James M. Boice on When is Jesus Coming Back?

What The Bible Has To Say About The Future: Part 4 in a Series of 9 – “The Days of Noah”

If the Lord Jesus is coming back to this earth as He promised and as the prophets foretold, the most natural next question is: When is Jesus coming? This is not just a question for time-conscious, twenty-first century man, as though he more than others has a special concern for the timing or for the end of human history. It flows naturally from belief in Christ’s second coming itself and is, therefore, a question which has been asked by Christians ever since Christ first spoke of His return, elaborating on the Old Testament prophecies.

The question was in the minds of Christ’s disciples. Toward the end of Jesus’ three-year ministry, shortly before His crucifixion, the disciples asked Him, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3). Part of Christ’s answer was that no one, not even Christ Himself, could know the precise moment at which the prophesied events would unfold. He said, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). Later, after His resurrection, He gave a similar answer to an almost identical question. The disciples had asked, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:6,7).

The disciples could not know. We cannot know. Still, this is not the whole story. For we can hardly fail to notice that when Jesus told the disciples that they could not know the time of His return, He nevertheless went on at some length to describe the conditions that would prevail in the world before He came again. These signs occupy at least two of the twenty-eight chapters of Matthew (24-25), one of the sixteen chapters of Mark (13), and one chapter of Luke (21). Moreover, in the last of these chapters a listing of some of the signs is followed by the challenge: “Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).

Perhaps I can illustrate what Christ was saying by this illustration, borrowed from one of the unpublished writings of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse. Suppose a Shakespearean scholar enters a theater one evening not knowing what masterpiece of Shakespeare is to be presented. Before the curtain goes up, he is taken behind the scenes. On stage is a castle with ramparts looking out over a wooded countryside. At once he knows that he will not see Othello, which is set in Venice, not Julius Caesar, which begins with a street scene in Rome. He knows that he not see Macbeth; for although there is a castle scene in Macbeth, the play opens not with the castle but with the witches gathered around their caldron. Finally, our drama critic notices two soldiers with shields bearing the arms of the king of Denmark. He sees two other actors dressed up as a king and queen. There is an actor who is supposed to be a ghost. Now no one has to tell the critic what he will see, for he knows it will be Hamlet.

In the same way today, you and I who are Christians sit in the theater of world events awaiting the opening of God’s apocalyptic drama. We don not know when the play is to start, but, like the drama critic, we know more about it than many. Many stare at the future as at a curtain. For them the future is veiled because they do not have the knowledge of the plan of God. Nor can they go behind curtain where the scene is being set. The Christian is not left in such ignorance. We see behind the scenes. Thus, while it is true that we do not know the precise moment at which the play will begin, we do know the play itself and can begin to sense it beginning as we see the actors starting to take their proper places on the great world stage.

We will understand Christ’s remarks in this light when we realize that they were intended to be indefinite enough to keep anyone from self-satisfaction or complacency but precise enough to encourage Christians to examine history, asking whether the conditions of the Lord’s return may not be entering into their final stages through the developments of their lifetime.

The Days of Noah

But how are we to do this? Where should we begin? One answer to these questions is in Matthew 24, in the verses immediately following Jesus’s statement that no one knows the precise day or hour of His return. These verses contain a reference to the days of Noah, and the point is that the terrible moral conditions that prevailed on the earth just before the flood in Noah’s day will be repeated prior to Christ’s return and the ensuing judgment upon men and nations.

[Note: It might be argued that the emphasis of Matthew 24 is on the sudden and unexpected nature of Christ’s return rather than on the conditions that will prevail at that time. This is partly correct. Certainly Jesus did stress the suddenness of His return: “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (v.27); “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (v. 42). But that is not the sole message of these verses. And it does not negate the position taken here. Another prominent theme in this chapter is unbelief both in Noah’s day and in the day of Christ’s second coming, and unbelief in itself would lead to the conditions recorded. It may also be noted that the view that conditions of Noah’s day will be repeated before Christ’s return is reinforced by other New Testament passages which speak in similar terms of those days (e.g., 1 Tim. 4:1-4; 2 Tim. 3:1-7; 2 Pet. 2:4-9). Jesus stated elsewhere that conditions before His return would be similar to “the days of Lot” in Sodom, which was noted for its sexual perversions and excesses (Luke 17:28-30).

“For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:37-39).

(1) Since the days of Noah are described in Genesis 6, we may turn to that chapter and see precisely what Jesus was referring to. One characteristic of the days of Noah was a rapid increase in population: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth…” (v. 1). Naturally, an increase in population is in itself without moral overtones. It is neither good nor bad. And yet, men being what they are, it is also natural that an increase in population was then and may again be accompanied by moral decadence.

There is a parallel here with developments of our own age. The world’s population is now approximately three billion people [in 1972 – Now in 2013 it’s more in the ballpark of 6-7 billion!]. That figure is double what it was in 1900m and it is expected to double again by the year 2000 or earlier [It has doubled again since 1972]. With the rapid increase in the world’s population there has been an accompanying increase in suffering, particularly in the area of hunger and malnutrition and related diseases. Some experts predict worldwide famine by the year 1985 [there have been and continue to be famines around the globe – malnutrition and starvation is the number one cause of death in the world today]. Another indication of this same general trend is that the movements of world history today seem to be less under the control of individual political leaders than of the mass movements of nationalism, ethnic consciousness, labor, and consumer activity.

We do not want to make the mistake of imagining that, because we have had a sharp increase in the world’s population in recent years, this is proof in itself that the Lord’s return is imminent. We are to look for trends in the history of our times that may be leading up to His return not for events that foretell it precisely. This is only one trend. Nevertheless, we can hardly overlook the fact that the rapid increase of the world’s population in our day has assumed a scale never before duplicated in known history and has caused even secular observers of the world scene to speak in apocalyptic terms when describing it.

(2) The days of Noah were also characterized by an unprecedented accumulation of knowledge. Genesis 4 speaks of the construction of cities, of developments in metallurgy, the arts, and other sciences. If we are to judge by the size of the ark itself — about 450 feet long with a beam of 75 feet, the size of many modern ocean liners — there was also considerable engineering knowledge and skill coupled with an ability to construct the objects designed. This knowledge contributed to a great indulgence in luxury, as it has for many in our day. It was not to the moral advantage of the age.

(3) In addition to the increases in population, knowledge, and luxury, there was also a rapid acceleration of vice and lawlessness. The account of Genesis says “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth” (Genesis 6:5, 11-12). Such wickedness was the cause of the great judgment that befell the earth in Noah’s time and was a primary basis for Christ’s warning that the conditions of Noah’s day would be repeated.

One picture that emerges from this description of wickedness in the early chapters of Genesis is of a world characterized by crime. We too are experiencing this. During the 1960’s, crime in the United States rose 148 percent, while arrests of persons under eighteen nearly doubled. In 1969, the number of reported crimes was 4,989,700, which made the crime rate 2,471 per 100,000 persons’ this compares to 2,234 one year earlier . An average of 9 major crimes per minute were committed during the same period [I shudder to think what the statistics are now in 2013!].

In New York City in 1971, the FBI reported an increase in crime of 11 percent, while homicides in the city increased 30 percent. In 1971 New York City, with a population of only 8 million persons, recorded more crimes than England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark combined. In that city there are over 300,000 alcoholics, affecting the lives of 1,500,000 people and costing more than 1 billion dollars annually. The loss approaches 2 billion dollars for the upward of 100,000 hard-core heroin addicts, who must continually steal to support their habit.

In Los Angeles crime has increased 60 percent in 6 years, or 7 times faster than the population of the city.

More alarming even than these figures are the growing permissiveness and disrespect for law that have characterized the last decade. These trends have affected even the police, as various “crime probes” have indicated. Courts are affected. Among the forerunners in open defiance of laws that they consider unjust have been clergymen; there is no lack of others to follow or excel their example.

Another example of vice and lawlessness given in the opening chapters of Genesis is an increase in sexual perversions and crimes. This too is reflected in our society. In one recent year, for instance, forcible rape rose 17 percent. Divorce and remarriage are rampant. Many, including clergymen, speak in favor of “term” rather than lifetime marriages. Venereal disease is reaching epidemic proportions. In an ultimate gesture of moral degeneracy and defiance of all former norms, homosexuality and lesbianism have burst from the darkness of the back alleys onto the front pages of newspapers and to televised talk shows. Recently, a new religious order was founded by members of a so-called homosexual church named the “Church of the Beloved Disciple.” The order is called the Oblate Companions of St. John, who in turn is honored as “the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 21:20), thus implying a homosexual relationship between John and the Lord. Similar churches now exist in more than a dozen U.S. cities. Recently, national papers and magazines carried stories of the decision of delegates from nineteen United Churches of Christ in the San Francisco area to ordain a confessed homosexual to the gospel ministry [The increase of the homosexual population and influence in culture, politics, and the church is absolutely staggering from the time of Boice’s writing this in 1972].

Again, we dare not make the error of arguing that because these crimes and perversions are appearing to such alarming degrees in our age and society, therefore, the coming of Jesus Christ must occur immediately. We have no warrant for that. Nevertheless, we must ask: Are the alarming moral and economic conditions of our age not more than adequate fulfillment of the conditions that Jesus taught must prevail before His return? Are not our days equal in their vice to the days of Noah? Are they not equally lawless? If they are, then we dare not imagine that Christ cannot or will not appear. Nor dare we neglect His warning: “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42).

Demonism

(4) There is one more characteristic of the times that is especially significant. That is the phenomenon of demonism. Genesis 6 relates that there was a time on earth when some of the angels who had fallen in Satan’s rebellion cohabited with the daughters of men, thereby producing a race of extraordinary beings, half demon and half human. This characteristic of the days of Noah is disclosed in the opening verses of the chapter:

“When men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose…The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown” (Genesis 6:1-2, 4).

Many who have studied this passage interpret it to mean that the godly descendants of Seth, called “sons of God,” married unbelievers [Note: That is the interpretation given to Genesis 6 by most of the older Protestant commentators–Calvin, Lange, Keil and Delitzch, Scofield and others. More recent interpreters–Simpson, Skinner, Von Rad, Pember, E.W. Bullinger, A.C. Gaebalein, DeHaan–favor the view that the marriages were between human women and demonic beings. Naturally there have been commentators on both sides f the issue at most periods of history]. That would explain the unusual corruption and decadence that existed in the world in Noah’s time and would make good sense of the passage. Nevertheless, there are several reasons why I feel this an inadequate interpretation of these verses.

First, the contrast in the verses is not between the descendants of Seth (both men and women) and the ungodly descendants of Cain. The contrast is between the daughters of men, meaning daughters of the whole human race, and the sons of God, whoever they may be.

Second, in the Old Testament, the phrase “sons of God” is never used of believers. The fact that believers become sons of God or children of God by faith in Jesus Christ is entirely a New Testament concept.

Third, the phrase “sons of God,” when it does occur in the Old Testament, seems to refer not to human beings who believe in God but to angels, that is, to beings not born of others like men but created directly by God. That would be the case with all angels, whether fallen or not. And it would explain the use of the phrase in a new way in New Testament times to refer to those who have experienced a new, direct birth by God through faith in Jesus Christ (Note: The one apparent exception to this usage, an application of the term to Adam in Luke 3:38, actually proves the point being made. For Adam alone, of all the Old Testament characters, was the result of the direct creative activity of God. It should be noted, however, that in the Greek text only phrase “of God” occurs).

The phrase “sons of God” occurs four times in the other parts of the Old Testament — three times in the Book of Job and once in Daniel. In Daniel the phrase was used by King Nebuchadnezzar after he looked into the burning furnace into which he had thrown the Hebrew captives, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego. He said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods” (Daniel 3:25). Nebuchadnezzar clearly meant that the fourth figure looked like an angel. In Job the phrase “the sons of God” occurs in two contexts. In chapter 38 God asked Job where he was at the beginning of creation “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:7). This is apparently a reference to the angels who witnessed the creation of the earth. In the first two chapters of Job we are twice told of a day when “the sons of God” appeared with Satan to present themselves before the Lord (Job 1:6; 2:1). It is in this sense that we must interpret the reference to “the sons of God” in Genesis.

