew and Gentile, and he talks about how that has been solved by the church, so let’s take a look at that.

The problem Paul gives us … He gives us a good analysis of the problem, the hostility you see in verse 14. He says he “… has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,” and then secondly what Paul says is the answer, what brings peace, and that is he destroys the hostility through what? Verse 16: “… through the cross …”

Let’s look at the problem, then the solution. The problem: Paul points out the hostility, and you could make a great case that the problem of the human condition is the lack of peace. We live in a world of great strife and enmity. We pay billions of dollars to diplomats. Now I know there are some of these in the room: policeman, lawyers, social workers, arbitrators, mediators. What are you all out there to do? To keep us from killing each other. Guess what. You’re failing. You’re failing.

The only reason there is some peace in the world is because of what’s termed enlightened self-interest. The Bible gives us a great analysis of the cause of the hostility and the continual strife. Why is there war? Why is there terrorism? Why is there litigation? Why is there divorce? The Bible says the reason for the lack of peace in the world is the inherent selfishness and pride of every human being.

The only way the world is able to go about getting peace … It can get it in a partial way, in a sort of way. There’s a sort of peace that can be developed when selfish people find they can work for peace because working for peace helps them toward their goals. Enlightened self-interest. It’s a partial, and it keeps the world from being an absolutely unlivable place. When somebody sees it’s beneficial to their goals to work and live at peace with other people, then they’ll do it. So we do everything we can to set that up, and I’m glad we do.

Did you notice, for example, this week, ARCO came out with a new gasoline, which is far more pollution-free than has ever been produced? It was right on the front page of The New York Times. The ARCO spokesman admitted freely they could’ve been doing this years ago but he said they had no incentive. Well, you know what the incentive is. California has passed certain laws about emission control, and now they’re going to be penalized a terrific amount of money if they don’t produce the gas.

Suddenly (isn’t this incredible?), they’re working for peace, peace with the environment, peace with the environmentalists. Why? Because they said, “Now we have incentives.” Well, what that means is … Our selfishness has been coordinated, your selfishness and my selfishness. Now we can work together, because by working together we can both get what we want. Enlightened self-interest.

Some years ago, do you remember a really, really great ad campaign for why people should not drive recklessly, why people should drive cautiously and soberly? “The life you save may be your own.” Why is it that the ad people didn’t put up there on the billboards, “The life you save may be somebody else’s?” Well, because it’s just not as powerful an argument. “The life you save may be some other poor slob.” Okay. “The life you save may be your own.” Oh, well, all right. Ooh, wow. Okay.

Don’t you see? That’s the only way the world can create peace. It’s doomed in the end. It has to be, because it’s only temporary. Eventually, it’s not in your best interest to work for peace. At some point, if you’re trying to reach your goals, the most beneficial thing for your self-interest will be to push somebody aside to cheat, to stab, or just to walk away. Because it’s the selfishness which creates the strife and the enmity and the conflict, and you can only harness it so far. It’s the selfishness and the pride that creates it.

Now Paul, I said, gives us a case study of how that works. He could’ve chosen all sorts of conflicts we have, but he chose one, which is very, very well known, and one, of course, which we have plenty of still in the world today, the conflict between Jew and Gentile. He says something pretty interesting. He says he “… destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.”

What does that mean? One thing we do know is Jesus Christ never abolished the Ten Commandments. We know that because the Sermon on the Mount is all about the Ten Commandments. You know, Jesus says, “You’ve heard it said, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ but I say unto you, if you hate your brother, you have killed him, and if you ignore and are cold to your brother, you have killed him.”

What is Jesus doing? Is he saying, “Ah, you don’t need to follow the Ten Commandments anymore?” He’s saying, “Oh, my friends, the Ten Commandments are far more broad in their ramifications than you ever thought. It’s critical we live according to the commandments.” So Jesus did not abolish the Ten Commandments, no. The key is Paul is thinking of something else. He is thinking, I think, literally, of a partition, a real wall, a literal wall.

Yes, there are figurative walls between labor and management, and there are figurative walls between male and female and between black and white, but there was a real wall between the Jews and the Gentiles. It was a wall. It was a partition in the temple, and the people inside were the Jews, who had not just the Commandments but the regulations, the ceremonial laws, the clean and the unclean laws, all the regulations by which they kept themselves separate from the world.

The Gentiles, who did not have all those laws, who were uncircumcised, who ate unclean meat, and so on, they were on the outside. What Paul points out is the Commandments and the regulations created hostility. That’s not the reason God gave the regulations. Why did God make Israel a separate people? Why did he set them apart with all those regulations?

Not to create enmity, not to create separation, but to make Israel a holy nation who would attract the Gentiles to God. That’s why so many of the calls to worship we do here … the first thing, when I call you to worship … very often, I read it from the Psalms. These were the calls to worship at the temple. Very often, in the Psalms, you see calls to worship from temple that don’t just go, “Come worship all ye people.” What does it say? “Come worship all ye peoples.”

God expected Israel to be drawing all peoples to the worship of God. But what happened was the regulations were distorted and twisted by the pride and selfishness in our hearts. The Jewish people began to take those regulations, which were a gift, and instead of being humbled by them, they became proud, and they said, “Look at these Gentile dogs who eat the wrong food. Look at these unwashed pagans. Why should we have anything to do with them?”

Their gift became a source of pride, and instead of serving the Gentiles with their gift, they scorn them and look down their nose at them. The Gentiles say, “Well, who needs these stuck-up people?” So they became a dividing wall of hostility.

Listen. Let me say, very clearly, this is only one case. Tonight we are not picking on Jewish people because this is a universal principle. Every person who receives a gift, every strength you have, everything that is good about you, sin will twist it and turn it around and turn it into something that makes you look down your nose at other people.

I remember, for example, the school district in my hometown came up with this brilliant idea. They said, “Let’s take the smartest kids from all the different parts of the school district together, and we’ll put them in one class, because they can really, really study, and we can get them three and four years ahead in math and three and four years ahead in all these things.” They put them all together. They didn’t say, “You are the gifted class,” but everybody in that class knew they were pretty intelligent.

Twelve years later, they evaluated the program, and they stopped it. I remember reading the evaluation, and the reason for that was there was tremendous hostility created between that class and everybody else. The class developed a sense of, “Oh, we know who we are. We are the smart kids, and we know who you are. You’re the ones who couldn’t cut it and get into this class.” Of course, everybody else says, “They’re the snobby, smart kids, and we want nothing to do with them,” and there was violence because of that.

I’ve counseled, and I sure hope I don’t do a whole lot more of it, but I did a lot of marriage counseling when I was in Virginia because the nearest therapist was about 300 miles away from my town, so I did it. One of the things I found in this little blue-collar town was the women were more adaptable than the men, by and large.

Everybody got married at the age of 16 or 17, and then as time went on, the women were more adaptable. They learned. They grew. They took courses. Even though most of them were just high school graduates, they would take other courses, and they changed and grew, and their husbands didn’t.

Ten to fifteen years later, here’s what happened: For whatever reason (and I can’t document this), the women were more adaptable to their environment. They were more responsive. They were more receptive, and the husbands, it was harder for them to admit when they were wrong. This was a gift these women had.

I don’t know if it’s inherent to the female brain. I don’t know. I haven’t read that, but I do know these women, almost all of them, would get together and talk about it, and they turned it into a tremendous source of pride. They would constantly scorn their husbands about their male ego. The male ego … he can’t admit when he’s wrong. The male ego is rigid.

What happened was they turned their gift into pride. Everybody does it. All of us do it. The gifts God gives us become walls of hostility, barriers. Don’t you see? What does God do about it? What does Jesus say is the solution? The solution is in verses 15 and 16: “by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross …”

The answer to the problem, the inveterate problem, the problem that cannot be solved any other way is here were two people, two groups, Jew and Gentile, at each other’s throats. Jesus reconciled them to God and thus to each other through the cross. Now how does the cross do that? Here we go. The cross does it (and only the cross) because it eliminates boasting.

Have you seen that? One of the problems with the new translations are they get rid of that word boasting? There are a lot of places where Paul says, “No one will boast,” or, “I will boast in nothing.” In fact, my favorite verse, and the verse I need to read you right now, is Galatians 6:14, a very important verse.

He says, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither Jew nor Gentile means anything but a new creation. Peace to all who follow this rule.” Did you hear that? He says, “I boast in nothing but the cross; therefore, Jew and Gentile mean nothing to me. I look at everyone differently, and peace comes to those who follow this rule.”

The cross eliminates boasting. The trouble with the word boast is what? When you think of boasting, what do you think of? You think of a braggart. You think of somebody at a party, huh? You think of the lady in the TV commercial where the lady says, “Now darling, enough about me. What do you think of my dress?” Do you remember that one? Yeah.

Anyway, you think of bragging. You think of somebody who’s always talking about their accomplishments. No. It’s a much deeper word than that. Many times this word boast is translated glory. “I will glory in nothing else but the cross.” You see, the word glory in the Bible means something of weight, and what Paul says here is, “There were many things I used to glory in.” Now what does that mean? “I used to boast in them. I used to glory.”

Does it mean I bragged about them at parties? No. Here’s what it means: To glory in something means to say, “This is what gives me weight. This thing is what makes me count. This thing is what gives me substance. It’s because of this that I am not chaff blown into the wind. I’m not smoke. I’m not an illusion. I’m not a holograph. It’s this thing that makes me real. It’s this thing that defines me. It’s this thing that makes me count.” Paul says that is eliminated by the cross, and only the cross can eliminate that.

He goes into more detail in another incredibly important passage where he gives, virtually, his life story in a few verses, and it’s in Philippians 3. It reads like this: “If any man has reasons to boast, I have more. Of the people of Israel …” He’s talking about himself. “[I was] of the people of Israel … a Hebrew of the Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.”

Listen. “But whatever was to my profit, I now consider debit. For the sake of Christ, I consider them all as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from obeying the law, but a righteousness that comes from God through faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.”

He makes a list. He says, “If anybody has things to glory in, I have more.” That list, he says, “I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” He’s talking about his family, pedigree, his social status. Then he says, “I was a Pharisee.” He was a scholar, “… as to knowledge, a Pharisee …” He was a scholar. His education was impeccable, all right? Ivy League, see?

Then thirdly, he says, “As to zeal, I persecuted the church.” That’s professional success as a rabbi, all right? Social status, educational excellence, professional success, and then he says, “… as to legal righteousness, faultless.” He says, “In every way, my moral record, all these things, I get glory in them. I looked at them, and they gave me weight. They made me feel like I count. I know who I am. I’m somebody.”

They gave him his identity. He says here, “In order to become a Christian, I had to stop glorying in any of them.” He didn’t just say, “It happened when I became a Christian.” He says, “That I might know Christ, I had to count them all as rubbish.” By the way, that is a euphemism, okay? That’s a euphemism because the Greek word means dung, excrement, urine, all those things that got the art banned in Washington, DC.

He says, “I had to count them as refuse. I stopped looking at them as being things I got my identity from.” Does that mean he threw his books away and stopped being a scholar? No. He enjoyed the fact he was a scholar. Did that mean he stopped being moral? Of course not. Did that mean he stopped being a member his family, stopped being a member of the tribe of Benjamin; he didn’t go to the Benjamin family reunions anymore? What did that mean? It meant they no longer were foundational to his identity. He no longer gloried in them.

Now my friends, when that happened, as a Jew, all the things he boasted in were knocked out, and that meant suddenly there was no difference between the Gentiles and him. It’s not just Jewish people who do that. Friends, every religion other than evangelical Christianity does the same thing. It says, “Here’s what you have to do. Go out and get it. Do it. When you succeed, then you know you count.”

I got an interesting little brochure. I won’t mention the church just in case … You know this is New York, and who knows? I might get sued, but there’s a place full of conflict. There’s not much peace here, you know, strife and litigation … But this particular church believes they can give you spiritual purification.

Here’s how their religion works: In the brochure, it says, “Come take our Purification Rundown. The rundown will return your energy and alertness to its natural, sparkling, clear, fresh state. The program is a strenuous one, but you can complete it by following the rules. The Purification Rundown is not concerned with the body. The aim of the Purification Rundown is freeing the individual spiritually. There are no medical recommendations or claims made for the program. The only claim is future spiritual improvement.”

On the back, there’s a testimony, and this person said, “After completing the rundown, I became vice president of marketing for an international cable company. I was able to complete all my work in just a few hours with my new energy level, and for the first time in years, I had evenings and weekends free.” Don’t you realize …? That’s crass. Of course, it’s crass. “Come. It’ll be hard work, but if you follow our religion you’ll reach all of your goals, and then you’ll feel so good about yourself.”

Of course, that’s crass, but friends, every religion, every philosophy outside of evangelical Christianity, whether you get an old one that’s been around for thousands of years or you make up your own, does the same thing. Can I give you a little more subtle personal example? When I was in college, I was very depressed at a period, and I went to a counselor, and the counselor said to me, “One of the things we have to do to help you in your depression is help your sense of self-esteem,” which, in other words, well, he says, “You’re not glorying in anything.”

Now he didn’t put it like that, of course, but that’s what he meant, and he said, “What are you good at?” I shudder to tell you this, because it was a long time ago, but at the time I was a trumpet player, and I said, “I’m a pretty good trumpet player.” He said, “Now I want you to do this: When you start to get depressed, I want you to imagine yourself playing a solo that brings down the house. Do that whenever you are feeling depressed,” and I tried it.

I can give you this testimony: In the short run, it does make you feel better, but then you’re on a treadmill. There are only two things that can happen to you; either you achieve what you imagine, and you build your identity on your gift, and next thing you know, you’re starting to look down your nose (just like Paul says here) at every other inartistic Philistine, every other boorish person who’s not like you.

If you really get successful, you can put yourself in a power bubble surrounded just by people who tell you how great things are. The only other alternative is you fail. Then what happens to you is you’re eaten up with envy and resentment all the rest of your life. In either sense, in either situation, peace is gone. You’re either eaten up with pride or you’re eaten up with envy and resentment. I’m speaking personally.

Paul says the gospel and the gospel alone, the cross and the cross alone, changes all that because what the cross does is it takes you and shows you all these things you’re glorying in, though good in themselves, are nothing before God. They cannot make you in even one iota acceptable to him. They are nothing before God, and compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, they’re less than nothing.

Years ago (I’ll use him as an illustration), there was a man named David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of my heroes, and I’ll quote him as often as I possibly can. He and C.S. Lewis, you’ll hear quotes all the time. Why not? They’re both dead, but they’re like my tutors, my friends, when I read them. Lloyd-Jones was a surgeon in London in the 20s, and he was a man of great standing and distinction. The trouble was, after he became a Christian, he discovered, to his consternation and everybody else’s, he was an incredibly good speaker, a tremendous preacher.