The conclusive argument to this interpretation of Genesis 6 is that, historically, this was also the view held by the Jews before the time of Christ and expressed in various Jewish documents and apocalyptic literature. One outstanding example is in the book of Enoch, a pseudepigraphical work compiled during the time of the Maccabees or earlier.

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: “Come let is choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children” (1 Enoch 6:1,2).

After a description of how this happened and of the wickedness that resulted, the book then gives an account of the objection by the righteous angels.

They have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the women, and have defiled them -selves, and revealed to them all kinds of sins. And the women have born giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness. And now, behold, the souls of those who have died are crying and make their suit to the gates of heaven, and their lamentations have ascended; and cannot cease because of the lawless deeds which are wrought on the earth (1 Enoch 9:8-10).

An account of the punishment of the fallen angels and a brief reference to the flood follows.

This interpretation of Genesis 6 is also found in the writings of Josephus and Philo, in The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and in the Septuagint, which renders the phrase “sons of God” as “angels of God.”

Moreover, the New Testament seems to support the view also in those few passages which link God’s punishment of certain fallen angels to the time of the flood. Thus Peter writes, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment” (2 Peter 2:4-5, 9 cf. Jude 6).

What shall we say about the duplication or the possibility of the duplication of such things in our day? At the very least, we see an extraordinary revival of spiritism, witchcraft, magic, and Satanism in this country and around the world. Many cities possess hundreds, if not thousands, of spiritualists and mediums. Stories of news interest, particularly gruesome stories, frequently make the front page of the newspapers. Some years ago Swiss papers carried accounts of the murder of a young girl by a group of older people who beat her to death while attempting to exorcise a demon. In America papers carried exhaustive accounts of the Sharon Tate murders by a self-styled devil named Charles Manson and members of his so-called family. Some of the accounts of these murders, such as that which appeared in Esquire magazine (November, 1971), detailed the most horrible practices, including murder, animal and human sacrifice, ritual sex, and sexual perversions.

These practices often involve young people. In 1971, a twenty-year-old was drowned at his request by two friends (aged seventeen and nineteen) because, as he believed, a worshiper of Satan who dies violently is assured command of forty legions of demons in the life to come. He was part of a Satan cult that reportedly involved as many as seventy high school students in his area. Recently another young person who was apparently associated with this group committed suicide.

Are these merely tragic eccentricities? Or are they evidence of a widespread outbreak of genuine Satan worship and demonism in our time? Unfortunately, the extent of Satan worship suggests the latter. And, if the idea precedes the act and theme of the popular book and movie Rosemary’s Baby, which told the conception of a child by a demon father and a human mother, is any indication, the worst may be yet to come.

On the basis of all such evidence, David H.C. Read, minister of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, recently wrote:

This kind of experience is spreading rapidly and has to be taken much more seriously than we have in the past. The time for ignoring it or laughing it off is over. For too long we have lived with a comfortable, rationalized religion, leaving the mystic, the emotional, and what we call the “spooky” to the ecclesiastical underworld or psychiatrists. In the main-line churches there has been little room for the supernatural of any hue, divine or demonic. Both angels and devils have evaporated from our consciousness. They have disappeared into a little box labeled “primitive superstitions.” Now the lid is off, and it is obvious that the sedate, sensible, secularized religion of the recent past is unable to cope with the storm that is bursting upon us.

According to the Bible, all these things — a rapid increase in the world’s population, an unprecedented accumulation of knowledge, the acceleration of vice and lawlessness, and demonism — will exist side by side with a worldwide proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ before His return. Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to tall the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

Therefore Stand

One more point is in order here. Many are inclined to take lightly te so-called “spiritualist” phenomena — rappings, Ouija boards, witchcraft, seances, and even demonism — particularly as such things are portrayed in popular writings or on television. But the Christian should not do this, nor should he participate in seances or any other form of attempted communication with the spirit world. We have our knowledge of the life to come through Scripture. God has told us many things in the Bible, certainly everything we need to know. To indulge in spiritualist phenomena is really to dishonor and disobey God.

We must remember at this point that God ordered the people of Israel to avoid the various forms of devil worship practiced by the nations around them:

“There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquirers of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you” (Deuteronomy 18:10–12).

At the same time, we need to be careful not to take the various evidences of demonism too seriously, in the sense that we might be tempted to fear these things and forget the power of our God. It is the demons, not Christians, who should fear.

It is significant that the demonic activity recorded in the Bible is not scattered throughout the years of biblical history but rather is concentrated at the four focal points of history at which God has been or will be particularly active.

(1) We find demonism at the creation of the world and in the generations immediately following creation. The days of Noah belong to this period.

(2) Again we find demonism at the time of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Ancient Egyptian worship was demon worship; the plagues at the time of the Exodus were directed against the supposed power of these “gods.”

(3) Third, there was a remarkable outcropping of demonic activity during the lifetime of Jesus Christ. Many writers have expressed the idea that in this period particularly the demonic powers gathered themselves together in a major effort to prevent the destruction of their kingdom.

(4) The fourth period is one in which the Lord Jesus Christ will return.

“Is it possible that rising evidence of demonism in various forms has an eschatological import?” wrote Russell T. Hitt in a recent booklet. “Is it because the Second Coming of Christ is near, that we are witnessing stepped-up Satanic activity? Perhaps we have a clue here to present worldwide unrest in every area of life. (Russell T. Hitt, “Demons Today” [Philadelphia: The Evangelical Foundation, 1969, p. 12).

If that is true — and the other periods of unusual demonic activity would suggest that it is — then the phenomena we are witnessing today are much more an evidence of fear and frenzy on the part of Satan and his followers than they are of confidence by Satan in the outcome. Those who are followers of Jesus Christ and know their Bible are not ignorant of Satan and his devices. In fact, armed with such knowledge and with the Word of the living God, we can stand against him: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). We cannot do this in our own strength, of course, but we can in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, who “disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15).

The Return of Jesus Christ

Well, then, is the Lord coming soon? That is the question with which we began, and again we must repeat our first answer. We do not know. Certainly it could be at any moment. It could be delayed.

We should not close this particular article without mentioning a final condition which must precede the return of Jesus. This condition has nothing to do with the days of Noah, yet it is mentioned several times in the Bible as being of great significance. It is the return of the Jews to their homeland, which began to take place in 1948, and especially the repossession of the old city of Jerusalem, which took place as a result of the Six Day War in 1967.

There are statements in the Bible by Jesus Christ that seem to date the second coming within a generation of these events. Two of the most significant statements are in Luke’s version of the Olivet discourse. After an opening section of the discourse listing events that will take place but which are not signs of His immediate return, Jesus refers to the repossession of Jerusalem by the Jews after a long period of Gentile domination. “Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). The implication is that His return will take place shortly after this time of Gentile domination. Several verses later He adds, “So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place” (Luke 21:31-32). These verses seem to indicate that the Lord Jesus Christ will return within one generation of the repossession of Palestine and the reconquest of Jerusalem by the Jews. If that is so, the biblical length of a generation being about forty years of 1948 (the year of the reestablishment of the state of Israel) or of 1967 (the year in which the old city of Jerusalem once again came into Jewish hands).

All this makes the necessity of belief in the Lord Jesus Christ more urgent. People have always said, “Well, if things get bad enough, I’ll believe in Christ then.” They say that in our time.

It does not work that way. When conditions in the world become more and more like those prophesied for the end times, it is easier to postpone belief rather than harder. It is easy to do what you please when there is no longer a respect for law or popular opinion to restrain you or any regard for sound preaching. Do not think that if these things are true, you will find it easy to arrange a last-minute repentance. The Bible says, “In favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

About the Author

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. He was one of only a handful of reformed theologians that was premillennial in his eschatology (Steven J. Lawson, John MacArthur, Erwin W. Lutzer, S. Lewis Johnson, Rodney Stordtz, John Hannah and John Piper also come to mind). However, what makes him really unique as a Reformed Theologian is that he was not Historic Premillennial – but leaned Dispensational (Held to a pre-tribulation rapture) as well. This article was adapted from Chapter Three in one of the first of James Boice’s plethora of books, and is entitled: The Last and Future World, Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan, 1974 (currently out of print). This book is based on 9 sermons that Dr. Boice preached at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in 1972. Though this book was written almost 40 years ago – it is just as relevant as when it was first written since many of the prophecies taught in the Scriptures and addressed by Dr. Boice in this book have yet to be fulfilled. Scripture verses are quoted from the more modern English Standard Version – DPC.

James Montgomery Boice on the Distinction Between the Rapture and the Lord’s Day

Two Great Days: The Day of the Lord and the Day of Christ

What The Bible Has To Say About The Future: Part 3 in a Series of 9 – By Dr. James M. Boice

To the people of the ancient east the stars had great significance. They were the means by which people determined the hours of the night and the seasons of the year. The morning star was particularly important for it heralded the rising of the sun and the coming of a new day. The Lord Jesus Christ is our morning star, according to the book of Revelation (Revelation 22:16). He is coming. The dark night of human history may be long and filled with grim terrors, but the Daystar is coming and with Him the dawning of a new age.

We will consider the importance of this theme in biblical prophecy, to distinguish between two important aspects of Christ’s coming under the descriptive phrases “the day of the Lord” and “the day of Jesus Christ,” and to develop the relevance of the theme of the Lord’s return.

A Prominent Doctrine

It is unfortunate that in our day the second coming of Jesus Christ has faded to a remote and sometimes irrelevant doctrine in the opinion of many persons, even, it seems, within large segments of the evangelical church. That may be true in part because many extravagant, foolish, and utterly unscriptural teachings have been linked to the doctrine of the Lord’s return. But that has been true of all biblical doctrines at some point of history, and that alone should not deter us from seeking to appreciate a theme which is prominent in the Word of God.

How prominent is this doctrine? In the New Testament 1 verse in 25 deals with the Lord’s return. It is mentioned 318 times in the 260 chapters of the New Testament. It occupies a prominent place in the Old Testament, inasmuch as the greater part of the prophecies concerning the coming of Christ in the Old Testament deal, not with His first advent in which He died as our sin-bearer, but with His second advent in which He is to rule as King. The return of Jesus Christ is mentioned in every one of the New Testament books except Galatians (which deals with a particular problem that had emerged within the churches of Galatia) and the very short books of the New Testament such as 2 and 3 John and Philemon.

The various New Testament writers obviously believed in the Lord’s return. Mark traced the origins of his belief to the very words of Jesus. The first reference to the return of Jesus in Mark occurs in chapter 8. There is recorded Peter’s great confession of faith – “You are the Christ” – which was in turn the occasion of a greater revelation by Christ of the most important events that were to come in His ministry. First, He foretold His death and resurrection. He spoke of discipleship. Then, at the very end of the chapter, He spoke of His coming again. Jesus said, “For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Mark 13, where Jesus outlined what would come in the last days, is also full of this doctrine. Jesus spoke of the horror of the days immediately preceding His return, then added, “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.” At this point the discourse moved on to teach that the disciples should be watching for this return; Jesus emphasized the point by an illustration: “It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning– lest he come suddenly and find you asleep” (34-36).

Finally, this doctrine is mentioned in the account of Christ’s trial before the Jewish high priest (Mark 14). Jesus answered a question about whether or not He was the Messiah by saying, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). Here are three expressions of the truth of Christ’s return in a book which most scholars consider to be the oldest of the four gospels.