One of the best things you can do if you’re a Christian and a doctor is to be a great Christian doctor, and one of the worst things most Christian doctors could do would be to go out and try to preach. This man was clearly called to the ministry. He had to do it, and he did. He left being a surgeon and he went into the ministry. At that time he took a 90 percent cut in salary. His salary as a minister was one-tenth of what it was as a surgeon.

Some years after that happened, a reporter came to him, and the reporter said, “Dr. Lloyd-Jones, many people were intrigued when you made this choice. You gave up so much. There were so many things in your life you had to give up, and I’m sure there has been a great deal of enjoyment and satisfaction doing what you’ve done, but I’ve come here to find out, on balance, after reflecting and weighing everything up, was it worth it?”

Lloyd-Jones growled at him in Welsh (because he was Welsh), and he says, “I gave up nothing. I received everything.” In other words, let me translate. He says, “My dear man, you don’t even understand the basic nature of Christianity. Christianity is not one way among many that can help you be happy. It’s not just a way that we have to say, ‘Will this help me really reach my goals in life?’ It’s a total reorientation.”

What Lloyd-Jones said is just what Paul said. He said, “All those things I used to glory in, all those things that used to be sources of pride for me, things through which I got my identity, I saw, compared to what I needed to be (acceptable before God), they were nothing. Compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, they were less than nothing, and so I gave them all up.” “I gave up nothing. I received everything.”

By the way, if there is anybody here tonight who has been thinking about committing your life fully to Jesus Christ … I’ll bet you some of you are sitting around saying, “Ah, but will it be worth it? I might have to give up so much.” Oh, you will have to give up some things. Of course, you have to give up some things. You’re weighing it up. My dear friends, you know what you’re weighing up? Good things in themselves, many of them, but compared to the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ, dust balls.

You won’t know this until you do it, until you give yourself to him. You are like a person sitting around saying, “I have millions in the bank, but I’m agonizing. Do I want to spend 25 cents on that stamp to send in my withdrawal request? Oh, I hate to do that.” You know, maybe a 25-cent stamp represents your life savings up to this point, but you have all that in the bank. “I gave up nothing. I received everything.”

The Bible says when a person is like that and when a person does that, there’s a fundamental change in their relationships to all other believers. Don’t you see why? Because now you have an identity which is deeper than your family identity. That doesn’t mean you stay out of your family, but now you have an identity deeper than your family, an identity deeper than your gender, an identity deeper than your race, an identity deeper than your culture.

Why do you think Jesus Christ can say, “You must hate your mother and father and love me?” He doesn’t mean you literally write poison-pen letters to your parents as soon as you become a Christian, but what he does mean is he says, “Now compared to what you feel about me, compared to your commitment to me, your commitment to your family is smaller.” Or put it this way: The Hatfields and the McCoys, remember them? They were fighting and shooting each other and killing each other for years and years back in the hinterland of West Virginia.

As a result, anybody who was a Hatfield, that defined them. If you were a Hatfield, you didn’t shoot at another Hatfield, and if you were a Hatfield, you shot at McCoy. That’s how your life was run. But if a Hatfield and a McCoy both became Christians, then those two people had far more in common with each other than they did with their own families. That is the nature of the gospel because that’s how radically different your identity is in Christ.

In a sense, everything I’m doing now, this passage, is a commentary on the claim I made last week. If you’re a Christian, you’re a Christian first and you’re an American second. If you’re a Christian, you’re a Christian first and you’re a white person or a black person second. If you’re a Christian, you’re a Christian first and you’re a ruling class or a poor person second. Don’t you see that?

Because the relationship you have in Christ is much more fundamental than any other relationship you have. That is absolutely the nature of the gospel. As a result, the unity and solidarity Christians can have is the sort of thing the world has been trying to get for years. It can’t get there because it doesn’t embrace the cross. The cross knocks down the sources of pride, the things that divide us, and unites us. Unites us completely.

Some of you have heard of Matthew Henry. He wrote a very famous commentary. He lived in the 1700s. It’s a very old commentary and a good favorite. His father’s name was Philip Henry. His father and mother were courting. They were dating, and unfortunately, Philip Henry was from the wrong side of the tracks. The girl he was dating, who was going to be Matthew Henry’s mother, was from Society Hill.

At one point, the parents of Matthew Henry’s mother came to her and said, “This Philip Henry who you’re dating, we’re concerned. We don’t know where he’s from. We don’t know who his parents are. We don’t know what part of the city he’s really from. We don’t know where he’s from.” She looked at them and said, “I don’t know where he’s from either, but I know where he’s going.”

You see, that’s all that matters. That’s why Paul can say, “… henceforth we know no man according to the flesh …,” which means, “I know longer think of people the same way.” Christians will find there’s more solidarity with other Christians of other races than they have with non-Christians of their own race. Christians will find there’s more solidarity between themselves and Christians of other families than they have with non-Christians of their own family, and so on, and so on.

The Greek word for church is ekklesia, called out, and you’re not called out of involvement with the world. You’re called out of the identity. That’s the reason why we can say you’re a Christian first and you’re white or you’re black second. You’re a Christian first and you’re this family or that family second. You’re a Christian a first and you’re rich or poor second. That’s the reason why the solidarity Christian can have should be, can be, unsurpassed.

We’re a new humanity. That’s what it means when it says, “The two have become one man.” What does that mean? It means there’s a new humanity, a new race. A new race. In conclusion, I want to just ask, “What are the implications of this?” I’ll give you two. Just two.

1. If this is true, don’t you see the church is not a nice place just to drop in on every so often?

Don’t you see the church is not a club? Do you begin to understand why there are these commands in the Bible who almost no one in this room, including me (because I’m new here), are obeying? I’m not sure I was obeying them in Philadelphia. The Bible says, “Confess your sins to each other …”

Here’s another one: “Exhort one another daily lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Do you have relationships that are so strong there’s somebody who understands you well enough to know day to day when you’re falling down on the job, so that person can encourage you and exhort you so you’re not hardened? Are you obeying that verse? Are you making provision to obey that verse?

“Exhort one another daily lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Confess your sins to one another. Welcome one another. Bear one another’s burdens. Submit to one another. The reason for this is the church is a place where you forge relationships that are full of accountability.

Do you know what real worldliness is, friends? To be conformed into the image of the world right now means you as Christians bring your Americanism in, and Americanism is, “I’m responsible for my own life. My problems are nobody else’s business. My sins are nobody else’s business because there is no relationship in which I can’t walk out if my needs aren’t being met.” That’s the American way today. That flies right in the face of everything we have been looking at.

An awful lot of Christians will come into the church … In fact, some of you might be considering … Well, you’re coming to listen to me. Because you want to know whether, if you have the need, you’d be willing to confess your sins to me. Okay … Only if you have the need, you know. Whether you would come and let me exhort you weekly, “… lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

You’re trying to figure out whether you want to just come to the place where you have one person who you’re doing that for occasionally. The Bible says you are still holding the church at arm’s length. You’re still refusing to come into the church. You’re still refusing to be truly committed because you’re not making provision for other believers to exhort you daily “… lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” If you don’t obey that verse, you will be hard. You have to be.

It’s not good enough just to come and to say, “Okay, the guy up front, I’ll listen to him. I’ll try to develop a relationship with him.” It’s not good enough. It’s not good enough. We have to be a church in which the truth is spoken in love, and my friends, it’s a church where people can walk up to you and say, “Excuse me. I’ve been praying about this for several weeks. I haven’t talked to anybody else about this. You can hit me. Maybe you will hit me later on. Possibly, we can still talk about. I’m trying my very best to do it right. Do you realize your temper is the talk of the whole office?”

Now you have to get ready. You duck. If you and that other person are a Christian, that’s the nature of the unity you have to have. That other person might hit you and later on come back and say, “Thank you.” Later on, you may find out, if the person hits you, they were right; you exaggerated. You didn’t act on proper information, but a church … That’s the church, a church where you’re forging ties that are as deep as the family.

What else does it mean when it says, “Hate your father and mother and love me?” It can’t mean you really hate your father and mother. It must mean you forge tremendously strong bonds with other believers in the church. Don’t forget, Jesus died on the cross to put you into the body. He didn’t die just to save little individual people to run around and go wherever they get blessed the most. He saved you to put you into the body and make you a new person with other people, okay?

By the way, if I was in New York, I’d probably be doing what a lot of you have been doing for years, but I’m trying to say, once you see what the Scripture says, and once you have opportunities, you need to make provision. You need to make provision. The other thing I just want to say is, keep this in mind. In Ephesians 1, Paul writes to the Ephesians, who he has never met, and he says, “I’ve heard you are true believers because of, one, your faith in Jesus Christ and, two, your love for all the saints.” Now those were the tests.

2. Your love for all the saints

Don’t you see? Some of you may say, “I know I’m a believer because I believe all the doctrines. I believe all the right things. I have faith in Jesus Christ.” But don’t forget the other test of whether you’re really a Christian. Do you love all the saints? All the saints.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to say one of the reasons he realized he had changed … After he became a Christian, he would sometimes wonder, “Have I really changed?” He suddenly realized something really weird had happened. You have to remember England (those of you who are from Britain realize this) is a lot more of a class-conscious society than we have here, though we have classes. Silly to say we don’t have classes, but Britain has that class-consciousness.

As he got into a church in a little mining community in Wales, he used to spend a lot visiting with what he called “old Welsh fisherwomen,” women with no formal schooling at all but who were godly women. He would sit down, and he would talk with them for hours by their hearth. Then he would go and spend time with his old friends, the people he went to Oxford with, the people he went to medical school with.

He suddenly realized one day, he says, “I enjoy, more, hours of fellowship with another Christian who is as opposite as these fisherwomen are to me than I do talking with my peers, the people who are of the same ilk, the same education with me.” He suddenly realized, “What could take a British ruling class person and do that?” Only the gospel, your love for all the saints.

There may be people in here who come in here and because of your gifts and your talents, you’ve always scorned the hoi polloi. Some of you may come here, you respectable types, and you’re not sure how you like to deal with these street types. Other people might come in here who have a kind of disrespectable background, and you’re afraid the respectable types won’t work. You might be the tough guy who kind of hates those artsy types.

My friends, I don’t care whether or not you believe all the doctrine. The way you know you’re a believer is you love all the saints, and you find that as you work for it. This is how I end … My weekly C.S. Lewis quote. He says, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal …” They’ll end, right?

“… and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”

We should be treating each other as infinitely precious vessels, as if you were in a house and you picked up a vase and looked at it, and you said, “Oh, what is this?” Then somebody said, “Oh, that’s a 2,000-year-old vase from the Ming dynasty.” You would be in shock. Suddenly, fear and trembling would overtake you, and you would treat that vase as the precious thing that it is. There’s something infinitely more precious in the pew next to you tonight.

About the Preacher

In 1989 Dr. Timothy J. Keller, his wife and three young sons moved to New York City to begin Redeemer Presbyterian Church. In 20 years it has grown to meeting for five services at three sites with a weekly attendance of over 5,000. Redeemer is notable not only for winning skeptical New Yorkers to faith, but also for partnering with other churches to do both mercy ministry and church planting. Redeemer City to City is working to help establish hundreds of new multi-ethnic congregations throughout the city and other global cities in the next decades.

Dr. Tim Keller is the author of several phenomenal Christo-centric books including:

Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost Its Cultural Influence and Can Begin Rebuilding It (co-authored with Greg Forster and Collin Hanson (February or March, 2014).

Encounters with Jesus:Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions. New York, Dutton (November 2013).

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. New York, Dutton (October 2013).

Judges For You (God’s Word For You Series). The Good Book Company (August 6, 2013).

Galatians For You (God’s Word For You Series). The Good Book Company (February 11, 2013).

Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Plan for the World. New York, Penguin Publishing, November, 2012.

Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, September, 2012.

The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness. New York: 10 Publishing, April 2012.

Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just. New York: Riverhead Trade, August, 2012.

The Gospel As Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices (editor and contributor). Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God. New York, Dutton, 2011.

King’s Cross: *The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus (**Retitled:* Jesus the KIng: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God). New York, Dutton, 2011.

Gospel in Life Study Guide: Grace Changes Everything. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2010.

The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York, Dutton, 2009.

Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Priorities of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters. New York, Riverhead Trade, 2009.

Heralds of the King: Christ Centered Sermons in the Tradition of Edmund P. Clowney (contributor). Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2009.

The Prodigal God. New York, Dutton, 2008.

Worship By The Book (contributor). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1997.

SUNDAY OT SERMON: James M. Boice – Genesis 1:1-2 “VIEWS OF CREATION: THE GAP THEORY”

SERIES: GENESIS – PART 7

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. – Genesis 1:1-2

In The Invisible War Donald Grey Barnhouse gives an illustration of what has come to be know widely as the gap theory of evolution. A motorist was driving through America’s great southwest and had planned to arrive at the Grand Canyon of Colorado from the South and then proceed on across it northward into Utah.

He shared his plans with a friend who knew the area, but his friend immediately pointed out that what he wanted to do was impossible. On the map it looked as if he could drive north across the canyon, but that tiny fifteen-mile gap, which barely shows on the map, is actually a gigantic and impassable chasm. One can get north only by taking a detour over hundreds of miles of hot desert roads.

According to the gap theory, the first two verses of Genesis are like that. They appear to be continuous, but in between there is actually a long but indeterminate period in which the destruction of an original world and the unfolding of the geological ages can be located.

A Popular Viewpoint

This theory is also called the restitution or recreation theory. Arthur C. Custance, who has written an excellent book in the theory’s defense, traces it to certain early Jewish writers, some of the church fathers, and even to some ancient Sumerian and Babylonian documents. It crops up in the Middle Ages as well. It was in Scotland at the beginning of the last century, through the work of the capable pastor and writer Thomas Chalmers, that the idea gained real coherence and visibility.

Chalmers was anxious to show that the emerging data concerning the geological ages was not incompatible with sound biblical exposition. So according to him, Genesis 1:1 tells of God’s creation of an original world in which all things were good, for God cannot create that which is bad. Lucifer ruled this world for God. Lucifer sinned. God judged the world along with Lucifer, as a result of which the earth became the formless, desolate mass we discover it to be in Genesis 1:2 (“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep”). The earth continued like this for indeterminate ages in which the various rock strata developed. It was only at the end of this period that God intervened to bring new order out of the prevailing chaos, which is what Genesis 1:3–31 describes. These verses actually describe a recreation.

Chalmers wrote in the early 1800s, but his views thrived around the turn of the century as they were picked up by the various writers of early fundamentalism. The best known was G. H. Pember, whose book on the theory, Earth’s Earliest Ages (1876), went through many editions. My own copy is the fourteenth.