In the other three gospels the same doctrine is prominent. Matthew and Luke repeated most of the sayings about the second coming given by Mark, sometimes with additions and variations, and John added others. For instance, John recorded a number of lengthy farewell discourses given by Jesus just before His crucifixion. In one of these Jesus declared, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3). Christ’s return is also referred to in the last chapter of John’s gospel, in the record of Jesus’ conversation with Peter after His resurrection. The reference is incidental to Jesus’ point, but is all the more authentic on that account. Jesus had been encouraging Peter to faithfulness in discipleship, but Peter with his usual impetuosness turned and saw John. He asked Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:21-22). John himself then points out that although many of the Christians of his day had interpreted that to mean that John would not die until Christ came back, that was not what Jesus had said. He had said only that even if that were the case, it should not affect Peter’s call to faithful service.

In all four gospels, then, there are unmistakable quotations from Jesus Christ to the effect that He would return to this earth a second time in glory, and these are quoted in such a way that we cannot doubt that the early church believed that these promises were to be fulfilled literally and in detail, possibly within its lifetime.

Paul’s letters are also full of this doctrine. To the church at Thessalonica he wrote, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). To the Philippians Paul wrote: “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:2–21).

Peter called the return of Jesus Christ our “living hope” (1 Pet. 1:3). Paul called it our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13), John declared with conviction: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him” (Rev. 1:7a). The same author ended the New Testament with the words, “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

In these verses and in many others the early Christians expressed their belief in a personal return of Jesus Christ, a return which would be the first of the unfolding events prophesied in the end time. The return of Jesus would be associated with a time of great wickedness on earth, the resurrection and transformation of their own bodies, an earthly rule of Jesus, and a final concluding judgment upon all men and nations. They comforted themselves with these truths in the midst of persecution or some while attempting to live their lives on a moral plane that would be honoring to the returning One.

The Day of the Lord

In the picture I have just presented, however, two important ideas have been merged. Therefore, to paint the prophetic picture for the end times in clearer detail and to have a basis for understanding some of the most important New Testament prophesies we must distinguish between them.

The first idea is associated with the phrase “the day of the Lord.” This phrase is quite prominent in the Old Testament, but it occurs frequently in the New Testament too, even in the context of some of the passages I have been quoting. This phrase is a technical phrase used initially by the Old Testament prophets to designate a future period of catastrophic judgment. Literally, it the day of Jehovah, the day in which Jehovah will break silence and intervene in history to judge Israel and the Gentile nations. The characteristics of this day can be seen in the following quotations:

“For the LORD of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up–and it shall be brought low” (Isaiah 2:12).

“Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come!…Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light” (Isaiah 13:6, 9-10).

“Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:18-20).

It is obvious from the reference to the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars that this is the event referred to by Jesus in Matthew 24, where Jesus taught that He would exercise judgment. It is also the event of which Peter spoke when he wrote,

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Peter 3:10).

In the liturgy of the church this is expressed by the Dies Irae, which means the day of the wrath of God. From an examination of these and other texts (Jer. 46:10; Lam. 2:22; Ezek. 30:3ff.; Joel 1:15; 2:1-11; 3:14-16; Zeph. 1:7-2:3; Zech. 14:1-7; Mal. 4:5) several things are clear.

First, the day of the Lord is the day of God’s judgment.
Second, the day is still future.
Third, it is preceded by a time of great trouble on earth.
Fourth, it is followed by the earthly rule of the Messiah.
Fifth, it has nothing to do with the church of Jesus Christ, for the church is not in these prophecies and was, in fact, completely unknown to the Old Testament writers who compiled them.

To be sure, as Kenneth S. Wuest, who summarized much of the data in his collection of Word Studies in the Greek New Testament, observed, “Some of the references to the day of the Lord in the Old Testament have a fulfillment in the past, and are precursors of the day of the Lord to follow (Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies From the Greek New Testament, vol. 3 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966, p. 35]). But that does not alter the fact that the strict fulfillment of most of these prophecies awaits a future day.

That day is coming. The disasters of this life — pestilence, famine, wars, natural catastrophes — are only little judgments which come in the most part from man’s activities. When the day of God’s wrath is revealed, these things will pale by comparison, and no one who is not united to Christ by faith will be able to stand against Him.

No one can be sure of defending himself even from man-made destruction. For instance, there is an extensive military radar network called DEW line (Distant Early Waning), which stretches across the North American Continent. This line of defense has cost the United States billions of dollars. It was designed to limit to a minimum the breakthrough of Soviet long-range bombers coming to wreak nuclear destruction on the United States; but today it is outmoded by missiles. Man can never defend himself adequately against the possibility of future destruction.

Thus, too, does he stand before God. Man has run away from God, and God has pursued him. God came to die for him in Jesus Christ. God has warned us of judgment — distant warnings and near warnings, early warnings, and late warnings — and He has warned us that He can penetrate any defense which we may try to throw up against Him. Man stands naked before God. The day of judgment is near. If you are not yet a believer, let me encourage you to turn to Christ. Martin Luther looked at this day and wrote for those of his time:

Great God, what do I see and hear!

The end of things created!

The Judge of mankind doth appear

On clouds of glory seated!

The trumpet sounds, the graves restore

The dead which they contained before:

Prepare, my soul, to meet him.

If you are a believer in Christ, let me encourage you to look up and be faithful to Him.

The Day of Christ (The Rapture)

The second major idea is associated with the phrase “the day of Jesus Christ.” That is not the same as “The day of the Lord.” The day of Jesus Christ is a happy day rather than a day of judgment. Moreover, far from warning men to fear it, the New Testament actually speaks of it as an event to be warmly anticipated. Christians are to be ready and watching, and they are to encourage one another because of it.

What is the nature of this day? The clearest answer to this question is in the verses already quoted from Paul’s first letter to the Christians at Thessalonica. They were in sorrow over certain of their number who had died, and Paul wrote to them to comfort them with the thought that they would see their departed friends once again at the day of Jesus Christ. He describes it thus:

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

Quite obviously, this day does not concern Christ’s earthly rule. It is an aspect of His coming to draw believers out of this world to Himself. He will come in the air and gather His church up to meet Him, first those who have died and then — almost in the same instant — those who are living.

Jesus described this event, also stressing its unexpected and selective nature:

“Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:40-42).

In biblical theology this event is generally called the rapture. It is the first in the whole series of events prophesied for the end times. It is possible that at this point some of this teaching has become confusing. So let me elaborate upon the distinction between the day of Jesus Christ and the day of the Lord by looking at the way the Apostle Paul dealt with a similar confusion in his day.

Wherever he went, Paul apparently preached the full body of Christian doctrine as it had been revealed to him. And that included, quite naturally, the doctrine of the Lord’s imminent return to be followed, after certain events, by God’s judgment. These events included persecution and great tribulation. We know that this doctrine had been accepted by the church at Thessalonica, for Paul alluded to it in his first letter, reminding the Christians there that they were to be comforted by the doctrine of the Lord’s return in face of the death of their friends. Some time after he had written this letter, however, a time of persecution broke out in the church at Thessalonica. Because the persecution seemed terrible and intense, someone began to teach that the persecutions were those leading to the day of the Lord, with its ultimate judgements, and that the Christians in Thessalonica, therefore, had missed the rapture. The Thessalonians may actually have received a letter purporting to be from Paul which affirmed this idea (2 Thessalonians 2:2).

News of their distress reached Paul, and he immediately wrote to the Thessalonians again, attempting to explain the meaning of their present persecution assuring them that they had not missed the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ for those who believe in Him. First, he dealt with the meaning of present persecution. This occupies the first chapter. Then, in the second chapter, he begins to deal with the view that Christians might already be going through days of tribulation.

“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-5).

Paul’s main points clearly were that the present suffering of the Christians at Thessalonica was not the tribulation prophesied in the Old Testament and taught by himself, that the final tribulation would not come until after the Christians were caught up to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the air, therefore, that the coming of Christ rather than the final judgment should be uppermost in the minds of believers.

(Note: There is a view in prophetic theology known at “posttribulationism.” According to this view, the church of Jesus Christ will go through the great tribulation, after which Jesus will return for those believers who are remaining. In reply, it is enough to note that, although the church has gone through periods of great persecution in the past and undoubtedly may go through intense persecutions before Christ’s return, nevertheless, the view of a posttribulation rapture is impossible for the simple reason that it makes meaningless the very argument that Paul was presenting in the Thessalonian letters. Paul was arguing for the imminence of Christ’s return. That is to be a major source of comfort for suffering believers. If Christ will not come until after the great tribulation [that is, a specific time of unusual and intense suffering still in the future], then the return of the Lord is not imminent and tribulation rather than deliverance is what we must anticipate. In view of the Bible’s message we must be careful not to adopt any view which turns our minds from Christ. If anything must occur before we see Christ personally, then the anticipation of that event will turn our eyes from Him to it. We may even guess that Satan will try to turn the believers’ eyes from Christ to events or signs that are supposed to precede Him and we should be warned accordingly).

All these themes will be treated in later articles, but even at this point we need to note the importance of the two events which Paul says must take place before the day of God’s judgment. The second event is the appearance of one whom he calls “the man of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:3). This person will attempt to centralize all human worship in himself, and will actually sit in the temple at Jerusalem, claiming that he is God. Since that has not happened, says Paul, the day of the Lord is yet future.

The first event that must take place before the day of the Lord comes is called “the falling away” in the Authorized Version of the Bible (2 Thess. 2:3). This is an unfortunate translation. The basis for this translation lies in the fact that elsewhere in the Bible a time of great apostasy or “falling away” from true Christian doctrine is prophesied for the time preceding the Lord’s return. Although this is true in itself, however, it is not the meaning of the Greek word here. The word apostasia, preceded by the definite article. Apostasia has given us our word “apostasy,” but the word itself simply means “a departure.” In a context where the truth or falsity of doctrine is in view, the word would naturally mean, “a departure from true doctrine” or “apostasy.” But here, where the issue is the past or future coming of Jesus Christ for his saints and where a particular event is specified by the use of the article, the word can mean equally well “the departure of believers to be with Jesus” or “the rapture.”

In Kenneth S. Wuest’s study, referred to earlier, these following additional facts are elaborated. Apostasia occurs in the New Testament only twice. But it is based on the verb aphistemi which occurs fifteen times. Eleven times it is translated “depart,” never “a falling away.” Unfortunately, most of the English versions follow the leading of the Authorized text (The ESV translates apostasia as “rebellion”). But it is significant that in the versions that precede the publication of the King James Bible — those of Tyndale (1534), Coverdale (1535), Cranmer (1539), and the Geneva Bible (1560) — apostasia was translated as “departure,” and the reference was obviously to the much-anticipated rapture of God’s saints.

It is worth pointing out that precisely the same order of events is presented in 1 Thessalonians. Once again the two different days — the day of the Lord and the day of Jesus Christ — are in view, as well as two distinct classes of people. The day of the Lord is a day that should concern unbelievers. Paul speaks of this group as “they” and “them.” The day of Jesus Christ is for believers only. Paul speaks of this class as “us” and “you.”

“For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief…So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober…For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-4, 6, 9).

Paul’s teaching clearly indicates that the rapture, “the day of Jesus Christ,” must come first. Then will come the unfolding of the other events of prophecy, beginning with a period of great tribulation and continuing though Christ’s return to earth to judge Israel and the nations, the millennium, the final judgment, and a complete transition from the life of this world to the life of eternity.

These are the two greatest days of future world history — the day of Jesus Christ and the day of the Lord. Every man who has ever lived must stand before the Lord Jesus Christ on one of these two days. Which will it be in your case? Will it be the day of the Lord with its judgments? Or will it be the day of Jesus Christ with the joy of seeing Him and the glorification and rewarding of believers? Believers wait only for the coming of Jesus Christ, and they rejoice, knowing that this the next event in the unfolding of God’s prophetic timetable.

A Practical Doctrine

Thus far in our study of the return of Jesus Christ we have dealt with the importance of the doctrine of the New Testament books and with the precise meaning of His return as it is related to the catching away of believers first and to God’s judgment. It would be wrong to stop at this point, however, for we must go on to see that the doctrine of the Lord’s return is practical. In other words, it should have a bearing on our lives.