Pember wrote, “It is thus clear that the second verse of Genesis describes the earth as a ruin; but there is no hint of the time which elapsed between creation and this ruin. Age after age may have rolled away, and it was probably during their course that the strata of the earth’s crust were gradually developed. Hence we see that geological attacks upon the Scriptures are altogether wide of the mark, are a mere beating of the air. There is room for any length of time between the first and second verses of the Bible. And again, since we have no inspired account of the geological formations, we are at liberty to believe that they were developed just in the order in which we find them. The whole process took place in preadamite times, in connection, perhaps, with another race of beings, and, consequently, does not at present concern us” (G. H. Pember, Earth’s Earliest Ages and Their Connection with Modern Spiritualism and Theosophy. London and Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, n.d., 28).

In subsequent pages Pember developed his theory of the fall of Satan, the influence of demons in the world prior to Noah, and the relevance of this for the resurgence of spiritism that he observed in his day.

Arthur W. Pink held Chalmers’s view and doubtless also learned from Pember. He wrote, “The unknown interval between the first two verses of Genesis 1, is wide enough to embrace all the prehistoric ages which may have elapsed; but all that took place from Genesis 1:3 onwards transpired less than six thousand years ago” (Arthur W. Pink, Gleanings in Genesis. Chicago: Moody Press, 1950, 11. Original edition 1922).

Harry Rimmer was another influential writer. In 1941 he authored a book entitled Modern Science and the Genesis Record. In it he said, “The original creation of the heaven and the earth, then, is covered in the first verse of Genesis. Only God knows how many ages rolled by before the ruin wrought by Lucifer fell upon the earth, but it may have been an incalculable span of time. Nor can any students say how long the period of chaos lasted; there is not even a hint given. But let us clearly recognize in these studies that Moses, in the record of the first week of creation, is telling the story of God’s reconstruction; rather than the story of an original creation” (Harry Rimmer, Modern Science and the Genesis Record (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1941, 28).

The single most effective teacher of this view was C. I. Scofield, who included it in his notes on Genesis in the astonishingly popular Scofield Reference Bible. From there it became the almost unquestioned view of fundamentalism, though, as I have already pointed out, The Fundamentals themselves contain an article by James Orr that almost embraces evolution. In more recent times various forms of this theory have been held by C. S. Lewis, M. R. DeHaan, Donald Grey Barnhouse, and others. Francis Schaeffer acknowledged parts of it as a possibility (Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time, 62).

Exegetical Strength

There is widespread opposition to the gap theory today, even on the part of very conservative writers. But these often dismiss it too easily, without adequate attention to the biblical data on which the gap theorists built. This theory may be wrong, but it is not possible to dismiss it cavalierly.

What are the lines of evidence for this theory? The first and by far the most important is its exegetical or biblical base. Indeed, without this, Chalmers, Pember, and the others would have had no case at all. The exegetical argument has a number of parts.

First, in the Masoretic text of Genesis, in which ancient Jewish scholars attempted to incorporate a sufficient number of “indicators” to guide the reader in proper pronunciation and interpretation of the text, there is a small mark known as a rebia following verse 1. The rebia is a disjunctive accent. That is, it serves to inform the reader that there is a break in the narrative at this point and that he should pause before going on to the next verse. The rebia might also indicate that the conjunction that begins verse 2, a waw, should be translated “but” rather than the more common “and.” (This has bearing on how the second verse should be translated because, as we will see, it could be rendered “But the earth became a ruin.”) To be sure, the rebia was not in the original text of Genesis and therefore represents only the considered judgment of the Masoretes, but their opinion may guide us to a correct interpretation.

Second, there is the structure of the creation account itself. Each of the accounts of the activity of God on one of the creative days ends with the words, “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first [second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth] day.” In other words, there is a very marked parallelism. Moreover, on the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days, those same sections begin, “And God said. …” It is only natural, therefore, to assume that the account of the first day of creation begins, not with verse 1 but with verse 3 where the parallel phrase occurs (“And God said, ‘Let there be light’ ”). If this is so, then the first two verses stand apart from the rest of the account and describe a creation prior to the work of God on the first day.

**Third, there is the possibility (some would say necessity) of translating the Hebrew verb “to be” (hayah), which occurs in verse 2, not “was” but “became.” So the verse would read, “But the earth became formless [that is, a ruinous mass] and empty [that is, devoid of life].” It is also possible that the verb is to be taken as pluperfect with the meaning, “But the earth had become… .”**

The arguments concerning the meaning of this basic Hebrew verb are long and tortuous, not ones that most people would readily or cheerfully follow. But they boil down to the point that this is at least a possibility and perhaps even a strong possibility. Those who oppose this view—Bernard Ramm, in The Christian View of Science and Scripture, is one—argue that those adopting it make a novel and very questionable interpretation that rests on an infrequent and secondary meaning of the verb. But it is not at all evident that it is that infrequent or secondary. Let us take the matter of whether “became” is a secondary meaning first. In Arthur Custance’s defense of the gap theory’s exegetical base, the point is made that the Hebrew verb hayah, while frequently translated “was” rather than “became,” nevertheless primarily means “became” for the simple reason that the Hebrew language does not really need a verb for “be.” That is, if a Hebrew-speaking person wanted to say “The man is good,” he would not use a verb at all but would simply say, “The man good.” The verb would be implied. This sentence differs from the descriptive phrase “The good man,” because the Hebrew way of saying that is “The man the good.”

In his critique Ramm declares that “the Hebrews did not have a word for became, but the verb to be did service for to be and become” (Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, 202).

But as Custance points out, the reverse would be more nearly correct, namely, that “they did not need a word for ‘to be’ in the simple sense, so made their word for become serve for to be and become” (Arthur C. Custance, Without Form and Void: A Study of the Meaning of Genesis 1:2. Brockville, Ont.: Doorway Papers, 1970, 104). In Custance’s judgment the word should be translated “became” unless there are reasons to the contrary.

The other matter is frequency. John Whitcomb has written that there are only six examples in the entire Pentateuch of the verb hayah being rendered “became.” This seems to be an error. Custance claims that there are at least seventeen cases in Genesis alone, but that is in the King James Version. Other versions give the translation in other instances. The Latin Vulgate has the equivalent thirteen times in just the first chapter. Some sample verses:

Genesis 3:1—“Now the serpent had become more subtle than any beast of the field.” Most versions say “was,” but this verse probably indicates that the serpent became subtle or crafty as the result of Satan’s use of him for the purpose of tempting Eve.

Genesis 3:20—“Eve became the mother of all living.” The King James Version says “was,” but this is strange since no children had been born to her at this time. The New International Version recognizes the problem and translates the verse accordingly: “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.”

Genesis 21:20—“And God was with the lad [Ishmael]; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.”

Genesis 37:20—“We shall see what will become of his [Joseph’s] dream.”

These translations are not beyond challenge, of course. But they do show the frequency of this possible translation of this verb. Custance’s own conclusion is, “By and large, therefore, I suggest that the rendering, ‘But the earth had become a ruin and a desolation,’ is a rendering which does more justice to the original and deserves more serious consideration as an alternative than it has been customary to afford it in recent years” (Ibid, 116).

**Fourth, the words “formless and empty” (tohu wa bohu) may be verbal clues to a preadamic judgment of God on our planet.** True, the words have various shades of meaning and do not necessarily indicate the destruction of something that had formerly been beautiful. But they sometimes do. Besides, there is the important text in Isaiah 45:18 that says, using the words of Genesis 1:2, that God did not create the world a ruin. If this is a direct reference to Genesis, as it may be, it says that God did not create the world in the state portrayed in Genesis 1:2. (On the other hand, it may simply mean that God did not create the world to be desolate but rather created it to be inhabited, as in the New International Version translation.)

When Did Satan Fall?

This message has dealt largely with the exegetical support for the gap theory, because it is the point from which its adherents argue. These arguments have not been taken seriously enough by those who oppose the theory. But this is not to suggest that there are no other lines of support for the reconstructionists’ view. A second line of support is theological.

This has to do with the fall of Satan. From Genesis 3 we learn that evil was already in existence at the time of Adam and Eve’s creation, for Satan was there to tempt Eve. Besides, there are texts that suggest, not always clearly, that there was an earlier fall of Satan, followed by a judgment on Satan and those angels (now demons) who sinned with him. Of course, the fall of Satan may have occurred without any relationship to earth. But he is called “the prince of this world” and seems to have a special relationship to it. Is it not possible, even reasonable, that he may have ruled the world for God in an earlier period of earth’s history—if there was such a period? And if this is so, couldn’t a fall and judgment fit between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? If not there, where does the fall come in? The only other option would be before creation itself, which would put the creation of Satan before anything else we know.

There is also the problem of the first appearances of death. If the fossils indicate anything, they indicate a period of struggle, disease, and death prior to man’s appearance. But if death came through the sin of Adam, how can death be evidenced in the fossil record unless the death witnessed is the product of God’s judgment on the sin of an earlier world and race? There is another explanation of this that the creationist school supplies, namely, that the fossils were created by the flood and so came after Adam. But the argument at this point—while it will not speak to creationists—should speak to most other schools of thought.

Some Lingering Difficulties

What should we think of this theory? It has commended itself to many in recent generations. It is a serious attempt to be biblical. It seems to solve the problem of the long geological ages. Should we adopt it? We should consider it seriously for each of the reasons just given, but before we adopt it we should also consider the difficulties.

One serious criticism of the gap theory is that it gives one of the grandest and most important passages in the Bible an unnatural and perhaps even a peculiar interpretation. This is hardly a conclusive argument, but it is probably the point at which most other Bible students and scholars begin to hesitate. Ramm puts it like this: “From the earliest of Bible interpretation this passage has been interpreted by Jews, Catholics and Protestants as the original creation of the universe. In seven majestic days the universe and all of life is brought into being. But according to Rimmer’s view the great first chapter of Genesis, save for the first verse, is not about original creation at all, but about reconstruction. The primary origin of the universe is stated in but one verse. This is not the most telling blow against the theory, but it certainly indicates that something has been lost to make the six days of creation anticlimactic” (Ramm, Christian View, 201).

This same argument may also be stated biblically, which Ramm does not do but which would presumably have more weight with the gap theory advocates. To give just one example, we read in Exodus 20:11, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.” A person might point out that the verb used here is “made,” not the powerful Hebrew verb “created” (baraʾ), and that this allows for a recreation or reforming. But that aside, the verse does sound like a description of an original creation. “It neither states nor implies recreation to most people” (L. Duane Thuman, How to Think about Evolution & Other Bible-Science Controversies . Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1978, 121).

Second, the exegetical data, while impressive, is nevertheless far from certain. And it must be certain if we are to be expected to embrace such an unusual theory. I have argued above that critics of the gap theory have been far too cavalier in dismissing its supporters’ exegetical arguments, but those arguments are still not clearly right. The Hebrew verb hayah may mean “became,” but there is no doubt that it is also correctly translated “was” and that far more frequently. Again, waw may even mean “but,” although it more commonly means “and.” And as for tohu wa bohu, this may simply mean that the land in question was uninhabitable. Whether that condition was the result of God’s judgment on the earth or was due to some other factor is to be determined from the context and not from the words themselves (cf. Isa. 24:1 and 45:18; Jer. 4:23–26). It is significant in this regard that, although the New International Version supports the possibility of translating the Hebrew hayah as “become” in a footnote to Genesis 1:2, it does not render Isaiah 45:18 in a way that would support the gap theory.

Third, the gap theory does not really settle the problem posed by geology. Geology shows us successive strata of the earth’s crust containing fossils of earlier life-forms. Advocates of the gap theory wish to account for these in the supposed break between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. But at which point in this break did the judgment of God enter in? If it came after the laying down of the fossil evidence, then death was in the world before judgment. If the judgment came first, then the conditions arising from that judgment could not be as the second verse of Genesis describes them (a chaotic world submerged in darkness), for in such a world no plant or animal life could survive. The only escape from this dilemma is to imagine a gradually descending or advancing judgment in which the various forms of life are progressively snuffed out, but this is the precise opposite of what the geological strata seem to indicate. They show a progressive development of life from simpler to more complex forms.

Some gap theorists have seen this problem and have appealed to the flood for producing the geological evidence. Rimmer appeals to both the earlier ages and the flood. But if this is the case, we do not need the gap. The impression left is that the theory has not been carried through sufficiently to provide us with a clearly workable model. It may be possible. But we will want to consider the other views of creation before we settle on this as the only true Christian possibility.

About the Preacher

James Montgomery Boice, Th.D., (July 7, 1938 – June 15, 2000) was a Reformed theologian, Bible teacher, and pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1968 until his death. He is heard on The Bible Study Hour radio broadcast and was a well-known author and speaker in evangelical and Reformed circles. He also served as Chairman of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy for over ten years and was a founding member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. James Boice was one of my favorite Bible teachers. Thankfully – many of his books and expositions of Scripture are still in print and more are becoming available. The sermon above was adapted from Chapter 7 in Genesis 1-11: An Expositional Commentary. vol. 1: Creation and Fall. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006.

Under Dr. Boice’s leadership, Tenth Presbyterian Church became a model for ministry in America’s northeastern inner cities. When he assumed the pastorate of Tenth Church there were 350 people in regular attendance. At his death the church had grown to a regular Sunday attendance in three services of more than 1,200 persons, a total membership of 1,150 persons. Under his leadership, the church established a pre-school for children ages 3-5 (now defunct), a high school known as City Center Academy, a full range of adult fellowship groups and classes, and specialized outreach ministries to international students, women with crisis pregnancies, homosexual and HIV-positive clients, and the homeless. Many of these ministries are now free-standing from the church.

He was married to Linda Ann Boice (born McNamara), who continues to teach at the high school they co-founded.

Sources: Taken directly from the Aliance of Confessing Evangelicals’ Website

Boice’s Books:

Chapters

1985 “The Future of Reformed Theology” in David F. Wells, editor,
Reformed Theology in America: A History of Its Modern Development
(Eerdmans)
1986 “The Preacher and Scholarship” in Samuel T. Logan, editor, The
Preacher and Preaching: Reviving the Art in the Twentieth Century
(Presbyterian and Reformed)
1992 “A Better Way: The Power of Word and Spirit” in Michael Scott
Horton, editor, Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church?
(Moody)
1994 “The Sovereignty of God” in John D. Carson and David W. Hall,
editors, To Glorify and Enjoy God: A Commemoration of the 350th
Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly (Banner of Truth Trust)

SUNDAY NT SERMON: “Access to the King” by Tim Keller

Series: The King and the Kingdom – Part 6

Preached in Manhattan, NY on August 27, 1989

We’ve actually been studying Ephesians 2 for a few weeks now because it tells us so much about the church:

¹⁴For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

¹⁹Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. – Ephesians 2:14–22

What we want to focus in on tonight is the fact this passage tells us the church is a building. You see, in verse 19 it says we’re God’s household. In verses 21 and 22 it talks about us as stones that are being built into a temple, to a house. In other words, Christians are not just a loose aggregate of individuals, but rather we are parts of a larger whole. The Bible talks about this in a number of places. In 1 Peter 2, Peter writes, “… come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house …”

For the Bible says, “I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” The teaching is that we were not designed to live for ourselves or to stand by ourselves any more than a hewn stone is supposed to stand by itself on the grass. If you just see a boulder or a rock on the grass, it looks great, but if you ever come to see a brick or a stone or a couple of stones that obviously were supposed to be a part of a building that are just sitting, spread out on the grass, it looks so forlorn, doesn’t it?