(1) First of all, the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ should be an incentive to godly living. That is the point Jesus Himself made when talking about His return in Matthew 24. The chapter is filled with imperatives: “See that no one leads you astray” (v. 4); “See that you are not alarmed” (v. 6), “flee to the mountains” (v. 16); “pray” (v. 20); “do not believe it” (vv. 23, 26); “learn” (v. 32); “know” (v. 33). Jesus concluded with the warning, “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44). The apostle John, who undoubtedly heard the Lord on this occasion, later made the identical point in one of his letters, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who this hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).

This thought should affect every aspect of your personal life — your prayer life, your choices in the area of ethics and morals, even your social concerns. Lord Shaftesbury, the great English social reformer and a mature Christian, said near the end of his life, “I do not think that in the last forty years I have ever lived one conscious hour that was not influenced by the thought of our Lord’s return.” In his case, the expectation of meeting Jesus was undoubtedly one of the strongest motives behind his social programs.

Are you looking for Christ’s return? In an earlier study of this same subject I once wrote:

If you are motivated by prejudice against other Christians or others in general, whether they are black or white, rich or poor, cultured or culturally naive, or whatever they may be–then the return of Jesus Christ has not made its proper impression on you. If you are contemplating some sin, perhaps a dishonest act in business, perhaps trifling with sex outside marriage, perhaps cheating on your income tax return–then the return of Jesus Christ has not made its proper impression on you. If your life is marked by a contentious, divisive spirit in which you seek to tear down the work of another person instead of building it up–then the return of Jesus Christ has not made its proper impression on you. If you first protect your own interests and neglect to give food, water, or nothing to the needy as we are instructed to do in Christ’s name–then the return of Jesus Christ has not made its proper impression on you (James Montgomery Boice, Philippians: An Expositional Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971], p. 249).

(2) The second result of a belief in the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ should be an effort on our part to comfort Christians who are suffering, particularly those who are suffering the close loss of a friend or relative. We have already seen how the Apostle Paul did this in the case of his friends at Thessalonica. They suffered persecution. They had lost friends through death. Paul wrote to them, reminding them of the blessed hope of Christians. He then observed, “Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

Dr. R.A. Torrey, a former president of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA) and a great Bible teacher, wrote along the same line: “Time and again in writing those who have lost for a time those whom they love, I have obeyed God’s commandment and used the truth of our Lord’s return to comfort them, and many have told me afterwards how full of comfort this truth has proven when everything else has failed” (R.A. Torrey, The Return of the Lord Jesus [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966], p. 15). The return of the Lord Jesus Christ is the one doctrine with which God commands us to comfort suffering saints.

(3) Finally, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ should make us more and more energetic in evangelism. If it is true that the Lord is coming, then it is not true, as scoffers say, that all things will “continue as they were from the beginning” (2 Peter 3:4). The end is in sight. The days for evangelism are numbered. Is it not a lesson for our own time that, when the disciples began to ask Jesus Christ for specific details of the time of His coming after His resurrection and before His ascension, He brushed their requests aside and instead reiterated the church’s great commission to evangelize throughout the duration of this age? They were not to look for a precise timetable. They were to go into the world with the Gospel.

He said to them “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8).

These were Jesus’ last words on earth. The next words we hear may well be the question: “How well have you carried out my commission?”

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. He was one of only a handful of reformed theologians that was premillennial in his eschatology (Steven J. Lawson, John MacArthur, Erwin W. Lutzer, S. Lewis Johnson, Rodney Stordtz, John Hannah and John Piper also come to mind). However, what makes him really unique is that he was not Historic Premillennial – but leaned Dispensational (Held to a pre-tribulation rapture) as well. This article was adapted from Chapter Three in one of the first of James Boice’s plethora of books, and is entitled: The Last and Future World, Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan, 1974 (currently out of print). This book is based on 9 sermons that Dr. Boice preached at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in 1972. Though this book was written almost 40 years ago – it is just as relevant as when it was first written since many of the prophecies taught in the Scriptures and addressed by Dr. Boice in this book have yet to be fulfilled. Scripture verses are quoted from the more modern English Standard Version – DPC.

Tim Keller on What Motivates Obedience to God

“The Battle for the Heart” – Series: Splendor in the Furnace – 1 Peter, Part 1—October 31, 1993

1 Peter 1:13–21

¹³Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. ¹⁴As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. ¹⁵But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; ¹⁶for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” ¹⁷Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.

¹⁸For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, ¹⁹but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. ²⁰He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. ²¹Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

What we’re looking at and what we have been looking at is the subject of holiness. We said the passage Peter quotes from out of the Old Testament, out of the book of Leviticus, “… be ye holy, because I am holy,” takes the main Hebrew word for holiness in the Bible, the word qadowsh, which means to cut, to cut it off, to separate. We said when holiness refers to God, what it means is he’s off our scales. He’s transcendently above us. He’s not like anything we can imagine.

However, we also said when you apply the word holy to us (what is a holy person), what it means is we are set apart. We’re separated unto God. That’s a religious sounding word. You sang about it tonight. Did you notice that in your first song, “You Have Called Us?”

We are a chosen race

A royal priesthood by your grace

We are a holy nation, set apart

We said last week if you want a real trite illustration of what it means to be holy, just imagine yourself reading a newspaper. You’re reading it, getting information, and as you’re reading through it suddenly there is one article with some information you can use. You want to use it in a sales pitch. You want to use it in a paper. You want to use it in a promotion. You want to use it. The only way to use it is to set it apart. You have to cut it out of the paper. You have to set it apart from the newspaper. Why?

If you don’t do that, you can’t use it. To cut something out, to set it apart for your use, is exactly what the Bible means when it talks about being holy. Every week we’ll come back to this and look at it from another perspective. To be a holy person is not at all what people popularly think. At the worst, the word holy is a terrible word in modern English now. When we use the word holy we almost always mean something imperious, something inaccessible maybe. We use the word holy to refer to “holier than thou,” condescending and self-righteous.

At the very best, people think of a holy person as somebody who keeps all the rules. Don’t you see this goes so much deeper than keeping all the rules? Holiness is an attitude of heart in which you look at God and you say, “Use me.” This is a tremendous clash with modern culture. In modern culture you’re supposed to be independent. You’re not supposed to let anybody use you, but that’s the antithesis to this. A holy person is someone who looks at God and does not say, “Just give me the rules and tell me what the rules are so I can get to it.”

No! A holy person is someone who says, “I belong to you. I’m set apart for you.” That’s what we’ve been trying to get at each week. Last week we talked about holiness of mind. To be holy means to be wholly his, to wholly belong to him. That means, first of all, we talked about the mind. This week and next week, let’s talk about the life.

It’s great to say to be holy means you have to submit your mind to God and submit your beliefs and so forth, but a person who submits the mind without submitting the life, the heart, and the will is a hypocrite, and we hate them. Therefore, to be holy means more than just to give him your mind; you have to give him your life. What we’re going to look at here tonight is a depiction of what a holy life is. It’s really right here in these verses.

“As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

There is a contrast here between a life without God and a holy life. If we look at the contrast, we’ll continue to get a better feel for what it means to “be holy, for he is holy.”

1. A life without God is ignorant, but a life of holiness integrates the thought and the life

The word holiness comes from the English word wholeness. Therefore, there is a bifurcation. The life without God is a bifurcation of thought and action, but a holy life means a coherent integration of thought and life. Let me explain this. Most people in Manhattan who don’t believe in God or Christianity, they think they don’t believe in it because they know too much, because they think too much.

They say, “There are Christians. That’s great for some people. They’re religious. Fine. My problem is I’m a thinker. I think, and rational people, thoughtful people, thinking people, aren’t religious people. Religious people are people who have abandoned. They’ve jettisoned the rationality. They’ve given up hard thought. They’ve abandoned and jettisoned their capacities for thought and reason and consideration, so they’ve sort of leapt emotionally into the arms of this faith. They just take leaps of faith.”

People say, “The problem for Christians and for religious people is they don’t think, but not me. I can’t believe because I’m a thinker. I think.” In this text here and throughout the Bible, we’re told that actually the opposite is the case. You see what it says here in verse 14? It says, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.” A life without God is a thoughtless life. Let me show you what I mean.

Some of you, having come to Redeemer for a while, have heard arguments up here, rational arguments for why we believe what we believe. How do we know Christianity is true? They sound so wonderfully compelling, so you go out and you try them on people. For some reason they don’t like them. Do you know why? Here’s how they go. For example, ask somebody sometime who says, “Well, you know, you’re religious. Fine. But I’m not a religious person; I’m a thinker.” You say, “Okay, so think. Think with me. What are you living for? What is the meaning of your life anyway?”

If somebody came up to you after the service and said, “I’d like you to spend your entire afternoon with me tomorrow,” what would you say? You would probably say, “What for? What’s the purpose? Articulate for me the purpose of our meeting.” The person says, “Well, I’m not really sure, but I would like to meet with you.” You’ll probably say. like a busy New Yorker, “Well, a whole afternoon? Unless you can articulate the purpose, unless you can tell me what it’s about, it will be a waste of time.”

“That’s only logical. Well, all right. Let me ask you a question. What is your life about? What is your life for?” They say, “Well, I’m working. I have a career.” “Okay, great. You have a career. What is it for? What do you actually hope to accomplish? What is the meaning of your life? What difference will it make that you have lived?” People don’t like to be asked that. Oh, no. They really don’t like it at all.

“I have to press you a little bit on this. You would not spend an afternoon with me unless you knew the reason for it. Otherwise it would be a waste, and yet you can’t tell me the reason for your life. You can’t tell me what your life is about. How do you know it’s not a waste? What’s it for? What’s the purpose of your life? What is its meaning?”

People don’t want to think about that. They’ll get irritated with you at a certain point. Very quickly, they’ll start to get irritated with you. Why? They don’t want to think. They don’t want to think about these things. The average person’s lifestyle and behavior is based on no thought, no thinking out a philosophy of life. They don’t want to think about that. They think it’s morbid to think about that. They say, “You’re getting religious on me.”

“What do you mean, ‘getting religious on you’? You wouldn’t meet with me all afternoon because you wanted a purpose. I’m asking you, what is your purpose? If there is no God and if you don’t know if there is a God and if when you die you rot, then isn’t it possible nothing you are doing has any meaning and nothing you are doing makes any difference? If when we die we rot and eventually the universe is going to burn up, nothing you do, whether you’re a violent person or a compassionate person, will make any difference. Have you thought that through?” They don’t want to think it through.

Let me give you another example. This week we went to see a movie that is not a particularly good movie, but there are a couple of good scenes in it. It’s the movie Fearless with Jeff Bridges in it. At one point, Jeff Bridges (he’s a survivor of a plane crash and he’s talking with a young woman who is also a survivor of a plane crash, and she believes in God, and he doesn’t) says, “People don’t really believe in God; they just choose not to believe in nothing.” He says, “People want to think life and death have a purpose to them. They like to think they were born for a reason.”

He says, “Like the Giants needed a new homerun hitter, that’s why I was born, or my mother needed somebody to console her. You think you’re born for a reason; you think you die for a reason. We talk about not dying in vain.” He says, “It just happens. There is no God. It just happens. Life happens; death happens. There is no reason for the life when it happens; there is no reason for the death when it happens. There is no reason for anything,” he says triumphantly.

The lady looks up at him and says, “Well, if that’s true then there is no reason to love either.” He looks and says, “What?” She says, “There would be no reason to love.” What she’s doing to him in her own inimical way … he stares at her because there is no answer … is she’s doing what we call presuppositional apologetics, which means she’s pulling the rug out. She says, “If that is true, why are you here trying to help me?”