The Bible says we were designed to fit, to be part of God and of his kingdom and of one another. Now this flies completely in the face of the spirit of the age. Recently, 81 percent of all Americans affirmed this statement. (I love saying things like this. It sounds so authoritative.) Eighty-one percent of Americans affirm, “An individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent of any church, any synagogue, or any religious tradition.” What do you think? Does that sound democratic? Does that sound healthy to you?

Think what you’re saying. This kind of religion (a religion you choose independent of what any church or synagogue or any religious tradition says) eliminates the possibility of obedience or self-denial or courage, because obedience, self-denial, and courage are an individual taking his or her needs or desires and submitting them to a larger call to a whole, saying, I am just a part, and I’m submitting to the whole. That’s the only way you can obey. That’s what self-denial is. That’s what courage is.

Up until 50 or 60 years ago, everybody understood this. Everybody. All nations understood this. They understood what obedience and self-denial and courage were. It was interesting. There is this musical, Les Miserables, and in the musical there are a bunch of college students who are ready to lead a revolt to overthrow the government, to liberate the poor. (Not a bad thing to do.) One of the college students, Marius, is in love, and the leader of the college students turns to Marius, and he says,

Marius, you’re no longer a child. I do not doubt you mean it well,

But now there is a higher call. Who cares about your lonely soul?

We strive toward a larger goal. Our little lives don’t count at all!

Now everybody claps, you know … New York audiences clap … but they have no idea what he’s talking about, because you see, 81 percent of Americans say you need to do what fulfills you in religion. You should not say, “My little life doesn’t count at all. I have to submit to a higher call. I have to become part of the whole.” Americans’ understanding of life and meaning and religion is really summed up in what Barbara Walters said while talking to Sam Donaldson.

She said a person has a right to live any way that makes him happy as long as he doesn’t interfere with others doing the same thing. Now that’s the essence of what we believe today. What she has said is very, very revealing. There is only one high call. What is the highest call? The only thing that’s wrong to do is to keep somebody else from doing what will make him happy.

That’s the only absolute. It’s the only thing that’s inviolate. It’s the only high call, and of course, that brings us to the place where we are with that young man who all the photographers snapped back when Jimmy Carter was trying to reinstitute the draft and there were protests. One guy held up a banner or placard that said, “Nothing is worth dying for,” which is true for 81 percent of all Americans, I believe, or more.

Because if you say the highest call is anything that fulfills me is right unless it keeps somebody else from doing the same thing (finding what makes them happy), there is no possibility of self-denial because there is no basis for it. There is no possibility of courage; there is no basis for it. There is no basis for ever dying for anything. There is no basis for ever saying no to yourself unless you hurt somebody else on that same quest for joy and fulfillment.

The Bible says something different, but you see it would be possible to argue against this on completely pragmatic grounds. I wouldn’t even have to go to the Bible, but I will. You can be pragmatic. You can say, “Do you realize up until 50 or 60 years ago, everybody understood what that man was saying in Les Miserables? Everybody understood the idea at certain points there are high calls and high causes. There are things that are right, and it doesn’t matter what you want because they are more important. We have to submit. We have to become a part of a whole. We have to be a building block in a building.”

Everybody understood. We might have disagreed on what those higher calls were. Every culture had different ones. Every religion had different ones. We all believed there were such, but now we’ve come to the place where everybody is saying, “No, no, no. What’s right is what fulfills me.” You can’t have a community, you can’t have a government, and you can’t have a nation like that. If you look at most of the political problems we have, it boils down to this. People are saying, “Yeah, this is necessary to do, but not in my neighborhood. Yeah, this is necessary to have done, but not out of my pocket.”

What that means is, “I refuse to be a part of the whole. I see I should sublimate myself for the good of the whole. There is a higher cause, a higher goal. Not on your life. I will not be a building block in a house. I am the house.” Now when you have that attitude, you can’t have a nation, and you can argue against that view on the basis of pragmatism, but I won’t do that, because the Bible says the reason it’s stupid, the reason it’s impractical is because it’s wicked. It’s not impractical just because it’s impractical; it’s impractical because it’s wicked.

God says, “Because of the way I designed you, you must lose yourself to find yourself. You must submit to me in order to be free. You must fit in to my house and to my kingdom or you will find you’ll be tyrannized to fit into somebody else or something else.” Now do you hear that? Bob Dylan put it this way: “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Do you remember that? What he meant by this is everyone is mastered by something, and Jesus Christ says, “You shall know the truth, you continue in the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

What he means at that point is, “… my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” He says, “It’s easier than any other yoke, because if you don’t fit in, if you don’t sublimate yourself to me, to my rules, to my agenda, to my kingdom, you will be mastered by something else. You’ll be mastered by your drives, or you’ll be mastered by the social circle or the group of people you have to fit in with,” because we all have to fit in with somebody, huh? You have to dress to fit in with the group of people you need to be in to find that happiness.

You need to speak in a certain way to fit in, don’t you? There are some of you out there saying, “Oh, no. I’m not that kind of person. I’m absolutely independent. I refuse to fit into anybody,” so you fit in to non-conformity. I know your type, and you know who you are, too. You are just as enslaved because you have to be an outsider. You won’t ever conform. You won’t ever fit in, even when you need to, even when you should out of love, you see. You have to serve somebody. Everybody has to fit into something. Nobody really is a freestanding stone, and God says, “Lose yourself to find yourself.”

That means, “Lose yourself in my service. Lose yourself in obedience to me. Come in and be part of my larger whole, or else somebody else will get you, and you’ll fit into something else.” When Jesus says, “… my yoke is easy and my burden is light,” he is saying, “I’m the only Master who won’t crush you. I’m the only One who won’t crush you. Every other master is a taskmaster. I’m the only Master who adopts. You won’t just be a slave; you’ll be my son, my daughter.”

Now you see, the Bible says if you are built into God’s house, first of all, you’ll experience freedom. Really, for the first time in your life, you’ll be able to be creative because you won’t need to fit into anybody else or anything else. You’ll also have a sense of purpose. You’ll know what you’re for. You’ll know where you fit. Are you experiencing that in your life? If you’re not at all, or if you’re not enough, then it’s because in some way you’re failing to let yourself be built into God’s house.

Now how can you be built into God’s house? There are five things this text suggests you have to do, and every one of them is not just another sermon … it’s a series … and I will get to them all, but not tonight. Now let me explain what this means. This text here tells us we are built into a house. We are, first of all, in verse 20, laid on a foundation. There is a depth dimension to building a house. There has to be a foundation. If you are to be a living stone in God’s house, you have to be laid on that foundation.

Secondly, there is a height dimension. It says the building “… rises to become a holy temple …” That means you don’t just stack stones any old way. The stones have to follow the blueprint of the architect. There is a design, and it has to rise according to the blueprint. Lastly, there is a breadth aspect, because it says in verse 22 we are built together to form a holy temple in the Lord. That means the blocks are built together.

Now let me draw some analogies here to help us see what it means to be a living stone in God’s house, because this gives us a tremendous inventory, a way for you to look at yourself tonight and say, “First, on the basis of this inventory I can see I am not in God’s house at all. I’m not a living stone. I’m not part of his kingdom. Or, you might say, I’m not experiencing the freedom I should. It’s because I am not doing as well in one of these areas as I should.” Now let’s take a look at these areas.

1. Foundation

It says if you are to be a living stone, you have to built on the foundation. What is that foundation? Do you see? “… the foundation of the apostles and the prophets …” The prophets and the apostles were the people who brought revealed truth from God, and it’s written down in the Word of God. When we say there is a foundation, we mean stones have to be laid on the foundation. They can’t be laid on the plain earth, can they? They can’t be laid partly on the foundation and partly on the earth. They have to be laid on the foundation.

This means a Christian has to submit completely to the Word of God. I plan to preach on this next week, but I’ll just explain what it means real briefly here. If you look through the Word of God and you say, “I like what it says about integrity and honesty, and I like what it says about love and relationships,” but if you don’t like or if you just ignore what it says about sexuality or what it says about materialism and wealth and the use of your money, then you are a person who is setting your rock partly on the earth and partly on the foundation.

Everybody knows what will happen to a house built like that. When Jesus Christ says, “… my yoke is easy and my burden is light,” what he is saying is all other ground is sinking sand. “Build your life on what I say in my Word, on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles. There is no other foundation that will hold you up.” If you refuse to do that, you’re just not building yourself into God’s house. That is the first step, you might say, to being a stone.

2. The building rises

Now that means several things, frankly. First of all, for a building to rise that means stones are being cut out of the earth somewhere at a quarry, right? They used to be part of the earth. They are cut out of the earth, and they’re brought. It says in 1 Peter 2, “… come to him, the living Stone,” and become a living stone and be built up. Do you know what this means? You have to be added to the church. To be added to the church means you have to be converted. You have to be converted.

It says in Acts 2, daily God added to the church those who were being saved. When it talks about the fact you need to come to him, the living Stone, and become a living stone in the house of God, it means in order to be fit for the kingdom of God you have to be converted. Are you saying, “Okay. Let’s move on. Everybody knows that?” First of all, to be in the house of God, you have to be built on the prophets and the apostles (the Word of God). You also have to be converted.

Now before somebody says, “Come on. Move on. Everybody knows that.” Listen. Most of the people sitting in churches today in this city or anywhere in the country, if you went up to them and asked them, “Are you converted?” they would be angry and/or confused. Very angry and very confused. Why? Because they don’t know. That’s why they are angry or confused, or both. Now usually, and I think this is fair, if you don’t know if you’re converted or not, you’re not. Usually, you see. However, there is still some confusion because some people are awfully good at giving conversion stories that are incredibly dramatic.

Sometimes some of us say, “Well, that never really happened to me,” so let me just say if you are going to be a living stone in the house of the Lord, you have to be converted. How do you know if you’re converted? All conversions, whether they are dramatic or not, I think have two sides or aspects to them. They all have this in common. If you’re converted, first of all, you have a deeper sense of your sin. The Bible says the Spirit comes into the world to convict people of sin.

What I mean by that is there is a sense of sin that comes with conversion. There has been a time in your life in which you finally can’t run from your weaknesses, your limitations, your faults, and your flaws anymore (the things you’ve hidden from yourself for years, things you’ve blamed on other people, things you ran from and rationalized away). The Spirit opens you to the place where you finally say, “I’m helpless. I see it finally!” You know, some people say there are two selves in every person.

There is the higher self (the noble self) and there is the lower self (the animal self). That is based more on Plato and the Greeks than on the Bible. Frankly, my dear friends, there are three of you. Very, very confusing. Each one of you has three selves, and only Christians can see the three. In fact, it takes conversion and conviction of sin to see those three. The first self is the false self, the one we try to make ourselves and other people believe. A self that denies the pride that’s there, denies the hurt that’s there, denies the pain that’s there, and denies the wickedness that’s in there. That’s a false self, a false front.

Then there is the true self. The true self is so much more full of anger and so much more full of fear and so much more full of pride and self-centeredness than we ever dared believe, and only the Spirit of God in conversion can give us the courage to admit that self is there. The third self is the potential self, the incredible, beautiful person who you know in Christ you can become, that you are becoming. It’s far greater than anything you ever dared hope you could be. You see, before conversion you could only see the false self and none of the rest, but when you’re converted, when you’re convicted of sin, you see all three. Has that happened to you?

The second aspect of real conversion is besides the sense of sin there is a sense of the preciousness of Christ. Now I use that word carefully, because what I just read you in 1 Peter 2, where it says, “… come to him, the living Stone …” it says no one who ever believes in him will be put to shame. Then it says, “Now to you who believe, [he] is precious …”

You may believe in Jesus in the sense you believe he existed, you believe he did all the things the Bible says, but have you ever come to the place where he became precious to you? That means, did you ever get to the place where you began to look at him the way a very hungry person looks at great food, the way a very, very poor person looks at a pile of money? Have you ever gotten to the place where he began to be your hope, someone you really depended on? That is preciousness.

Conversion brings both of those things together: a sense of the preciousness of Christ so you depend on him and a sense of conviction of sin so you admit who you are. It is this experience that fits us for the household of God. The reason we fit together, friends, is because Christians have been cut out of the world by conversion. We never will be the same. We don’t fit there anymore. There is a place in 1 Corinthians that says the spiritual man judges all things but himself is judged of no one.

Do you know what that means? It means on the one hand, the spiritual man judges things, he can evaluate things, but nobody can figure him out, because, you see, a person from the world can’t figure it out. Conversion, on the one hand, because of the first thing (the conviction of sin) makes you much more realistic about yourself, much more willing to take criticism, but on the other hand, the second part of conversion (the preciousness of Christ) brings a kind of brimming confidence, but it’s a humble confidence. People can’t figure that out.

People who haven’t been through that can’t figure that out. You’ve been cut out of the world. You’ve been cut out of the quarry. You don’t fit there anymore. You fit in the temple. You fit in the house of God. So when we say the temple rises, that means God has added you to the temple. That’s not all. When we say the temple rises, we also mean you’ve been shaped. It says you’ve been fit together, in verse 21. You see, if I just go to the quarry and cut out a piece of rock and just bring all the pieces of rock and just try to build a building out of them, they don’t fit together. They have to be shaped.

In 1 Peter it says the living stones grow. What that means is God is shaping you. He is maturing you, and if you’re a living stone in the household of God, that is happening. Now let me ask you. Let me be very, very specific. Is it happening? Do you see yourself growing into the likeness of Christ? Do you see yourself growing in supernatural maturity? Do you see yourself growing in the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, patience, peace, kindness, humility? Have they grown deeper since last year? Have they grown deeper since last month?

Do you see him shaping you or not? You’re not a stone unless you’ve been shaped. In construction, the shaping of a stone to fit into a building is a mechanical process, but in the church, the way God shapes us to fit together is an organic process. He grows us. Here is the sermon series. There are three ways in which you can grow: the way of acceptance, the way of exchange, and the way of nourishment.

The way of acceptance means when God sends troubles into your life, instead of kicking and screaming and fighting like a wild horse fights the bridle, you say, “I admit your rights over me, Lord. I’m looking for my lessons. I am patient with the things you’ve given me, and I will grow.” Are you like that? When troubles come into your life, do you say, “Lord, I accept this as your teaching and your training; show me what you want me to learn?”

Then there is the way of exchange. That means Christians are supposed to support and confront each other. Did you hear that? Not everything I say you have to really, really listen to, but you have to listen to that one. Support and confront. There is no growth, there is not this hewing and shaping of your stone, in Christian relationships unless you have both: supporting and confronting. Not one or just the other. If you have a person who is only confronting you, you’re going to get rid of that relationship. If you have a person who is only supporting you, you’re not going to learn a thing.

Have you recently heard yourself on a tape recorder? Do you know why it sounds so awful? Do you know why you say, “Who is that? That sounds like my sister. That sounds like my brother. That sounds like my mother. That’s not me.” Do you know why it sounds so awful? Because you know it is exactly how you really sound. It really is. You don’t sound like what you sound to yourself because you don’t hear yourself. You hear yourself through the bones of your ears or something.

The point is … unless you have tape recorders, video cameras, and things like that, you don’t know what you look like, and it’s ghastly when you see it. Right? But that’s what you really look like. Without fellowship you’ll never know who you really are. You’ll never have perspective. You’ll never be sane. You’ll be out of touch with reality unless you have people through whom you’re growing through the way of exchange.

Then there is the way of nourishment. Do you know what the way of nourishment is? The way of nourishment means taking God’s truth in the Bible (his summons, his promises, his commands, everything he says) and not just saying, “Yep, I believe that,” but eating it. Now how do you eat the truth? Well, how do you eat food? You taste it. You get the sweetness out of it. You reflect on the truth. You meditate on the truth, and you get it into your heart and into your mind till it is saturating you so you think and look at everything through a biblical grid. Do you see?

It really becomes part of you. You digest it, you see, just like Erma Bombeck says. “Why eat spaghetti? Why don’t I just put it on my hips?” Food is something you digest; it becomes part of you. Food is something you taste, and when truth is something you’re tasting and it’s something you’re digesting and making part of you, that is the way of nourishment. That’s a process, not just reading the Bible but praying it in. Are you growing? If not, you are neglecting one or two or all three.

The way of acceptance means troubles in your life you’re refusing to learn from. The way of nourishment means you just don’t have the discipline to spend the time with the truth. The way of exchange means you’re too busy or too shortsighted or too scared to actually get into decent Christian friendships where you can grow.

One more thing about stones. Stones not only have to be added by taking out of the quarry, they not only have to be shaped, but then they have to be placed. You see, every stone has its own function in the building. Not every stone can be a capstone. Not every stone can be a keystone. Just try it; it doesn’t work. In the same way, in Ephesians 4 it says the church grows when every part is working properly.

This means for a Christian to be a part of the building, a Christian has to know and discover his or her spiritual gifts. What does that mean? The Bible teaches when Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, it says, “… he gave gifts to men.” It tells us this in Ephesians 4. Before he went to heaven, he said something very strange. He said to his disciples, “You will do greater deeds than me.” Do you believe that? You say, “Oh, that was just those apostles,” but if that’s all he meant (just those 12 apostles) how could they have done greater deeds than Jesus?

Here’s the answer. When Jesus went to heaven, he gave gifts to men, and that means he is determined to distribute his ministry powers out to his people so he can continue his ministry in the world through us. See, Jesus had the power to win people and the power to teach and the power to counsel and the power to do all things. What we get is a distribution, so some of us get some of his powers, and some of us get some of his powers, and some of us get some of his powers, but it’s really him. He died so we wouldn’t live for ourselves, but he could live his life through us.

His business in the world is to make new men and women, and our business in the world is to let him live his life through us to do the same thing. Now Paul is so committed to this truth he says something almost in passing, almost casually, that if you’re not thinking, you miss it. Right there in 2:17, he says to the Ephesians, “He came and preached peace …” Jesus Christ came and preached peace to you who are near and who are far away. Hey, I have a question for you. When did Jesus Christ ever go to Greece? When did Jesus Christ ever go to Ephesus and preach?

We know Jesus Christ never left Palestine. Then how could Paul talk like this? Paul is so, almost unconsciously, committed to this truth that he just goes on by. The fact is somebody, some Christian, went and used gifts of public communication to preach to the Ephesians, and as far as Paul is concerned, it wasn’t that person; it was Jesus Christ doing it. Jesus has distributed his ministry gifts to us all. Do you know what that means?

It’s a picture God is giving us of a stained glass window. Every one of us is a little piece of glass in that window, and as pretty as those little pieces of white and red and emerald glass are, it’s only when they’re put together and the sun hits them all at once you see the whole picture. Only as we pull together, coordinating our gifts, using our gifts, discovering our gifts and ministry abilities can we show the world Jesus Christ in all of his glory. Now coordination is critical. For example, there is no gift of counseling in the Bible. Do you know that? You can’t find the gift of counseling.

There is the gift of mercy. (Tender people.) There is the gift of confrontation. There is the gift of exhortation. There is the gift of teaching. Do you know why? I’ll tell you why. Everybody’s problems are different. As a counselor, I know that. Some people need to have their hand held. Some people need to have their mouth socked; they need a punch in the mouth. Some of you know this. You went to counselors until somebody finally said, “Cut it out,” and it was the best thing you ever got!

But that same counselor, who says, “Cut it out,” to everybody (because that’s the gift that counselor has) will crush other people, because you see, it’s only as all of our gifts are working that we can solve everybody’s problems. It’s only as we all have and use our ministry abilities that we can show Jesus Christ to the world. Now this is exciting, but it’s humbling. It’s exciting because it means Jesus is really in charge of the church. How do you know …? How do I know what kind of ministries this church is supposed to have in New York City?

I don’t know. Do you know why? Because this church is like a connect-the-dots picture. Until God surfaces people with their burdens and their gifts and their ministries and all that, we can’t know what God wants the church to be. Do you see that? Only as you come to understand what you’re supposed to be giving to the Lord (your ministry ability) do we find out what the church should be. Somebody says, “I don’t know what my gifts are. In fact, I’m not gifted at all.” Don’t be so proud. You are gifted.

What you do is you proceed to get active. You proceed to minister. It’s just like how you find you’re good at anything else. You do some things. You check out your desires. You check out your affectedness. It takes time, but you can’t be a consumer. You cannot come and sit and soak. Matthew 25 tells us about the day Jesus comes back and he has three servants. One of them was given five talents, one was given two, and one was given one. The one with five talents said, “Here, Master. I got your five talents. I invested them, and I have 10 back.”

Another person said, “Here, Master. I had two talents, and I invested them, and I give you four back.” The last one said, “Here, Master. I have one talent, and I knew you’d be scared if I lost it, so I buried it, and here it is.” That last guy said, “I was scared,” and a lot of you are going to say, “I don’t know what kind of ministry I could do. I’m scared. I don’t want to look foolish,” but do you know what? In that parable in Matthew 25, the king does not say to that last guy, “You wicked, scared servant.” He doesn’t say that. Do you know what he says?

He says, “You wicked, lazy servant!” He says, “I gave you something, and the only way to take care of it was to invest it.” I hate to say this in a room like this, in a city like this, but you’re stockbrokers for God. If somebody gave you, as a stockbroker, a huge amount of money to invest, with fear and trembling, you knew you could not sit on that because if you sat on it that person would be losing money. You had to invest it. You had to invest it well. You had to give a good return on it. This is far more valuable than a billion dollars.

This is far more powerful than a billion dollars. Do you understand that? We should be looking at New York saying, “All the power we have,” but who knows what it’s going to be? We have to get it out there. Now you see why Jesus can say, “You will do greater works than me,” because Jesus Christ, as powerful as he was, was in one body and one place, but now his ministry gifts and his kingdom powers are distributed in millions of cells that can go everywhere, and there are not enough of them in New York, but we need to penetrate.

If you want to be in the house of God as a living stone, you have to be built on the foundation. That means you have to be obeying his Word. You have to be converted. You have to be growing in supernatural maturity. You have to be finding and using your gifts, not a consumer, not just sitting and soaking, but doing things for him, using the gifts he’s given you. Lastly, it says we fit together into the church, and that just simply means just as a good stone in the walls here, you don’t want gaps in the masonry. You want the stones to be completely related to the other stones at every point.

We talked about this several weeks ago. If you want to be really built into the kingdom of God, you have to have intimate relationships with the people of God, and you have to work at it. It says bear one another’s burdens. It says confess your sins to each other. It says exhort one another daily lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. It says pray for one another. My friends, how many people do you have that you’re obeying those commandments with?

How many people do you know so well they’re exhorting you daily lest you be hardened by sin? How many people are you confessing your sins to? How many people are you bearing burdens with? Now we talked about this, but the fact is that kind of fellowship is a command, so here we are.

End of the service. Here is the inventory. Look at it. Are you converted? Are you obeying? Are you growing? Can you see yourself changing in character? Are you ministering? Have you discovered what your gifts are and what God wants you to be doing in the world? Are you really plugged into good fellowship? Five things.

If you are not experiencing the freedom in your life, the power in your life God wants you to have, you are weak somewhere. Some of you are definitely weak at the fellowship level; you’re too busy, or you’re too scared. Some of you are definitely weak at the gifts level; you’re just consumers. Some of you are definitely weak at the growth level, because for one reason or another you’re not being disciplined in the way of acceptance and the way of nourishment and the way of exchange.

Some of you are simply refusing to be obedient. There is an area of your life you’re not giving him obedience in. How do you expect to know the truth and have the truth set you free? How can you expect to find yourself when Jesus Christ says lose yourself to find yourself? Become part of the whole, the higher call. Submit. It’s a good inventory, but let me just warn you about something. You’ll never be the same again because of what you’ve read and what you’ve heard. You never will.

Do you realize, now that you have this very clear chart you either will obey what you’ve heard and act on it, and you’ll become far more a living stone, or else you won’t act on it and you’ll become harder in your heart and guiltier before God? You’re responsible, my friends. I should have warned you before you sat through this. Don’t you see? You have been polarized. You can either be pushed ahead or way behind in your relationship with God because of what you’ve heard tonight.

You’re responsible, but don’t be afraid. Go ahead. “… come to him, the living Stone,” and you can be living stones built up into a spiritual house, for God has said, “I am laying in Zion a cornerstone. No one who believes in him will ever be put to shame.” Let’s take a moment of silence (and I do mean a moment here), and I’m going to suggest some of you who know you need to work on obedience will promise him that obedience, things in your life you know you should be obeying and you’re not. Some of you, it’s a lack of discipline, just an unwillingness to give God the time and give ministry the time.

Some of you I hope realize you’ve never been converted, and if that’s true, what you need to do tonight is go to him and pray and say, “Lord, I see I’ve been trying to stand on my own. Build me into your house. I receive you as my Lord and Savior.” It needs to be said tonight. Let’s take time to ask God to apply this to our hearts.

About the Preacher

In 1989 Dr. Timothy J. Keller, his wife and three young sons moved to New York City to begin Redeemer Presbyterian Church. In 20 years it has grown to meeting for five services at three sites with a weekly attendance of over 5,000. Redeemer is notable not only for winning skeptical New Yorkers to faith, but also for partnering with other churches to do both mercy ministry and church planting. Redeemer City to City is working to help establish hundreds of new multi-ethnic congregations throughout the city and other global cities in the next decades.

Dr. Tim Keller is the author of several phenomenal Christo-centric books including:

Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost Its Cultural Influence and Can Begin Rebuilding It (co-authored with Greg Forster and Collin Hanson (February or March, 2014).

Encounters with Jesus:Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions. New York, Dutton (November 2013).

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. New York, Dutton (October 2013).

Judges For You (God’s Word For You Series). The Good Book Company (August 6, 2013).

Galatians For You (God’s Word For You Series). The Good Book Company (February 11, 2013).

Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Plan for the World. New York, Penguin Publishing, November, 2012.

Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, September, 2012.

The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness. New York: 10 Publishing, April 2012.

Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just. New York: Riverhead Trade, August, 2012.

The Gospel As Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices (editor and contributor). Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God. New York, Dutton, 2011.

King’s Cross: *The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus (**Retitled:* Jesus the KIng: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God). New York, Dutton, 2011.

Gospel in Life Study Guide: Grace Changes Everything. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2010.

The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York, Dutton, 2009.

Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Priorities of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters. New York, Riverhead Trade, 2009.

Heralds of the King: Christ Centered Sermons in the Tradition of Edmund P. Clowney (contributor). Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2009.

The Prodigal God. New York, Dutton, 2008.

Worship By The Book (contributor). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1997.

SUNDAY OT SERMON: “Views of Creation: Theistic Evolution” by Dr. James Montgomery Boice

SERIES: GENESIS – PART 6

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. – Genesis 1:1-2

Atheistic evolution is no possible view of creation for Christians. It is ruled out simply because it is atheistic. But this does not mean that an evolutionary model must in itself be ruled out. Some who would retain belief in evolution while nevertheless identifying themselves as Christians are the theistic evolutionists.

Theistic evolution is the view of those who are committed to the theory of evolution and who retain it in full except at those few points where, as it seems to them, it is not entirely compatible with Christianity. They are theists because they believe in the Christian God. They believe that he has revealed himself in Scripture. But they are also evolutionists because they think that evolution is right. That is, they believe that everything has evolved through long periods of time from primitive to more complex forms. They believe that life has evolved from nonlife. They believe that man has evolved from the lower animals. Generally they accept the scientific data urged in support of evolution. The main difference between the theistic evolutionists and the atheistic evolutionists is that the former believe that God, specifically the God of the Bible, is providentially guiding the evolutionary process, while the latter attribute the identical developments to chance.

Another way of putting it would be to say that the God of theistic evolution is the God of the gaps. In the last message we pointed out four major problems with atheistic evolution: it cannot explain the origin of matter, the form of matter, the emergence of life, or the appearance of personality or God-consciousness in man. The theistic evolutionist would bring in God at these points. God creates matter and life. But aside from that the theistic evolutionist would view things as having happened precisely as his nonbelieving counterpart views them.

A Possibility

What are we to say to this view? The first thing we must say is that it is at least a possibility. We may put it like this. There is no reason for the Christian to deny that one form of fish may have evolved from another form or even that one form of land animal may have evolved from a sea creature. We may not believe that this has actually happened, for the reasons set forth in our last message. But in itself this view of creation is not biblically impossible.

The Hebrew word translated by our word “let,” which occurs throughout the creation account, allows for this. It does not specify a method by which God caused most things to come into being. However, there are three points at which even the Genesis narrative seems to require something different. These are the points at which the powerful Hebrew word baraʾ, rendered “created,” rather than the word “let” occurs. Baraʾ means to create out of nothing. It is used in verse 1, which speaks of the creation of the original substance of the universe out of nothing; verse 21, which speaks of the creation of conscious life (that is, of animals as opposed to plants); and verse 27, which speaks of the creation of man in God’s image. At these points there is an obvious introduction into creation of something strikingly new, something that did not and could not have evolved from things in existence previously. So long as the evolutionist speaks of the Christian God as the one who has introduced these new elements and has guided the evolutionary development at other points also (so that the result is not the mere product of chance but rather the unfolding of God’s own wise and perfect will), most Christians would say that, thus far at least, the approach of the theistic evolutionist is possible.