The whole idea was he was a plane crash survivor and she was a plane crash survivor, and they were having troubles adjusting, so he was there to help. He said, “The only way to help yourself is to get rid of your idea of God. Get rid of it! That’s the reason why you’re all full of guilt and shame. Get rid of it. I’m here to help you.” She said, “If there is no God, why should you help me? Why shouldn’t you just scratch my eyes out?”

A typical person in Manhattan will say, “Racism is wrong, intolerance is wrong, but sexually, you can do pretty much what you want.” Now just ask this question: What is the basis for that distinction? The person says, “Everybody knows racism is wrong.” You say, “Well, there have been countries where everybody knew certain races should go to the gas chamber. I don’t think we should determine morality by a popular vote. Are you saying that as long as a majority of the people think something is right, therefore it’s right?”

“Oh, no,” the person says. “Actually, I believe everybody has to make up their minds on their own. There are no moral absolutes. We have to all determine for ourselves what is right and wrong.” You ask yourself, “You mean there is nothing that is always wrong?”

“Isn’t torture always wrong?”

“Oh, of course, torture is always wrong.”

“Why? Maybe that’s just what some people like to do. Maybe that’s right for them.”

“Oh, no. Torture is always wrong because you can’t mess with human beings.”

“Why not? On what basis have you determined that people are really more valuable than rocks? On what basis?” The person, you see, will get mad at you. They always do. If you’re trying this out on people, they will get mad. Do you know why? They don’t want to think. Most of the simplest, uneducated Christians have worked out epistemology issues. They don’t know the name. They’ve worked out metaphysical issues. They’ve worked out ethical issues.

Let me ask you a question. This is a typical Christian’s framework. A Christian would say, “I discovered there was a body of evidence that indicated there was a man who lived 2,000 years ago who claimed to be God and convinced a lot of monotheistic people that he was God and that he had been raised from the dead. I discovered there were 500 people who claimed in an eyewitness account that they saw this man raised from the dead. It was documented, and I began to study the evidence.” This is how a Christian would speak.

“I began to study the evidence, and as hard as it was to believe this man was God, I decided the alternative explanations for the phenomenon of this man were even more incredible, and I decided to believe he was who he said he was on the basis of the evidence, on the basis of weighing it out. If he is God, therefore, he is my author, and that means I have a purpose in life. I know why I was built; I was built for him. I know what is right and wrong: whatever his will is.” Perfectly coherent, based on evidence, based on rationality. Then go further.

The Christian says, “I’ve begun to live this life in faith. I found that it fits my nature. I found through personal experiences I began to give myself to the will of this One who I have decided to believe in. I began to find that he fits me. The things he says, the things he’s done, they fit my nature.

As that one writer said, ‘I’ve been all my life a bell, and I never knew it till he picked me up and rung me.’ I found out, not only is this fitting me in a way I never thought before, but I found out there were millions of people over 2,000 years who have found the same thing out. I read the works of Christians who lived 1,000 years ago and I read their experience with Jesus, and I discover this is the same relationship I have with Jesus.”

Does that sound like a leap of faith? Sure, there is faith in there. Does that sound like you’re not thinking? Not at all. Let me show you a leap of faith: somebody who you press and say, “Well, how do you know torture is wrong if there is no God? How do you know people are more valuable than rocks if there is no God? How do you know there is any meaning in life?” They say, “Well, you just know. We just know people are valuable just because I know it.” Oh, that’s a leap of faith.

That’s thoughtlessness. That’s ignorance. That’s a bifurcation between your life and your thinking. Friends, life without God is a thoughtless life. A holy life means you integrate how you live. You know why you’re doing the things you’re doing, because you’re always thinking, “What is the meaning of my life?” And you have it in front of you. You’re always looking at what is right and wrong on the basis of the meaning in life, on the basis of whom you know God is and who you know you are. There is an integration. Don’t live a life of ignorance. Don’t go back to that life.

2. A life without God is an imitative life, but a holy life is an examined life

Look down at verse 18. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers.” A life without God is an imitative life, but a holy life is an examined life. Let me put it this way. Again, just like I said, a lot of people in Manhattan and a lot of people in New York I meet would say, “I’m not a religious person because I think so much.”

I’m trying to show that ordinarily a life without God is not a thinking life or a reflective life; it’s a thoughtless life, but secondly a lot of people say, “Well, I’m not a religious person because I’m not a conformist. I’m an original. I think for myself.” That’s not what Peter says, and I think he’s right. Especially people come to Manhattan and they say, “I got out of bourgeoisie, middle America. I live in Manhattan now. I’m a sophisticated person. I think for myself.” What do you mean, you think for yourself?

If you’re a Christian in Manhattan, you really have to think for yourself. You open up the New York Times and you read the op-ed pages, what is happening? Your faith, your beliefs, your worldview is getting blasted with every article. You have to think for yourself. Most people in Manhattan open up their newspaper of choice, and they’re just kind of affirmed. You get into your particular imitative style of unbelief. Peter says unbelief is handed down. We see people doing certain things, and so we do them.

In C.S. Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce, there is a great place where a man who had lost his faith … He used to believe, but he had lost his faith because he went to college, and he began to think. His friend said to him, “Is that really what happened? Don’t you remember how we really lost our faith? We didn’t want to be laughed at. We heard a lot of other people saying things, and we wanted them to think that we were smart and intelligent and sophisticated, too. We wrote the kinds of papers that our professors thought were courageous and relevant and creative.”

He said, “We never thought our way out of faith; we just wanted to imitate what was around us.” That’s exactly what Peter is talking about. We all have our uniforms. If you say, “I’m a sophisticated person, and I’ve thrown off bourgeoisie, middle-America values,” in Manhattan the only way you’d let people know that is if you have to dress in a certain way. You have to dress downtown, or maybe you dress uptown, but the point is there are uniforms here. There is imitation going on here.

What it means to be a holy person, however, is utterly different. Nothing is passed down to us. The Bible says to be a holy person means that now Jesus is your authority, and the Word of God is your authority, and it doesn’t matter if you say, “I’m Italian; I’ve always done things in an Italian way.” Is it biblical? “I’m Park Avenue.” Is it biblical? “We’ve always done things this way.” Is it biblical? Is it in conformity with your Master and his will and your new self? “Well, we’ve always done things because I’m a southerner.” Is it Christian?

“We’ve always done things this way because I’m from Brooklyn?” Is it Christian? “I’m Irish.” Is it Christian? The great thing about being a Christian is you’re pulled up out of anything that was passed down to you. You don’t say, “Well, this is the way I am. This is the way my parents were. This is the way my family was. This is the way my peers are. This is the way the people are who read the books I read and read the journals we read and hang out at the same parties we hang out at. This is the way we are.” A Christian’s life is utterly examined. Every bit of it is examined. Every single part of it is examined.

One of my favorite memories of a good example of this is how, when I went as a Yankee, as a Northeastern college educated kid, I took a church in blue collar, Southern town. There was a culture there. I remember there were several marks of that culture. That culture was much more frugal than I was used to. That culture was much more hospitable and less privatized than I was used to. That culture was much more negative and scornful of education than I was used to. That culture was much more full of racial stereotypes than I was used to.

As a result, I could see all these differences, but very often the people who were living in the culture couldn’t. I remember one man, a friend of mine, who did not even graduate from junior high school. When he became a Christian he could hardly read, and yet I remember when he became a Christian he grasped what it meant to be holy. He knew just because all the other good ol’ boys did things didn’t mean that was the way he should live, so he began to examine.

Actually, he virtually taught himself to read in order to live a holy life, so he could study the Bible, so he could think things out. He awoke, and here’s what happened. He began to realize the fact he was more frugal than I was. That was a biblical value I had to learn. The fact he was more hospitable than I was. That was a biblical value. But his scorn of education he realized was a kind of ego defense mechanism, and his racial stereotype was also sinful.

What was he doing? He refused to take what was handed down to him. A holy life is an examined life. Isn’t this interesting? Life without God is supposed to be sophisticated, but actually, it’s thoughtless. Life without God is supposed to be original and creative, but actually, it’s imitative.

3. A life without God is a life of slavery without authority, but a holy life is a life of freedom under authority

I know that sounds weird. If you’re under authority you’re not supposed to be free, right? No. Look carefully at this verse. “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had …” Now unfortunately, this another one of those places where the text’s translation is not only wimpy, but kind of misleading. The word conform is a word that means to be shaped or molded.

The translation of the words evil desires is two words that is the translation of one word, epithymia, which is really a poor translation, and here’s why. The word epithymia means an inordinate desire. Think of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Do you remember the pyramid? The more basic needs are you need to eat and drink. Then you move up, and you need relaxation and recreation. Another need is sexuality. Then you keep moving up to more complex needs. You need to be loved. You need to feel like you accomplish things. You need to see your significance in the world. These are all needs.

Every one of those things is a legitimate need. They were all created by God. God invented food and drink. He likes them. God invented rest. You know, on the seventh day he rested. That’s what it says in Genesis. God invented sex, and he saw it was good. God invented our social needs for approval of other people. God gave us the desire to work and to accomplish something. They’re all good, but Peter says a godless life is not a life so much of evil desires. That’s a bad translation of this word. It gives you the impression what it’s talking about are people who pillage and murder and do violence and so forth.

That’s not what we’re talking about. He says, “You used to be molded, you used to be fashioned, you used to be utterly controlled by good desires that had become inordinate.” That’s what the word means: out of order, too important to you, good things. We talked about this last week, but Thomas Oden, who teaches at the graduate school at Drew University, has a fascinating book in which he lays out a couple of principles.

He says, “Everybody has to live for something.” Remember I told you before people don’t want to think about what they’re living for, but everybody has to live for something. “Everybody has to have some central value that is the basis on which we make decisions.” The only way you can make priority decisions, the only way you can decide this and not this, is if you have a hierarchy of values. “There is something that is your ultimate value, your ultimate reason for living. It could be attractiveness. It could be approval of people. It could be power. It could be anything, but everybody has to have something you live for.”

Thomas Oden said, “That central value is that something without which you cannot receive life joyfully.” If you don’t have that your life falls apart. He says, “You can either make God your central value which is an infinite center or you can put something finite in the way, something finite in the center—and when that happens—to the degree that I center my life on a finite value instead of God, to that degree I relate to my past with guilt and to my future with anxiety.” Here are a couple of quotes from him.

For example, he says, “My relationship to the future will be one of anxiety to the degree that I have idolized finite values. Anxiety becomes neurotically intensified to the degree that I have idolized finite values that properly should have been regarded as limited.” He says, “If the thing I’m living for is money or if the thing I’m living for is my children or if the thing I’m living for is the Republican party or the Democratic party, I’m always going to be experiencing anxiety because those finite values cannot last, and so I will always feel threatened.”

He says, “On the other hand, my relationship to the past will be one of guilt. Guilt becomes neurotically intensified to the degree that I have idolized finite values that properly should have been regarded as limited. Why? Because if you’ve decided, ‘The only way in which I know I’m going to be able to look myself in the mirror is because of this value (I will achieve, I will be loved, I will look good),’ whatever you decide that you have to have in order to feel you have meaning in life, when you fail those standards, finite gods never forgive, ever. You’re always down on yourself.”

What is Thomas Odin saying? “I have guilt in my life to the degree that I idolize finite values. I have anxiety in my life to the degree that I idolize finite values. That’s what Peter is talking about. What he is saying is life without God necessarily means I am driven by inordinate desires, good desires for good things that now fill me with anxiety and fill me with guilt.” Isn’t it interesting? A life without God is supposed to be sophisticated, but it’s thoughtless. A life without God is supposed to be original, but it’s imitative. A life without God is supposed to be free, but it’s a life of bondage.

However, a holy life is different. It’s a life of coherence between thought and life. It’s a life of examination. Lastly, it’s a life of freedom under authority. “As obedient children …” Let’s just look at that, and this is the final point. Do you know what it means to be a holy person? First of all, it means you’re obedient, and unfortunately the word obedience means, yes, to be holy you have to submit your will to another’s. To be obedient means there is a submission of your will to the will of someone else.