Some important Christian thinkers have said exactly this. No less weighty a scholar than B. B. Warfield, in an essay, “On the Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race,” said that although evolution “cannot act as a substitute for creation,” it can supply “a theory of the method of the divine providence” (B.B. Warfield, Biblical and Theological Studies, P&R, 1968, 238).

Another example is the great Scottish divine of the last century, James Orr. In the years 1890–91, Orr gave the well-known Kerr lectures on the subject “The Christian View of God and the World,” in the course of which he defended evolution. “In reality, the facts of evolution do not weaken the proof from design, but rather immensely enlarge it by showing all things to be bound together in a vaster, grander plan than had been formerly conceived. … On the general hypothesis of evolution, as applied to the organic world, I have nothing to say, except that, within certain limits, it seems to me extremely probable, and supported by a large body of evidence” (James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World as Centering in the Incarnation. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1960, 90).

Even more significant is the essay published by Orr in that collection of conservative writings that appeared at the beginning of this century, The Fundamentals, from which the term “fundamentalist” came. In it Orr defends theistic evolution as propounded by R. Otto in Naturalism and Religion. He says at one point, “ ‘Evolution,’ in short, is coming to be recognized as but a new name for ‘creation,’ only that the creative power now works within, instead of, as in the old conception, in an external, plastic fashion” (Orr, “Science and Christian Faith,” The Fundamentals, vol. 1, ed. R.A. Torrey, A.C. Dixon, and others. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972, 346. Original edition 1917).

Neither of these men was himself a theistic evolutionist, though Orr comes very close to endorsing the position. The point is simply that in the judgment of these cautious and eminently biblical spokesmen, theistic evolution is a possible theory and therefore should not be rejected out of hand by Christian people.

Points in Favor

Possibility is not certainty, however, and it is only fair to say that for what they consider to be very good reasons other Christians reject this approach entirely. One of them is Davis A. Young, whose own position is progressive creationism. (To be discussed in a future sermon – Genesis – Part 9) He writes against theistic evolution saying that it “leads logically and ultimately to the death of genuinely biblical religion.” In the heading of the chapter in which theistic evolution is specifically studied he calls this view “a house built upon sand” (Davis A. Young, Creation and the Flood: An Alternative to Flood Geology and Theistic Evolution. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977, 18, 23ff.).

What are we to think of theistic evolution? Positively, we may say that it has two important points in its favor. First, truth is truth wherever it is found. So if evolution is true, as evolutionists certainly believe, and if the Bible is also true, then something like the view of the theistic evolutionists must be reality. Again, this does not mean that evolution is true. But it does mean that we must at least ask whether it is true or not, and if it is true, we must learn from it. We must remember at this point that many theories of science were once declared to be anti-Christian but are now held by Christians and non-Christians alike with no apparent ill effects to Christianity.

One example is Copernican astronomy. Copernicus discovered that the earth was not the physical center of the universe. This was immediately assailed by those who felt that the Bible taught differently. Today we recognize that biblical language that was thought to imply a central earth is merely phenomenal. That is, it describes things as they appear to an earthbound observer (for whom indeed the Bible is written) and not as things actually are from a scientific standpoint. But in Copernicus’s day this was not seen, and Galileo, who held to the Copernican astronomy, was eventually compelled by irate churchmen to recant. Similarly, in the past there have been Christians who have opposed most advances in medicine—pain killers, anesthetics, operations—feeling that these wrongly oppose God’s decrees. Others have opposed such scientific devices as lightning rods, arguing that lightning was from God and that if God chose to strike a building it was sinful on our part to oppose it. In all these cases the terrible warnings made in support of the “Christian” position did not materialize and truth prevailed.

The second argument in favor of theistic evolution is that God seems to work according to this pattern in other areas. Theistic evolution posits a universe that operates according to fixed, universal laws into which, however, God sometimes intrudes, as in the creation of life from nonlife or the implanting of God-consciousness in man. “Isn’t this exactly what we see in life generally or, for that matter, in the history recorded for us in the Bible?” the theistic evolutionist might say. “For the most part the history of Israel and the church flows along naturally. Leaders arise, do their thing, and then die giving place to other rulers. It is only occasionally that God intervenes miraculously. To see this pattern at work in evolution is biblical. It is what we should expect on the basis of what we know of Christian history.”

A House on Sand

Then Christians should all be theistic evolutionists? Not necessarily! There are also important weaknesses in this view to which none should be blind.

First, there is a problem with the supposed truthfulness of evolution itself. The theistic evolutionist believes in evolution, as we have seen. But evolution is not necessarily true, as we have also seen. Indeed, there are important reasons for discounting it. One main reason for rejecting evolution is the lack of fossil evidence. To be sure, the evolutionist reads the fossil record differently, seeing in it a sketchy but adequate history of the development of higher forms of life from lower forms. But the record is at best incomplete and may, as creationists hold, actually provide better evidence for the creationist’s view than for the evolutionist’s. As we said in the last message, it is not merely a question of a few missing links. There are hundreds of missing links. It is questionable whether there is any evidence for the development of one species from a lower species. What the fossil evidence actually shows—even granting the alleged antiquity of the earth and the accepted sequence of fossils and rock strata—is the sudden appearance of major groups of species. If evolution is true, we should expect to find a finely graded and continuous development. Since we do not, we can honestly object to the theistic evolutionist’s first argument in support of his theory, namely, that evolution is true and that the Christian should not be afraid to acknowledge it.

Again, we must emphasize the fact that certain forms of evolutionary development may be true. But the creationist may well ask the theistic evolutionist whether he does not hold his position, not so much because of the scientific evidence for it, but only because it is the accepted (and only acceptable) theory in his field of work.

The second objection corresponds to the theist’s second argument, just as the creationist’s first objection corresponds to his first. The theistic evolutionist might appeal to the Bible as suggesting a pattern of God’s dealings with the human race, which he also sees in evolution—general development according to fixed laws with only an occasional supernatural intervention. But we must ask whether this is really the biblical picture. According to evolution, the development of life on earth has proceeded over a period of several billion years with at best two or three divine interventions. Is this the pattern we find in Scripture? It is true that in biblical history miracles are not everyday occurrences, but they are not all that infrequent either. Hundreds of supernatural interventions by God are recorded. And as for the development of the rest of history along the lines of natural law, would it not be more accurate to say that all history is in God’s hand and that it is being directed by him in intricate detail according to his own perfect plans?

The theistic evolutionist would say that in his view God has directed evolution just as he has directed the history of Israel. But if God has directed evolution according to that pattern, it is not quite the kind of evolution real evolutionists talk about. According to them, evolution is a long, slow, wasteful, crude, inefficient, and mistake-ridden process. The God of the Bible hardly fits those categories. If evolution is made to conform to his nature—efficient, wise, good, and error-free—it is hardly evolution, and the theistic evolutionist who is really a biblical theist has become a creationist though he does not actually describe himself by that word.

Third, we may ask whether the method of creation viewed by the theistic evolutionist does justice to the biblical record. Since the method of God’s creating the animals, birds, and fish is not given in Genesis 1, it may be that God effected this segment of his creation according to an evolutionary model. But in the case of man there does seem to be something of a method, at least in Genesis 2: “And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (v. 7). This suggests that in the creation of man God began, as it were, de novo. That is, he started with inorganic matter into which he then breathed life. It does not suggest that man developed from the lesser animals.

We could always say that man is made of dust even though the actual steps of his creation involved a lengthy development through lesser species. But we run into further difficulties when we get to the case of Eve, for Eve is said to have been created from Adam. This does not correspond to any evolutionary theory.

Again, there is the problem of the singularity of Adam. In Romans 5:12–21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22–23 and 45, comparisons are made between Adam and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is basic to this comparison that Adam was an individual whose act affected his progeny. Does this fit in with evolutionary theory? In evolution the basic unit is population, not an individual. At what point did Adam appear? Or did he appear? If God chose one individual from a population of prehuman but manlike beings and made him man, what happened to the rest? Questions like these make questionable whether the theistic evolutionist can defend his position on biblical grounds.

Death of Biblical Religion

This leads us to our last criticism, the one Davis Young alludes to when he says that theistic evolution leads “logically and ultimately to the death of biblical religion.” There is an unbiblical view of the Bible that Young feels to be characteristic of these men.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is perhaps the best known and best read of the theistic evolutionists. He is French and is a Roman Catholic priest, which should speak well for his Christian commitment. He has a concern for the immaterial or spiritual as well as the material. He can even chide science: “Has science ever troubled to look at the world other than from without?” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man. New York: Harper & Row, 1959, 52). But he is also an evolutionist of the most convinced stripe, and this determines his theology in the final analysis.

For de Chardin there is no question that evolution on the grandest scale has taken place. Therefore, if our understanding of Scripture seems to be in conflict with evolutionary views, it is our views of Scripture or even Scripture itself that must give way before science. He writes: “It may be said that the problem of transformism no longer exists. The question is settled once and for all. To shake our belief now in the reality of biogenesis, it would be necessary to uproot the tree of life and undermine the entire structure of the world. … One might well become impatient or lose heart at the sight of so many minds (and not mediocre ones either) remaining today still closed to the idea of evolution, if the whole of history were not there to pledge to us that a truth once seen, even by a single mind, always ends up by imposing itself on the totality of human consciousness. … Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.”

His thought is his own, of course. We do not suggest that all theistic evolutionists share it. Yet it is evident from these quotations why Young calls this view ultimately destructive. Biblical religion must by its very definition start with the Bible and make all other theories subordinate to that. In de Chardin’s case, everything has become subject to evolution, and an ability to hear the reforming, correcting Word of God in Scripture has been lost. We must ask whether such a tendency is not present in all theistic evolution.

What should the Christian’s proper position be? An openness to all truth certainly, but not the kind of openness that allows scientific theory or any other theory to sit in judgment on the truthfulness of God’s written Word. Actually, the Christian’s task is the opposite: to bring every thought into subjection to the written Word. Paul knew this. He wrote to those of his day, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4–5). We may not know the truth in any given area. But we must know that our ultimate standard for truth—whatever it is—is the written Word of God.

About the Preacher

James Montgomery Boice, Th.D., (July 7, 1938 – June 15, 2000) was a Reformed theologian, Bible teacher, and pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1968 until his death. He is heard on The Bible Study Hour radio broadcast and was a well-known author and speaker in evangelical and Reformed circles. He also served as Chairman of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy for over ten years and was a founding member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. James Boice was one of my favorite Bible teachers. Thankfully – many of his books and expositions of Scripture are still in print and more are becoming available. The sermon above was adapted from Chapter 6 in Genesis 1-11: An Expositional Commentary. vol. 1: Creation and Fall. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006.

Under Dr. Boice’s leadership, Tenth Presbyterian Church became a model for ministry in America’s northeastern inner cities. When he assumed the pastorate of Tenth Church there were 350 people in regular attendance. At his death the church had grown to a regular Sunday attendance in three services of more than 1,200 persons, a total membership of 1,150 persons. Under his leadership, the church established a pre-school for children ages 3-5 (now defunct), a high school known as City Center Academy, a full range of adult fellowship groups and classes, and specialized outreach ministries to international students, women with crisis pregnancies, homosexual and HIV-positive clients, and the homeless. Many of these ministries are now free-standing from the church.

He was married to Linda Ann Boice (born McNamara), who continues to teach at the high school they co-founded.

Sources: Taken directly from the Aliance of Confessing Evangelicals’ Website

Boice’s Books:

Chapters

1985 “The Future of Reformed Theology” in David F. Wells, editor,
Reformed Theology in America: A History of Its Modern Development
(Eerdmans)
1986 “The Preacher and Scholarship” in Samuel T. Logan, editor, The
Preacher and Preaching: Reviving the Art in the Twentieth Century
(Presbyterian and Reformed)
1992 “A Better Way: The Power of Word and Spirit” in Michael Scott
Horton, editor, Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church?
(Moody)
1994 “The Sovereignty of God” in John D. Carson and David W. Hall,
editors, To Glorify and Enjoy God: A Commemoration of the 350th
Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly (Banner of Truth Trust)

SUNDAY NT SERMON: “Peace of the King” by Tim Keller – Ephesians 2:19-22

Series: The King and the Kingdom – Part 5

Preached in Manhattan, NY on August 20, 1989

¹⁹Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:19–22

We’re looking at what this passage in Ephesians 2 tells us about the church of Jesus Christ. This week and next week we’re continuing to look at this passage. Tonight we’re going to look at what it means to be citizens of the kingdom.

More than a few years ago, the Baltimore Orioles had a third baseman named Brooks Robinson. The Baltimore Orioles are a baseball team in the major leagues. Robinson was an okay hitter, but he was an incredible fielder. He was incredible at third base. At one point when he was at the peak of his career, somebody made this comment about him. They said it was almost as if he came down from a higher league and was just tuning up and getting ready to go back. Except, of course, we know there is no higher league. So it was a tremendous compliment.

How would you like to do everything in your life … your work, your play, your relationships … in such a way that people looked at you and said, “This person looks like they’ve come down from a higher plane, a higher league, and they’re just tuning up to go back?” The Bible tells us that’s what should be true of Christians. That’s what can be true of Christians. It’s all because of this verse and this particular statement, this truth: “… you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people …”

Philippians 3:20 says the same thing only in a slightly different way: “… our citizenship is in heaven.” The word citizenship here is a good little Greek word, politeuma, from which we get our word politics. Your politics are in heaven. Your way of living with people, your way of conducting yourself in the world should have the aroma of a higher league, a higher plane from heaven itself. That’s what it’s saying.

What difference would it make if that were true of a group of people? What difference does it make if a certain group of people are citizens of heaven? What difference does it make if that group of people live out their citizenship, grasp it and live it out? What difference does it make? All the difference in the world. It will mean the difference of whether or not there will be joy and stability in the private life and creativity and excellence in your public life, your professional life. I mean that.

To get the hang of it, imagine you’re in some totalitarian country. You’re there as a U.S. citizen. What condition are you in? On the one hand, you adapt. You learn the language of the country, right? You observe its customs. Of course you adapt. But at another level, at the most important level, you’re a U.S. citizen. The duties and the rights you enjoy are those of a U.S. citizen. That country and that government, as totalitarian as it is, though you have to give it respect and know it can harm you, you don’t belong to it. It really does not have the same rights over you it has over its own citizens.