There are really two basic epistemologies. There are two basic ways of knowing that are dominant in New York right now, and these are kind of fanciful names. There is the scientist view of life and the New Ageism view of life. The scientistic view of life says, “You know, there is no supernatural. There is no spiritual realm. All that exists is matter, and when you die you rot, and that’s that.” That’s one view. You live your life the way you decide, however you see fit.

Then there is the New Agestic view, and of course, the New Agestic view is growing. New Ageism isn’t just one particular group, but the New Agestic view says, “That’s not true. The scientistic view is wrong. Everything is divine. Everything is sacred. God is in everything. God is throughout everything. You are God yourself, and you must come into contact with it. You must get in touch with the greatness of what you are and the greatness of who you are.”

What is so funny is those two views look like they’re against each other, but they agree in one area: neither of them has any concept of obedience. The scientistic view says, “There is no obedience; there is no one to obey. Do what you want.” The New Agestic view says, “Get in touch with God, but this a God who is impersonal, not a God who speaks.” If you want to understand how New Ageism believes you should get in touch with God, you just watch Luke Skywalker. What does Obi-Wan Kenobi say to Luke Skywalker? “Reach out with your feelings. Get in touch with your feelings.” Okay. No obedience. No obedience at all.

A holy life is an obedient life. Right here Christianity is running a head-on collision with the two dominant worldviews of New York City. What does it mean to be holy? It means to say, “Use me.” It means to be cut out. It means to say, “I belong to you.” It means to say, “You have your will, O Lord, and where my will crosses your will, my will goes.” Otherwise, you’re not really his.

In fact, let’s go one step further. Do you notice down here in verse 15 it says, “… as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do?” Let me push this a little further. To be holy means to be wholly obedient. If there is any area of your life in which you’re not being obedient, you’re actually not being obedient at all. Some people will say to me, “Well, I’m a Christian, and I am obeying God … except there. I’ll get it together.” You’re not obeying God except there. There is no such thing as obeying God except there.

Think of it this way: if you can say to somebody, “You can have the whole house except for that room. You can have the whole house, but you can never go in that room,” if you’re in a position to tell somebody they have the whole house except for that room, they don’t have the house; you have the house. Even if you only live in that room, and you give all the rest of the house to that person, if you can keep that person out of that room, you still own the house.

If you say, “Well, I’m going to submit to what Jesus says about this area of my life and this area of my life, but not this area. Not now. No. Not right now, but I’ll give him my life in every other way,” you haven’t done it at all. Do you see? “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.” Anything else isn’t holy. I’m not saying to be holy you have to be perfectly obedient. Nobody is. We’ve been through this before. A person is a Christian strictly because Jesus died for them. They rest and trust in that, and therefore, they are forgiven.

The only proper response and the only way you can know that you received Christ as Savior and the only proper response to him giving himself utterly for you on the cross is you giving yourself utterly to him right now. Anything else is inappropriate. Anything else is not holy. To be holy doesn’t mean to be perfectly obedient; to be holy means to be completely submitted in the sense of saying, “I take my hands off my life. I give you the rights to every room in my house. Come in. I can’t keep you out of any, because the house isn’t mine.”

More than that, real holiness does not simply consist of external submission to authority. It says, “As obedient children …” That’s the last point. If you want to know what holiness means, it’s not simply getting all the rules and getting all the regulations. Oh, no. Think about this. Why would Peter say “as obedient children?” Why not as obedient people or as obedient servants? Why obedient children? Because the obedience of a child is different than the obedience of a servant or a slave.

A child can’t obey his or her father … a child can’t obey the parent … unless there has already been an action on the part of the parent to receive that child. You can’t obey your parent unless your parent has had you. You can’t obey your parent unless your parent has adopted you. There either has to be a biological action or there has to be a legal action, but the point is your obedience is not the reason your parents have you; the fact that your parents have you is the reason for your obedience. That’s utterly different.

A slave is scared to death. A slave, or a servant, or an employee says, “I’d better do well.” An employee says, “I’d better do well. Otherwise, I could be fired.” The employee is completely motivated out of rewards and punishments. “I want my reward; I fear the punishment. I want my salary; I don’t want to lose my job. I want a promotion; I don’t want to be demoted.” That’s the employee, and there is obedience to an employee. But no! Not for a Christian. The essence of a holy life is that you obey as children.

“I know I’m accepted.” The entire obedience of a Christian is based on this little word, for. Why should you be obedient? Because “… you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed … but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” If you want to get to the very, very heart of what it means to live an obedient life as a holy person, as a child, not as an employee, to be wholly God’s and to belong wholly to him in your life will only issue from a vision of how he wholly gave himself for you.

At the very end of the movie, The Bible, the one John Huston put together some years ago, George C. Scott plays Abraham. My wife and I can never watch that thing without weeping at the end, so we avoid it. (No, we don’t.) Here is George C. Scott playing Abraham, and God comes to him. In Genesis 15, God said to Abraham, “I will bless you and your descendants through Isaac, your son.” God moves between the pieces of cut up animals to show … He says, “I will obey my promise. I will bless you and your descendants, and if I don’t, may I be cut up as these animals.”

Yet, years later, God comes to Abraham and says, “Abraham, do you know that son I promised I was going to bless you through? I want you to kill him.” The Bible tells us Abraham wrestled and wrestled and wrestled, and finally he walked up the hill with his son, and he put him on the altar. In the movie, they add a little line that is not in the Bible, but it’s perfectly appropriate. In the movie, as Abraham is tying up Isaac and Isaac realizes what he’s doing, Isaac says, “Father, is there nothing he cannot ask of thee?” Abraham says, “Nothing.”

Why not? Why was Abraham holy? Why was Abraham wholly God’s at that point? Because he was just knuckling under the naked power of God? Did Abraham say, “Well, there’s nothing I can do; how can I fight against God?” No. The book of Hebrews tells us he walked up with his son, figuring out somehow God was going to raise him from the dead because God would keep his promise. Ah, if Abraham was only here now. Do you know why? Because as soon as Abraham had wholly given even Isaac …

Everybody in this room has “Isaacs,” things we want to hold on to, and yet God says, “You must be wholly mine.” As Abraham was ready to give Isaac up, God said, “ ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ ‘Here am I,’ he replied.” “Do not harm the lad. Now I know that you love me for you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me.” Abraham, as an Old Testament figure, understood God was good. That’s why he obeyed. He understood God was loving in a general way, but, boy, we have something Abraham didn’t have.

If Abraham was here now, do you know what he would know? He would know why God was able to say, “Abraham, you don’t have to kill your son.” Do you know why? Because years after Abraham, God walked up the hill with his Son and he slew him, and there was nobody there to call out from heaven, “Don’t do it.” If Abraham was here now, he would look at God and say, “Here’s why I’m wholly yours. Now I know, O Lord God, that you love me, because you did not withhold your Son, your only Son, whom you love, from me.”

As obedient children, for you know you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver and gold, but redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. That creates a motivation for obedience that no one else knows. It’s not an oppressive thing; it’s a liberating thing. We put ourselves wholly under him, wholly in all that we do, and obedient in every area of life. Isn’t it amazing? The ungodly life is not sophisticated; it’s thoughtless. It’s not original; it’s imitative. It’s not free; this is freedom. His service is perfect freedom. “You will know the truth,” Jesus said, “and the truth will set you free.” Let’s pray.

Help us, O Father, to get that freedom and to get that holiness of life, which only comes from the sight of you walking up that mountain with your Son and slaying him for our sins so we could know your pardon. Thank you for taking our punishment upon yourself. I pray, Father, that everybody in this room would know tonight that only if they give themselves wholly to you, because your Son gave himself wholly for us, will we know the freedom and the liberty of holiness. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

About the Preacher

Timothy Keller is founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City and the author of numerous books, including Every Good Endeavor, Center Church, Galatians For You, The Meaning of Marriage, The Reason for God, King’s Cross, Counterfeit Gods, The Prodigal God, and Generous Justice.

The Problem of Anxiety by Dr. Tim Keller

Series: Modern Problems; Ancient Solutions

October 24, 1993, Manhattan, N.Y. Based on Psalm 27

“The Problem of Anxiety” by Tim Keller

We’ve been looking at the book of Psalms in the fall, and we’ve been trying to bring them to bear on what we’ve been calling “modern problems,” which, of course, if you can bring the Psalms (a 3,000-year-old book) to bear on them, they’re not that modern, but we always like to flatter ourselves that our problems are worse than anyone else’s. I mean, every age has always felt that way. So I’m pandering to our arrogance and suggesting we do have modern problems (yet which have solutions) that are very ancient. Now let me read to you Psalm 27 in its entirety.

¹The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? ²When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. ³Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident. ⁴One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.⁵For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling;he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.⁶Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord. ⁷Hear my voice when I call, O Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. ⁸My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. ⁹Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior. ¹⁰Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. ¹¹Teach me your way, O Lord; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. ¹²Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence. ¹³I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. ¹⁴Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heartand wait for the Lord.

That’s God’s Word

Now this psalm is all about fear, worry, anxiety, and how the Bible tells us to deal with it. Now when we look at the psalm, we’re going to see a very refreshing realism, even though it’s full of tremendous promises, because the realism is important. I was just reading an author, a man named Ernest Becker, who said, “I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation, of the grotesque, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise, it is false.”

He must have lived in New York. There’s always this rumble of panic. It’s really the subway, but you walk along and you feel this rumble of panic, and you say, “Why do I feel so disconcerted?” Then you realize you’re on Park Avenue, and there goes the subway. Ernest Becker is right, and here’s why.

So many of the articles and the books I survey (and I constantly do) … Whenever I see a book in a store or an article in a newspaper or a magazine saying, “How to Overcome Worry” or “How to Overcome Anxiety,” almost always what they essentially say is, “The things you’re worried about may never happen. What a waste of time it is to be worrying about things that may never happen. Instead, visualize a future that is satisfying and focus on that. Visualize that future. Focus on that. Don’t sit around and visualize all the things that could go wrong.”

Is that the way David does it? No. You know, for example, in verse 10, he says, “Though my father and mother forsake me …” Now there is no indication David’s mother and father had actually forsaken him. It says, “Though an entire army was encamped against me …” He doesn’t say, “It has encamped against me …” It says, “Even if it did …” What is David doing? He is doing the opposite of what the articles say. He is actually imagining the worst things that can happen. He is visualizing the worst things that can happen. Why? Because he wants to have a strategy of life, a strategy of dealing with fears and anxieties, that can stand up to anything.

He doesn’t listen to the advice that says, “Maybe none of these things will ever happen, so don’t think about them.” Oh no. As Ernest Becker says, any attitude toward life that minimizes the evil and terror of things is phony. Well, he would have been very happy with Psalm 27. David goes so far as to imagine the worst. The fierce realism of the Bible is seen right here. The Bible says you can have a way of dealing with anger and with anxiety and fear that assumes the worst things may and can happen, that your father and mother forsake you, that an army encamps against you. Think about it! Go ahead. It doesn’t matter, because you can use this on anything.

So what is that strategy? I’ll tell you, whatever it was, we ought to look at it because David had literal enemies, and they had real weapons. They were people who were literally after their lives. Most of you, that’s probably not true. Therefore, if he was able to find a strategy that enabled him to deal with the fears of his life, don’t you think it ought to work for most of us? So let’s see what he says this great strategy is. Actually, it’s all in verse 4.

In verse 3, he says, “I have so much freedom from anxiety and fear that I have enough left over that if an army came up, I’d be okay. I’d be able to handle it.” That’s what he says in verse 3. Then in verse 4 he tells us the secret. There are three verbs: to dwell, to gaze, and to seek. Those are the three. So let’s take a look. How can you have a strategy that will enable you to face any of the anxieties, the stresses of life? I don’t know how you’re doing right now with this, but I know you can improve. Take a look.