The Bible says that is what it means to be a Christian in the world. The Bible says in Colossians 1:13 that the moment you receive Christ as Savior your citizenship is “transferred … into the Kingdom of his dear Son …” At that moment you have a whole new set of duties and rights, a whole new way of conducting yourself with other people, a whole new way of relating to the world. Your politics are completely changed. That’s what it says. A whole new way of dealing with the world.

Malcolm Muggeridge, who was a man who became a Christian later in life and was a pretty well known writer and critic in London, says after he became a Christian, “As Christians we know that here we have no continuing city, that crowns roll in the dust, and that every earthly kingdom must some time flounder. As Christians, too, we acknowledge a King men did not crown and cannot destroy, just as we are citizens of a city men did not build and cannot destroy.”

What if any group of Christians, what if any group of people lived as if this was true, reminded themselves of it every day, and worked out the implications in a consistent and diligent way in every area of their lives? What would we be like? We’d be the most compelling (that’s the word I like to use) community of all the many communities of humanity.

Now if we want to do that, let’s just try to understand a little bit more about what this is teaching. What does it mean to be citizens? What is this truth? Now this verse 19 gives us this truth both negatively and positively. First it tells us what we’re not anymore, and then it tells us what we are. It says, “… you are no longer …” What? “… foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people …”

Let’s look at it negatively first and then positively. “… you are no longer foreigners and aliens …” Now the word foreigners, xenoi, from which we get our word xenophobia, which means a hatred of refugees and people of other races, literally means a stranger. It means a person who doesn’t fit, a person who has sat down and his surroundings are completely unfamiliar. He doesn’t know the language. He doesn’t know the culture. He doesn’t know the customs. He is disoriented. Everything is unfamiliar. He feels cut off and isolated. He just doesn’t fit.

Now what is intriguing here is the Bible says if you’re not a Christian, that is your condition in the world. It doesn’t say you’re out there having a good time before you become a Christian. It says, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens …” No longer. Colossians 1:13 says, “For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son …” Here we have Ephesians 2:19 saying, “You were in a state of alienation, of strangeness.”

The point is if you are not in touch with the Creator, if you are living a life of disobedience, if you are not living a life of faith in Jesus Christ, the condition you are in is one of fragmentation, of incoherence, of isolation, and of being in pieces versus being whole, coherent, unified, and free. Now the Bible teaches this everywhere. It’s not that before you become a Christian you’re in a great state and then you get into a kind of, “Let’s get down to business.” Before, you were having a lot of fun.

People over the years have said to me, “I’d love to become a Christian, but first I want to enjoy my life.” Of course, at that point what you have to say is, “Whatever you think it means to become a Christian, you are so far off the wall; you can’t do it when you want to.” Here’s a person who says to me, “I know what it means to become a Christian, but I want to have fun for a while. Then I’ll become a Christian. I can do it when I want to.” Anybody who believes that doesn’t know what Christianity is and couldn’t possibly do it.

No, the Bible says before you are a citizen of the kingdom you’re in a state of strangeness. You’re in pieces. For example, there is a word that comes up often in the New Testament. It’s the word anxiety. Jesus says, “Have no anxiety about anything, but consider …” Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything …” The word anxiety in Greek (merimna) literally means the state of being in pieces.

Let me give you a definition of worry. Worry is being out of touch with the boss. I hope this is true for some of you. Imagine you work in a place where you have a boss over a department. If that boss is not only a wise person, but let’s just say he is also your best friend, your dearest friend, your closest confidante, you’re able to go about your job in a very relaxed way. Why? First of all, you’re not afraid of messing up. You’re not afraid of making one little mistake. You’re not going about it really worried or anxious.

Not only that, if something goes awry in the department, if something happens that is very strange and confusing, you don’t panic; you say, “Well I figure I’ll find out from him. I don’t have to worry. I know I’ll learn about it. I know I’ll get the inside scoop. I know I’ll be brought into it. I won’t be marginalized. I won’t be on the outside.” So you have this peace about your job. You’re in touch with the boss.

What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be a citizen of the kingdom? On the one hand it means you are in touch with the person who is in charge of all of history, all circumstances. If you are not on close speaking terms, if he and you are not in a position of being intimate, then you get worried about things. You don’t know what’s going on. You get scared. You get frightened because you’re not sure, and you’re in pieces. That’s what the words worry and anxiety mean.

I’ll put it another way. If you are living out of touch with God, if you’re living a disobedient life, then you’re a person who is not obeying your own owner’s manual. If you buy a machine and you get out the owner’s manual, the person who built the machine tells you how to maintain it. If you oil it with a certain kind of oil at certain intervals, the machine will hold together, stay coherent, and be in one piece. But if you fail to do the maintenance that the designer who built the thing knows it needs, it will very soon go to pieces. It will fall apart.

Essentially what it means to be a believer is you come and you submit to the owner’s manual, which is the Word of God, the person who built you. This isn’t busywork. This isn’t the sort of thing my seventh grade algebra teacher used to give people to keep you off the street. Busywork. It’s not what the Word of God is. A Christian is somebody who has come in under the Word of God, submits to it wholly, and as a result finds he or she fits into the world of this God. You feel like you fit because when you do these things, you’re doing things you were built for. When you don’t … fragmentation. You feel like you’re in pieces.

There was another Presbyterian minister, a man in my denomination, who had a relationship with a young French scientist named Philippe some years ago. Philippe, though he was friendly with this pastor, was an atheist. They had many talks, but he was never convinced. At one point Philippe fell in love with a woman named Francois, and they decided because of their careers the worst possible thing they could possibly do for their careers would be to get married. It was true. If they got married, it would definitely ruin somebody’s career, or both.

So they sat down and they reasoned it out. They said, “We don’t have to get married. Besides that, we don’t have to stay together. We have these hormonal needs, and we’re fulfilling each other right now. When we go to other places, we can find someone else to fill those hormonal needs. There is absolutely no reason why we should ruin our lives.” Two years of emptiness and unhappiness, and they finally got back together, and they got married.

Philippe wrote this pastor this letter, which I think is very revealing and quite intriguing. Remember, this man is not a believer at all. He says, “I don’t know why it’s so hard to live without a permanent commitment.” Now of course the Bible explains that, but he can’t figure it out. “My scientific understanding of man is that we are the result of chance happenings in the universe. Our desires are the results of genes and instincts and hormones, so love is actually an illusion. But I never realized my ideas had drained life of its joy. My lover, Francois, and I cannot live on the basis of these views even though we’re sure that they are correct. It’s almost as if we don’t understand who we are.”

He is a stranger in the world he believes in. He doesn’t fit. His own views are out of accord with who he really is. He is not following his owner’s manual. He experiences fragmentation. He is in pieces. The Bible says when you become Christians, when you receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, “… you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but …” Let’s look at it positively “… fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.”

Now the reason I think Paul brought up this idea of citizenship was because in the Roman world individual cities were actually not just cities as we know them, but city-states. So a person who was a citizen in a particular city would be traveling around the Roman Empire and would continue to have the duties and the rights of a citizen of that city wherever he or she went.

So for example … Some of you might be familiar with this. Paul was a Roman citizen. When he was in Philippi, because he ran afoul of a bunch of people, they threw him into prison. Now most people could just be thrown into prison by the local authorities, but if you were a Roman citizen what was one of your rights? Yes, you couldn’t be thrown into prison without a trial. That was a right.

After he had spent a night in prison, Paul explained this to the Philippian supervisors. They were aghast. Why? Because he had rights. Though he was outside of Rome, he had rights that were still intact. That’s what Paul is thinking about here. A Christian is somebody, though he doesn’t live in heaven, who has the same rights and duties of a citizen of heaven. Now what are those rights and duties? Unfortunately there is an innumerable list, but I’m going to suggest just three of them tonight.

1. The right of appeal

Now by that I mean that a citizen has the right to go to the top if necessary. We already said Paul had the right not just for a trial, but Paul, as a Roman citizen, had a right to appeal to the emperor. Other people did not have that right. Can you imagine what a tremendous right that was, what a tremendous privilege it was to be a Roman citizen and have the right to go to the emperor if you weren’t happy with how some other authority or supervisor had treated you?

If you’re a Christian you have the same right, only it’s far greater than what Paul had. Take a look at Jesus. Again and again blind men approach him, children approach him. What do his followers say? The disciples are always saying, “Get back. Our boss is too important for such as the likes of you.” What happens there is Jesus always is turning around and saying, “Cut it out,” or to put it another way, “Suffer the little children to come unto me …” Jesus is the kind of emperor who, if you are his citizen, is always interested in your case.

We read a passage earlier in “Words of Encouragement.” Romans 8: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …” What is that? That is the right of appeal. You had better not take that seriously. You had better not be like the German journalist whose name was Heinrich Heine. As he was dying someone said, “Do you believe God will forgive you?” Though he had lived a life of licentiousness and rebellion and unbelief, as he was dying his last words were, “God will forgive. That’s his job.” The answer to that is, “No, that’s not, any more than somebody from Zambia can appeal to George Bush for justice. It’s not George Bush’s job to give justice to everybody.”

The fact is that right of appeal is a right of access we talked about last week. Because of what Jesus Christ has done for you, you can go all the way into the central height for justice for your case. Because of what Jesus has done, he has opened the way right into the King. In the Old Testament, one of the best stories in the Old Testament, just a great story, is the history of Esther. At one point Esther has to go in to see the king of Persia, the emperor. She knows if she goes in she could be put to death to approach the emperor. If he puts forth his scepter, if he stretches his scepter out, that shows he has favor on her. She can approach.

If, on the other hand, he does not put his scepter out, she is put to death. What does she say? Now this is another sermon, and I’ll get back to it someday, I guarantee you. She says, “I’m going to do what I have to do, and if I perish, I perish.” Yeah. “I’m going to obey, and if I perish, I perish. I have to obey. I don’t have to live.” Now what happened is the scepter came out, and that’s a picture of what it means to be a Christian.

My dear friends, if you’re a citizen of the kingdom, if you’re a citizen of the King, the scepter is always out. Always out. I just want you to know, some of you in this room are afraid to go in because you say, “I know some things, and God knows what those things are. Why should he listen to me?” If you’re a citizen of the King, the scepter is always out.

That brings up a very important point at this spot. This concept of citizenship tells you an awful lot about what it means to be a Christian. Christianity, bottom line, is a status, a standing, a legal standing. I once heard a person talk to a pastor about people in his church. At one point the person was saying to the pastor, “Well there are some people in your church who are Christians and converted and some people who are not.”

The pastor went through the roof. The pastor said (and many, many pastors would say this), “Don’t you dare say that. These people out here are all trying their best. There are different degrees of Christians out there. Only Jesus Christ was a real Christian. Everybody else is on the way, so don’t be so judgmental.”

It makes sense, doesn’t it? No. It’s a complete repudiation of what this verse is saying. There are no degrees of citizenship. You either are a citizen or you’re not. If you’re not a citizen, you may be applying, and then you become one. It happens in a moment. Some of you might be in doubt about your approach to God for this very reason because you don’t understand the citizenship of the kingdom.

You say, “I know things I’ve done. Some days I feel like I’m doing pretty well at living according to God’s standards. Other days I’m doing lousy.” Another thing that really gets you kind of confused is you see people who are not believers at all, who repudiate Christianity, and who are living far more disciplined, well-controlled, moral lives than you are. You don’t even want to go near God. You say, “How could I do that?”

Friends, what makes a person an American? The color of his or her skin? The language he or she speaks? The fashion he or she is wearing? What makes a person an American? None of those things. What makes a person an American? Is it race? Citizenship is what makes you an American.

What makes you a Christian? The fact that today you’ve been better than yesterday? This is it. What makes you a Christian is … Have you applied for citizenship? Was there ever a time in which you said, “Lord, I know I’m an alien. I know I have no right to be accepted by you, but I no longer trust in my own efforts. I trust in what Jesus Christ has done for me. Accept me for that sake. Bring me into the kingdom?” You applied for citizenship, and anybody who applies for citizenship like that, who humbles himself or herself like that, gets citizenship. That’s a moment. That’s what it is. You cross over the line. Appeal.

Some of you will not approach God with your problems. Some of you don’t feel like you can go near him. Why? Because there is a little voice that says, “He hardly ever hears anyway when you ask him. Beside that, why should he? He hardly ever does anything when you ask him. Beside that, why should he?”

There is only one answer to that kind of voice. I don’t know what you’re saying. If you’re saying to it, “Well, I’ll try better tomorrow,” you yourself know maybe you will do better tomorrow, but then what about Tuesday? The only answer to that kind of voice is, “I’m a citizen.” The right of appeal.

2. The right of escort

Let me tell you about the War of Jenkins’ Ear. Have any of you heard of the War of Jenkins’ Ear? I hope not. In 1739 when Britain was at the height of its naval power, a particular … You’re laughing already. I haven’t even told you this story. This is true. Honest. It’s Sunday. I’m a preacher. We’re in church. I wouldn’t tell you a lie now, okay?

There was a lone British vessel that was attacked wrongfully by the Spaniards. In the battle the captain (his name was Captain Jenkins) had his ear cut off by a sword. He saved the ear, and he put it in a bottle of liquor to preserve it. He sailed back to England. He went into Parliament. He told everybody what happened, and he held up the ear.

By the way, visual aids are very helpful in speaking. I was trying to think of a good visual aid for tonight, and I just couldn’t come up with one. I’m sorry about that. This was a corker. He put up his ear. Parliament declared war on Spain, and it was called the War of Jenkins’ Ear. Now on the one hand, wouldn’t you say one particular human being is not worth going to war for? From one perspective, yes.

Captain Jenkins, as one particular human being … in fact, just his ear … is not a good enough reason to go to war. But Captain Jenkins, as a citizen of the British Empire, is enough reason to go to war. Why? Because each citizen represents the Crown, or better yet, an attack on a British citizen represented an attack on the Crown. All the might of the British Empire escorted that one citizen, Captain Jenkins, back to the scene of the crime.

Now friends, if you’re a citizen of the kingdom, you have all the power of the kingdom escorting you through your life. You do. The kingdom is power. That’s another sermon, too. Second Corinthians 10 says, “We fight with weapons that are not earthly weapons.” They’re not actual Uzis. They’re not actual swords, but they are spiritual weapons. Let me just give you a couple.

First of all, you have kingdom power against your own internal weaknesses, your sins. Don’t you know you have habits, fears, drives, and desires that have been ripping you up for years, that have been holding you back for years? What are you going to do about them? Are you going to give up? You have kingdom power. You have the Word of God, which is alive and active and which can deal with those things. You have the Spirit of God. If you don’t know that and if you’ve given up on yourself, you’re not thinking like a citizen; you’re thinking like a slave.