1. Dwelling

In verse 4, he says, “One thing I ask of the Lord … that I may dwell in the house of the Lord …” Now what does that mean? What does it mean to dwell in the house of the Lord? Now one of the things you have to think about is David is not thinking so much about a physical spot. First of all, he couldn’t dwell in the house of the Lord literally. You can’t live in a temple. He wasn’t asking for that. Only the Levites could live in there, and nobody could live right there in the Holy of Holies.

What he is actually asking for is to experience the unbroken presence of God, because the thing he is really after is the face of God. The face! “I want to gaze on your beauty. I want to be in your presence.” The house of God or the temple of God was the place where God’s paniym (which is the Hebrew word for face, his presence) dwelt. What David says is, “I want to be always in your presence.” What’s that mean?

Now people always ask this question at this point: “What does that mean? I thought God was present everywhere!” The answer is always best given through an illustration … something like this. You know, Tammy (who was playing the piano) and Steve (on the flute and the sax), you are in their presence, aren’t you? I mean, you’ve already heard them playing. You’re in their presence. Of course. You’ve listened to them and you’re in their presence, and yet nobody can say (yet) that you have met them unless after the service you walk on up and you come up face to face.

Because, you see, your face is the relational gate into your heart. From far away, you can’t have a relationship. You actually have to come up face to face. When you come up to somebody, you can’t look at their kneecap or their shoulder. You have to look in their face if you want to have a personal transaction, a personal interaction, because the face is the place where I see and hear you and the face is the place where you see and hear me. So you have to come face to face.

Now why am I saying that? Last week we said Psalm 19 says the heavens are telling of the glory of God. Psalm 19 says when you go out and see the stars, are you in God’s presence? Sure! The Bible insists you can’t know God personally through nature. It insists on it. Now we looked at that last week in some detail, but let me just put it out again this way. When you come into the presence of a pianist and you listen to her play, as great as it is to be in her presence, you haven’t had a friendship with her by that. You have to come up face to face.

If you want to have a friendship with Henry Ford, you don’t do it by putting your head under a Model T and saying, “Henry? Are you in there, Henry?” To be in the presence of the handiwork, to be in the general presence of someone, is not the same thing as to have a personal relationship. The Bible says, therefore, what David is after here is, “I don’t want to know you distantly. I don’t want to obey you in a general way. I don’t want to have a kind of general inspirational belief in you. I want to know you personally and intimately. That’s what I want.”

That’s the whole secret to a fearless life. Now why? Why? Why does verse 4 answer and explain verse 3? Why would verse 4 be the answer to fear? Here it is. When David says, “The one thing I want is to dwell in your house and gaze on your beauty and seek you in your temple,” that’s the secret right there. Let me put it this way, and then we’ll unpack it. What David is saying is, “My fears are directly proportional to the vulnerability of the things that are my greatest joys. If the thing that is my greatest joy is God, I will live without fear. If my one thing … the thing I most want … is God, I am safe.”

You see, when David says, “I’ll be safe in your dwelling place …” You see it in verse 5. He says, “I’ll be safe in the tabernacle, the tent of God.” David is not thinking physically. He isn’t! He is not so stupid as to think that these people who are after him with their real knives and their real swords, if he runs into the tabernacle, somehow if they come in after him in an Indiana Jones style kind of scene, the ark of the covenant will zap all the bad guys. That’s not what he is thinking.

What he is saying is, “I’m only safe not when I’m physically inside the dwelling of the tabernacle or the temple. I’m only safe when you are the one thing I want most of all. Then I’m safe. Then I’m fearless.” Let me show you how that works. There’s a man over at Drew University named Thomas Oden. He is a great theological teacher, and he is an expert on the early church writers. It’s call patristics, meaning the church fathers. I was reading some of his work on Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine had an amazingly relevant (especially for us today looking at Psalm 27) and intriguing way to understand anxiety.

Augustine said, “Here’s where anxiety comes from. All of us have good things in our lives, and we love them, and we desire them. Good things! Parents and children are good things. A career is a good thing. Romance is a good thing. Sex is a good thing. All sorts of things are good things. We have lots of good things in our lives.” But Augustine says, “When something which is finite becomes …”

In other words, when the good things become the “one thing” we think we have to have in order to be happy, when the good things become the “one thing,” we gaze on them. We seek them. We gaze on their beauty. We adore them, and we believe we cannot receive life joyfully unless we have it. So when good things become “one things,” when good desires become inordinate desires, disproportional-to-their-being desires, Augustine says that’s when anxiety comes.

Why? Because anxiety is like the smoke, and you can follow the smoke down to the fire. The fire is this. Anxiety is always the result of the implosion or the collapse of a false god. “When good things become ‘one things,’ you see, when things that are good to have become things you have to have, when they become the central values of your life, that’s where anxiety comes from,” says Augustine, “because anxiety is always a sign of the collapse of a false god.”

Now let me tell you one of the reasons we squirm with this and one of the reasons some of you may squirm. Some of you may be eaten up with worry and anxiety right now, and you think this is unfair, because you’re worried about a person, or you’re worried about how you’re going to feed your family because of the finances. You’re worried about a lot of things, and they’re good things. See, this is what’s so hard. The things that turn into little idols in our lives are always good things. They were created by God. They’re wonderful. That’s the reason they can slip into the center.

Let me put it this way. A little anxiety is always a very good thing. Remember, there is a place where Paul says, “I have on me the daily anxiety of all the churches.” So a little anxiety shows you’re a caring person, but debilitating anxiety and devastating anxiety shows good things have become “one things.” Now you’re gazing on their beauty and you’re seeking them above all. You think, “Unless I have that, I cannot be happy.” That is what creates debilitating anxiety and fear.

So do you see what David is saying is, “If you’re my ‘one thing,’ if you’re the one thing I require, the one thing I ask for … to gaze on your beauty, to seek you in the temple … I’m fearless?” Because, see, anything but God and his will is subject to the vicissitudes of time and life. Anything but God and his will is vulnerable. Nothing can take God away from you. Nothing can take that away from you. Now you’re fearless. But anything else you set your heart on like this can be taken away. When there’s a threat to it, you go to pieces.

Now David gives us a great example of this. Let’s just use one example. “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” Now is there anything wrong with the love between parents and children? Of course not! God invented love between parents and children. God commands love between parents and children. Therefore, for you to want, for example, the love of your parents is something good. For you to want it very deeply is something good. Not only is it something very good; it’s something inevitable that you want it.

Yet what happens if your mother and father forsake you, which of course happens, does it not? What happens? There are people who I’ve talked to, who you’ve talked to (and maybe some of you are), who say, “My mother and father have forsaken me, and I will not be consoled. I will not! I will never forget what they did. I will never forget what they failed to do. I will never be okay. I will always feel worthless. I will always be unhappy!” You just refuse to be consoled. What is that? A good thing (parent love) has become the “one thing,” and you’re gazing at its beauty, and you’re longing for it, and you’re seeking after it. You’re worshiping it in the temple.

As a result, you will be anxious and fearful all of your life. Don’t you see? “If my father and mother forsake me, if my spouse forsakes me, if my career forsakes me, if romance forsakes me, if my looks forsake me, the Lord will receive me. The Lord will receive me!” Unless you get that into your blood, unless you understand the reason we get anxious is because good things become “one things,” and they slide into the center, unless we actually are …

You know, Augustine said anxiety is a very, very helpful thing. It tells you a lot about yourself, because you can always follow your worries to those things which enslave you. You can always follow your worries. Anxiety is always the result of the collapse of a false god, the implosion. Do you understand that? Unless you’re able to get this into your blood you’re going to live a fearful life.

So the question then is … How do we make sure God becomes our “one thing?” How do we do that? I would say the text is actually telling us two ways. The two ways are right there in verse 4. You see, when David says, “There’s only one thing I want,” and then he says, “… to dwell, to gaze, and to seek,” now wait a minute; that’s three things. So what does he mean? He has to mean dwelling and gazing and seeking are basically all the “one thing.” In fact, I think seeking and gazing are actually two ways we dwell in the house. I think seeking and gazing is just a kind of breakdown of what it means to dwell in God’s house.

Do you want to live in his presence? Do you want him to be the “one thing?” Do you want that so you can live a fearless life? The question is … How? You have to gaze on his beauty, and you have to seek him in his temple. Now the reason I think that’s true, by the way, that these two things are the ways in which you dwell in the house (gazing on his beauty and seeking him in the temple) is because the rest of the psalm breaks into two parts.

Starting in verse 8, he says, “Show me your face.” Verses 8 through 10: “Show me your face.” Then verses 11–14 are, “Teach me your way.” Those are the same two things! “Show me your face” is the same thing as gazing on his beauty. “Teach me your way” is the same thing as seeking him. Let me show you these two things. These are the two things you have to do in order to make him your “one thing.”

2. Gazing

First of all, you have to gaze on his beauty. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll just tip my hat to those of you who were here at the end of August because I gave a sermon once on this at the end of August in the evening. When David says, “I’ve come to the temple to gaze on your beauty,” do we think it means a literal vision, something he saw with his physical eyes? I doubt it. Well, I’m not saying David, being a prophet and being a great king and so on, could never have had a vision, but I doubt very much that’s what he is talking about. There’s no indication it means every time he goes in he gets a vision. Oh no!

What does it mean to gaze on his beauty? This is what we’ve called communion with God. This is the difference between knowing about God and knowing God. This is the difference between knowing he is holy and loving and experiencing his holiness and his love. Let me go back to Saint Augustine. Some of you might remember this from two months ago, the sermon in the evening.

Saint Augustine was a great African theologian of the church. He lived in the fourth and fifth century AD. Augustine actually lays out in one of his sets of writings what it really means to actually see God. He says there are three parts: retentio, contemplatio, and dilectio? Remember? Retentio, he says, is finding a truth, getting it out of the Bible. Retentio is the word for retain. You retain it. You distill the truth, and you say, “There it is.” You see it, and you learn it, and you know it.

Augustine stays, “Ah, but you don’t stop there. Oh no! You mustn’t stop there. Once you get that truth, you see God is holy, you see God is wise, you don’t just close your book. You don’t close your notebook and say, ‘Ah, now I know that! I know another attribute of God. I know it!’ Oh no! Now, secondly, you move from retenetio to contemplatio, which means you contemplate or you look at God through the truth. You gaze at God through the truth.”

That means you start to ask yourself questions. “What does this verse tell me about God? What does it show me about God? What does it show me about how marvelous he is, how holy he is, how loving he is? Do I really understand he is holy? Do I really understand it? Am I living it out? What false attitudes and false emotions come when I forget this?” What Augustine means is this is a discipline of the mind in which you’re reaching out and you’re actually saying, “I want to see you.” You stretch every nerve to not see him with the eyes of your eyes but to see him, as Paul says in Ephesians, with the eyes of your heart. You stretch out.

Because we have the Holy Spirit, sometimes to some degree or another, we move to the third of the three phases: dilectio, which means to delight in him. Sometimes we find if we really spend the time seeking to see him, to gaze on his beauty, ideas about him get very real. Ideas about his holiness or his love begin to comfort us, begin to disturb us, begin to thrill us. Now don’t look at me like, “What is all this?” Don’t you remember what Augustine said? Everybody does this with everything but God. We all gaze at the beauty of these good things that have become “one things.”

You know what it means to gaze on the beauty of something. You turn it over in your imagination, the thing you want. It may be a career. It may be a house at the beach. It may be a particular person, and you think what life will be like if you get it. You gaze on the beauty of it. See? You fill your mind with it. You taste it. You rest in it. We do it with everything else but God. Now do it with him! That’s the only way to make the real one thing the “one thing.” Gaze on his beauty. Do you know how to do that? Do you take time to do that? David says unless you do that, you’ll not be dwelling in his house and you’ll have a fearful life.