Let me give you an illustration that is worth repeating. I will, and draw it out even more later on. Imagine a person who had been a slave all of his life in the South of the United States up until the Civil War. Every day he used to come into a town. He would walk up and there would be men who would come and laugh at him, jeer at him, say, “Get me a drink of water,” and order him around. He had to because if he didn’t they could beat him within an inch of his life, and it was perfectly legal.

Then one day Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, and that person is now a citizen. The next day he walks into town, the same guys are there yelling and screaming and telling him to do all kinds of things, only this time he knows if he doesn’t do what they tell him to do, he is a citizen, and though they could still make trouble for him, he can make trouble for them. Now it’s not easy after 40 years of being a slave on one day when you’re told you’re now a citizen to suddenly start acting like a citizen. Probably what the guy will do is continue to act like a slave. That’s natural. He is still a citizen, but he is acting like a slave.

That’s what a lot of us in this room are like, because the moment you were transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, the fears in your life, the pride in your life, and the sins in your life that were ordering you around because, before you got into the kingdom of God they were in your life with the full rights of citizens, your sins are now illegal aliens. They no longer have power over you. You do not have to do what they say. Are you going to act like a slave or like a citizen?

It’s not going to be easy, any easier than it would be for that man, but the only way you’ll ever overcome the things that are in your life is to recognize that truth. The only way that man would ever stop acting like a slave is to remind himself, to tell himself, and to begin to step out on the basis of what is true legally.

That was mighty, mighty hard to work into his personality after all those years. It’s hard for us too. But do you believe God’s power is escorting you through life? Do you believe you have God’s power in your life to deal with those things? Are you acting like a citizen or like a slave? Not only that, God is escorting you with his power through history.

The Bible does not say if God is your King you won’t have troubles, but the Bible does say, “… all things work together for good …” That means in a sense God is overwhelming and overpowering troubles that come into your life so they are the things you need to change you, to help you, and to grow you. Remember Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers? In Genesis 50:20, he looks his brothers in the eye. Why isn’t there any bitterness?

Because Joseph was sold into slavery, he was able to rise up into great places of power in Egypt. He looked at his brothers and said, “… you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” God escorted me through history. With his overwhelming power he worked out for good even the troubles that came into my life.” That kind of power is in your life, too. God is your escort if you’re a citizen of the King.

3. The duty of representing your people

If you are a citizen you represent your people. If you’re a citizen you represent the king. Here we’re told if you’re a citizen that makes you a nation. If you’re a citizen you’re part of a nation. First Peter 2:9 comes right out and explicitly says, “You are … a holy nation …” Or right here in verse 15 of this same chapter it says, “God takes Jew and Gentile and makes them one new man. You’re a new humanity. You’re a new race. You’re a new nation.”

Now the word nation in 1 Peter 2:9 is the word ethnos, and the Bible says when you become a Christian you become a new ethnic. What is an ethnic? How do ethnics differ from each other? Well I’ll tell you. An ethnic group is something very different than an organization or a club, isn’t it? Two clubs differ from each other only in a couple of areas, like how do the Optimists differ from the Boy Scouts? Well they differ in age. They differ in activity.

How does a German differ from a Chinese person? In all kinds of ways, because your ethnicity, your culture tells you how to live in every way, doesn’t it? It tells you how men and women relate. It tells you how parents and children relate. It tells you how to dress. It tells you what is good art. It tells you what is good labor. It tells you good business practice. It even tells you what is humorous and what isn’t, right? Your culture tells you everything.

What does it mean when the Bible says, “You have become a new ethnic?” This is radical. It means if you’re a citizen and you know you’re a citizen, the church is not just a lecture hall, the church is not just a social club. It’s a counterculture. It’s a pilot plant of what humanity would be in every area under the lordship of Christ. It’s a counterculture.

We’re told in Deuteronomy 4, God says to the children of Israel, “Obey the laws I give you so the nations will see how wise and great you are and how wise and great I am.” That means our citizenship, it says here in verses 19–20, is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. That’s the Word of God, the New and the Old Testament. As we submit every area of our lives to his lordship, we become a new ethnic.

When the world looks at us, it shouldn’t just see people who come and get kind of a high every so often or come and get a little enrichment. If you’re a citizen of the kingdom, that means Christianity cannot be another file in the crowded drawer of your life, another Weight Watchers program, another enrichment program. Instead, it should be the center of your life out of which every part of your life is controlled. Every part. To be a new ethnic.

If you don’t understand this, you can’t understand a lot of things in Scripture. For example, 1 Corinthians 6 says, “No two Christians should ever sue one another in court.” Did you know that? First Corinthians 6. You didn’t know that. Well what does that mean? Is that just busywork? How did God come up with that one?

It’s very simple. If we are to be the people of God, if we are to be a new ethnic, if we’re to be a pilot plant showing the world what a new humanity would be underneath the lordship of Christ, we need to show the world justice. If we can’t work out our own disputes, if we can’t show we know how to deal fairly with people, work out disputes, and work out justice within our own community, we’ve bought the ranch. We’ve blown the ball game. For two Christians to go to court means you’ve failed to be the people of God. You do not understand your citizenship at all. You don’t understand what it means to be an ethnic.

It also means the church is not a place to come just simply to get a little bit of inspiration for the week. It is a counterculture. You come here because you’re saying, “How in the world do I get my Christianity out in every area of my life, including my public life?” If you’re in fashions, for example, have you ever sat down and worked out what the Bible says about clothing? The Bible says a lot about clothing. God invented clothing, you know.

He invented clothing both to conceal certain things and to reveal certain things. Have you ever worked that out? Have pastors, Christian people in the fashion business, and other believers worked together to figure out what some of those principles are so we can work them into our public lives and hold each other accountable? A counterculture is a place where we give one another support to be citizens of the kingdom in every area of our lives.

It’s going to be very hard to get that off the ground because for the last 50 or 80 years, the churches have gotten no concept of citizenship. We see the church as simply a lecture hall or a social club, and we don’t give that kind of thing because we don’t have a concept of the kingdom. That is a duty: to represent, to exhibit the King. Now there is another part, but I won’t even deal with it. I’ll deal with it next week. That is being an embassy and spreading the kingdom, but we won’t get to that. I’m going to close up right now.

My dear friends, here is the bottom line. In this room my guess is there are some of you who are citizens who are living like aliens or strangers. There are some of you on the other hand who are aliens who are living like citizens. Let me explain. Some of you are believers. You received Jesus Christ as Lord. You’re citizens, but you’re not living like citizens. Are you living in fear that somehow God is not going to help you with your problems?

You’re not living like a citizen. You have the right of appeal. Are you living in anger because your life has been messed up? Angry at people for having done it? Angry at God? You’re not living as a citizen. You don’t see the escort God has for you. Some of you are living cowed before problems in your life, and you’ve given up on yourself. You’re living like slaves and not like citizens.

The main way some of you are not living like citizens is you’re just being mindless about your public life. In your private life you’re a Christian. That means on the weekends and the evenings and whenever you get off, but the rest of the time you don’t look any different. Nobody ever looks at you and says, “That person looks like they’ve come down from a higher league.”

There is a distinctiveness and a creativity about Christians who try to work out their citizenship because they know they’re a new ethnic and they’re going to do everything in their lives, including their public work, ethnically Christian. Are you a citizen but you’re living like a stranger, you’re living like an alien, you’re living like a slave? Are you? My friends, demand your rights but don’t demand them of God. He has been offering them. Demand them of yourself. Don’t demand them of God. He is the source of those rights. Look at yourself and say, “You idiot. Why are you living like this?”

Then there are some of you I would think who are living like citizens who are really aliens. Now what I mean is you expect God to take care of you. You expect God to bless you. You expect God to escort you. You expect God to listen to you. Yet you’ve never actually applied for citizenship. Well how do you know if you’ve done that? Very simple.

Number one, you have to admit you’re an alien. Let me tell you, nobody has ever come to the United States and tried to become a U.S. citizen without at least admitting they weren’t one. You have to admit you aren’t a citizen before they’ll ever let you be one. A lot of folks just won’t do that. “I’ve tried my best. I’ve lived a healthy, clean life.”

My friends, you can’t become a citizen until you admit, until you say, “Oh Lord Jesus Christ, I owe you everything because you invented me. You made me. I should be loving you with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, but I don’t. I have no rights before you at all. I am an alien.” Then secondly, you turn around and you say, “Oh Lord, because of what Jesus Christ did, oh Father, because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross, he bought my citizenship for me.”

As you transfer your trust from yourself to Jesus Christ, he transfers your citizenship from darkness into light. When you do that, you’re in. You’re a citizen. Are you a citizen? Are you a citizen living like an alien? Are you an alien living like a citizen? Let’s apply this to our hearts in a moment of silent reflection. Take time. Think it through. Go to him, pray, and apply this truth to your own heart. With the Spirit’s help, let’s do that now.

ABOUT THE PREACHER

In 1989 Dr. Timothy J. Keller, his wife and three young sons moved to New York City to begin Redeemer Presbyterian Church. In 20 years it has grown to meeting for five services at three sites with a weekly attendance of over 5,000. Redeemer is notable not only for winning skeptical New Yorkers to faith, but also for partnering with other churches to do both mercy ministry and church planting. Redeemer City to City is working to help establish hundreds of new multi-ethnic congregations throughout the city and other global cities in the next decades.

Dr. Tim Keller is the author of several phenomenal Christo-centric books including:

Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost Its Cultural Influence and Can Begin Rebuilding It (co-authored with Greg Forster and Collin Hanson (February or March, 2014).

Encounters with Jesus:Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions. New York, Dutton (November 2013).

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. New York, Dutton (October 2013).

Judges For You (God’s Word For You Series). The Good Book Company (August 6, 2013).

Galatians For You (God’s Word For You Series). The Good Book Company (February 11, 2013).

Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Plan for the World. New York, Penguin Publishing, November, 2012.

Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, September, 2012.

The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness. New York: 10 Publishing, April 2012.

Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just. New York: Riverhead Trade, August, 2012.

The Gospel As Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices (editor and contributor). Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God. New York, Dutton, 2011.

King’s Cross: *The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus (**Retitled:* Jesus the KIng: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God). New York, Dutton, 2011.

Gospel in Life Study Guide: Grace Changes Everything. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2010.

The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York, Dutton, 2009.

Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Priorities of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters. New York, Riverhead Trade, 2009.

Heralds of the King: Christ Centered Sermons in the Tradition of Edmund P. Clowney (contributor). Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2009.

The Prodigal God. New York, Dutton, 2008.

Worship By The Book (contributor). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1997.

SERIES: GENESIS – PART 8

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. – Genesis 1:1-2

These organizations have offered a powerful challenge to prevailing evolutionary theory and have carried their challenge into the public sphere as evidenced by the California biology textbook controversy, which began in November 1969, and other recent court cases.

The Creationists’ Message

The message of the creationists, whether in debate or in their publications, is that evolution is impossible and that the facts (as we know them) best fit the creationist model.

A Detailed Message

Creationists believe that their views are reinforced by additional considerations:

1. Present-day conditions are forming very few potential fossil deposits, and most of these are unusual. Nothing comparable to the known fossil beds of ancient times is being formed today, which makes us think that some past catastrophe was necessary to produce them.

3. The existence of huge fossil deposits containing thousands of large, complex species, such as the mammoth deposits in Siberia, is best explained either by the flood or by the abnormal weather conditions that must have followed it.

How Old is the Earth?

In spite of the careful biblical and scientific research that has accumulated in support of the creationists’ view, there are problems that make the theory wrong to most (including many evangelical) scientists. We conclude by listing the most important.

Remaining Problems

What About Science?

About the Preacher

Boice’s Books:

Chapters

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The New Park Street Pulpit 1

GOING HOME—A CHRISTMAS SERMON

NO. 109

A SERMON DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, DECEMBER 21, 1856,

BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE MUSIC HALL, ROYAL SURREY GARDENS.

“Go home to your friends and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and has had compassion on you.” Mark 5:19.

“The first sure symptoms of a mind in health Are rest of heart and pleasure found at home.”

Avoid, my Friends, above all things, those romantic and absurd conceptions of virtue which are the offspring of supersti- tion and the enemies of righteousness! Be not without natural affection, but love those who are knit to you by ties of na- ture.

“Grace taught my soul to pray

Grace made my eyes overflow.” It is true, I must tell in how many troubles and trials God has been with me. But I will tell it thus—

“It was Grace which kept me to this day,

And will not let me go.” He says nothing about his own doings, or willings, or prayers, or seeking—but ascribes it all to the love and Grace of

“Tell to others round What a dear Savior they have found! To point to His redeeming blood, And say, Behold the way to God!”

III. I shall not detain you much longer, but there is a third point, upon which we must be very brief. HOW IS THIS STORY TO BE TOLD?

In the next place, tell it very humbly. I have said that before. Do not intrude yourselves upon those who are older and know more, but tell your story humbly. Not as a preacher, not ex-cathedra but as a friend and as a son.

To close up, by a short and, I think, a pleasant turning of the text, I will suggest another meaning to it. Soon, dear Friends, very soon with some of us, the Master will say, “Go home to your friends.” You know where the Home is. It is up above the stars—

“Where our best friends, our kindred dwell,

Where God our Savior reigns.”

Adapted from The C. H. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0, Ages Software.

PRAY THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL USE THIS SERMON TO BRING MANY TO A SAVING KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST.

By the Grace of God, for all 63 volumes of C. H. Spurgeon sermons in modern English, and more than 400 Spanish translations, visit: http://www.spurgeongems.org

Volume 3

http://www.spurgeongems.org 7

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WHAT CHRISTMAS DOES FOR SUFFERING

WHAT CHRISTMAS DOES FOR THE DESPISED (& THE DESPISER)

These are the gifts that come in the package of Christmas— vulnerability for intimacy, strength for suffering, passion for justice, and power over prejudice. And you are blessed if you open this gift and take it into your life. If you do, you’ll be blessed. You’ll be transformed.

— Tim Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and three young sons. For over twenty years he has led a diverse congregation of young professionals that has grown to a weekly attendance of over 5,000.

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SERIES: THE RAPTURE – PART 3

This article is a lightly edited transcript of Dr. McRae’s audio message on the Rapture. Appreciation for the transcription work goes to Marilyn Fine.

Introduction

This morning we continue our study on the Rapture of the Church. This is lesson number three in our four-lesson series and we are beginning to study this morning the signs of His coming. We shall continue that next week, as well, and that will conclude our study on the Rapture of the Church.

First Sign: Israel

Statehood

Land

Allies

Temple

Military

Summary

What I am simply suggesting is that this could very well be the backdrop against which the movement shall come in the Tribulation period when the Jewish people shall be the world evangelists as they carry the gospel to the corners of the earth.

—
Tim Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and three young sons. For over twenty years he has led a diverse congregation of young professionals that has grown to a weekly attendance of over 5,000.