3. Seeking

He doesn’t just say, “I want to gaze on your beauty,” but, “I want to seek him.” Now the word seek is a very, very specific Hebrew word. It actually means to go and get counsel. So what it means is, “When I come to you, I am trying to find out what your will is, Oh Lord.” He wants to obey. He wants to find out God’s will, and he wants to submit to it.

Boy, this is extremely important. These are the two parts of what it really means to be a Christian. These are the two parts of true religion: gazing on the beauty and seeking God’s will. If you only seek God’s will to obey, to find out what he teaches and disobey it day in and day out, if that’s all you do without gazing on the beauty, it will be all phariseeism and legalism. On the other hand, if you just try to gaze on his beauty, just have this great experience, but you don’t want to find out his will and do daily obedience, well, it won’t work either, and I’ll show you why.

Just think of marriage. A good marriage is a wonderful thing because you can fall in each other’s arms every so often. You see, you gaze on each other’s beauty. You have intimate fellowship, but you can’t walk around all the time in each other’s arms. There’s a life to live. You have to go to work and so on.

Let me tell you what 95 percent of what marriage is: finding out how to serve the other person and how to do for them. Because if you want to experience the other person’s love and yet the other person says, “Hey, would you do this and this and this for me?” and you say, “Oh no. That’s too inconvenient. I don’t like to do that,” if you live like a selfish person, if you don’t learn what the other person’s wishes are, if you don’t serve that other person in the little things day in and day out, it will be the end of intimacy.

Don’t you see? You can’t just live selfishly. You can’t just walk around and do anything you want, not trying to find out how to serve that person, not making sacrifices for that person, not obeying the needs and the wishes of that person and then expect to just jump in bed and have a wonderful, wonderful time of gazing on her beauty or his beauty. If you think that’s going to work, it doesn’t! It never works!

A human being is not a computer. There’s not an entrance sequence that you just poke in and then you get everything you want. In a relationship if you want intimacy, if you want to gaze on the beauty of the other person, if you want to commune with that person in love, you also have to find out that person’s will and do it. That’s just the way it works! What does that mean? I’ll tell you what this means.

A lot of people have wanted desperately to gaze on God’s beauty and get these experiences I’m talking about. You know, I was reading the other day. Here’s a guy who wrote a friend near the end of his life. There was a minister who prayed every day but began to really get a breakthrough, began to gaze on God’s beauty. Almost every week he began to just have these breakthroughs.

He wrote a friend, and he said, “Almost every week, a measure of his great love comes down upon my heart. He has unlocked every compartment of my being and filled and flooded them all with the light of his radiant presence. The inner spot has been touched, and the flintiness of my heart has been melted in the presence of love divine, all love’s excelling.”

What is that? He is in the temple. He is dwelling in the house of the Lord. He is gazing on the beauty, and all of his fears are going. Somebody says, “Ah! I want that so much.” A lot of us go to church just seeking that. A lot of us try to find church that will give us this great sense of highness, that we’ve touched God during the worship services. That’s good. That’s fine, but I’ll tell you this. To gaze on his beauty without seeking his will will never work. You want to gaze on his beauty? There’s a way to do that.

Do you remember blind Bartimaeus? He knew Jesus was going to come by on a certain road, so he pitched his tent there. He just cried out, “Lord, have mercy on me!” Do you want to experience the beauty of God? Do you want to gaze on his beauty? Do you want to have the sense of love these great people I always am reading from their journals have? Do you want that? Of course you want that. Well, how do you get it? You don’t get it by running around trying to get it. You pitch your tent on the road Jesus inevitably will come down, and that road is the road of obedience, seeking him.

There are disciplines to seeking his will. You read the Bible. You pray. You meditate. You take the sacraments at church. Those are the inner disciplines. Then you have the outer disciplines. Be simple in your lifestyle instead of materialistic. Be chaste in your lifestyle instead of impure. Be forgiving in your lifestyle instead of bitter. Have a servant heart instead of an ambitious and selfish heart. These are disciplines. Obey, seek him, and you’ll gaze on his beauty. Otherwise, no.

Okay, you want to dwell in his house? There’s the discipline of gazing on his beauty, and there’s the discipline of seeking his will. Now let me close this way. Some of you are probably finding this a pretty odd thing (gazing on God’s beauty), and you’re thinking, “Well, that’s great. I’d love to have an experience like that. How do I do it?” Here’s how you do it. You have to seek him in his temple. You have to gaze on his beauty in his temple.

Ah, but what is his temple? It says in John 2, Jesus Christ looked at the temple, and he said to the religious leaders, “Tear this temple down, and I will build it up again in three days.” They all looked at him and said, “You’re crazy! It took 40 years to build this temple. You’re going to build it up in three days?” The text tells us he was referring to himself. Jesus is the temple. Now let me explain what I mean.

David gazed at the beauty of God. Now remember we said Augustine says the way you gaze on God is you take certain truths and you look at God through the truths. You look at God through them. So when we’re told David gazed on the beauty of God at the temple, what did that mean? We said he probably didn’t have a vision. It means he went and he watched the temple ritual, and he saw the beauty of God through it. How did that happen?

Well, like this. You know what happened in the temple ritual? Animals were constantly getting slaughtered on the block and sacrificed up to God. David saw the beauty of the Lord, he gazed on the beauty of the Lord, through the sacrifices. How could that happen? Well, when he saw the animals being slain, he saw the beauty of God’s justice and holiness. He said, “Here is a God who requires sin be paid for. Here is a God who is so good and so holy, he cannot count men’s sin. Here’s a God who can’t overlook it. Here’s a God who must deal with evil. What a good God. What a just God. What a holy God.”

On the other hand, when he looked at the sacrifices, he also saw a merciful God. “Here’s a God who wants to deal with our sins so we can still approach him. Here’s a God who wants to forgive us our sins. Here’s a God who wants to find us a way to himself.” Now here’s the point. If David was able to gaze at the beauty of God through the tabernacle and the temple worship, how much more of the beauty of God will we see if we gaze at God through the face of Jesus?

You see, when we look at God today, we don’t have to look at him through a bull being slaughtered on the block. We see the face of a human being, the most loving human being ever, dying for us, suffocating on the cross, his ribs snapping as he suffocates, the blood and the sweat flowing down on his face, looking at us and saying, “You don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve been forsaken for you.”

Now let me tell you something. If David saw so much of the beauty of God in the temple, so much of the beauty of God that it turned him into a great heart so that he could handle an army, how much more of the beauty of God do you think you and I can see if we do what Paul said? What did Paul say? He says, “We are beholding with unveiled faces the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

That’s what we look at. Gaze on him. Look at him. Look at what he is doing. Look at him dying for you. Gaze on the beauty of God. If the beauty David saw could turn him into someone who could handle an army, what do you think it’s going to turn you into? How much more of the beauty of God can we see? How much more are we going to be able to look at God and say, “You’re my ‘one thing.’ I see your beauty. It fills me up so I’m afraid of nothing anymore. I have the only thing I need?”

This is what it means to seek him. You have to seek the Father. You have to gaze at his beauty through Jesus. It says in John 1:12, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God …” So if you want him, if you want all the things we’re talking about, it’s not an abstract thing. It’s not a technique. You have to go to God through Jesus. That’s how you gaze on his beauty.

Now, Christian friends, just think about this. There are a number of you who are saying, “Okay, this is very interesting. In fact, this is very moving. This is very powerful, but I’m scared right now about something that’s going to happen on Thursday. That’s four days away. What do I do till then?”

Listen. It’s true the Bible gives you this tremendous solution to anxiety. It says learn to gaze on his beauty and seek him in his temple. Eventually you develop a habit of the heart. You develop a whole orientation toward God. Of course that’s not something that happens really quickly. So the fact of the matter is I can’t give you something that really quickly will overcome all of your anxiety between now and Thursday. The books in the bookstores do. The magazines in the grocery store do.

They give you those little behavior modification grids, and they give you these little rational motive techniques on thought control. They teach you how to turn away from the negative thoughts and put on the positive thoughts. Let me tell you something. The Bible is giving you an antidote to anxiety too, but it’s not a patch. It’s not a Band-Aid. It’s regeneration. It’s a new heart, a new way of life, a new way of doing everything.

So I admit this is something that takes a long time to develop. This is not a quick fix, but you can start right now. You know, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” right? You know that cliché? Okay, let’s use it. Do you know what the first step is? Today you can say, “One thing. Finally, Lord God, I’m going to make you the ‘one thing.’ One thing. I’m going to make you my highest priority.

I today determine that gazing on your beauty and seeking you, I can no longer let other things crowd it out of my schedule. I can no longer let other things crowd it out of my energy. I can no longer let other things crowd it out of my creativity. Today you’re the ‘one thing.’ Finally I ditch all other competition. I ditch all other competing concerns. I ditch everything else. I insist on this. I will make time for it. I will do it.” That’s the first step, so do it.

Last of all, let me just give you a quick read of something. In a minute we’re going to sing the hymn that goes, “We rest on Thee, our shield and our defender.” Do you remember several years ago we had a woman here named Betty Elliot who was a missionary? She told us her husband, Jim Elliot, 40 years ago or so now, and six other missionaries decided they were going to go into the jungles of Ecuador and make contact with a very primitive tribe they were going to try to meet, try to live with, try to learn their language, try to give them a written version of their language, bring in literacy and give them a copy of the Bible in their own language.

They were going to do literacy work and Bible translation. They knew it was dangerous, so the night before they were to contact these Indians, they sat around a table, and they sang this hymn together.

We rest on Thee,

Our shield and our defender!

We go not forth alone against the foe;

Strong in Thy strength,

Safe in Thy keeping tender

We rest on Thee,

And in Thy name we go.

Strong in Thy strength,

Safe in Thy keeping tender,

We rest on Thee,

And in Thy name we go.

The next day they were all speared to death by the Indians. Do you remember that story? Elisabeth Elliot, a friend of ours, will say that’s interesting. “We rest on Thee,” they sang. “Strong in Thy strength and safe in Thy keeping.” The next day they were speared. So does it not work? “Of course it works,” she said. They also sang,

Jesus our righteousness,

Our sure foundation,

Our Prince of glory,

And our King of love.

You see, if the one thing that’s non-negotiable in your life, if the one thing you really want, if the one thing you really need, if the one thing is to gaze on the beauty of God, you’re absolutely safe, because the worst thing that could happen to you is a spear gets thrown through your heart (which is exactly what happened), in which case you gaze on the beauty of the Lord in a way you never have before.

Or there was an English missionary named Allen Gardiner. In 1851 he was on his way to South America to start a new mission, and he was shipwrecked on a very remote island. He and his companions tried their very best to stay alive until somebody came to find them, but nobody did. Finally he died, far away from everybody, far away from his loved ones, far away from his family, dying of thirst, dying of hunger. A horrible, horrible way to go.

When they finally discovered his body they found right next to his body was his quiet time notebook, his journal. They opened it up, and they saw on the very last page, he had written out Psalm 34:10. This is what it says: “The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” Right underneath it, the last words he penned were, “I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God.”

Huh? What do you mean, “I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God?” Why wasn’t he mad? Why wasn’t he angry? Why wasn’t he scared? Because he had the “one thing,” and there was nothing to be afraid of. Don’t you see it’s your only hope? Come and get it. Dwell. Gaze. Seek. Let’s pray.

Father, now we pray everybody in this room might be enabled to say, “The one thing I want is to dwell in your house and gaze on your beauty and seek you in your temple.” Father, for some of us, that’s going to mean actually to get ourselves converted to say that. For a lot of the rest of us, it means we’re going to have to reshuffle our priorities around and realize we’re living like pagans. Many, many good things have become our “one things,” and we’re being just jerked around by them. I pray today you will enable, by the power of your Spirit, to let everybody in this room say, “One thing I ask. One thing only will I seek.” We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.^[1]

About the Author

Timothy Keller is founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City and the author of numerous books, including The Reason for God, King’s Cross, Counterfeit Gods, The Prodigal God, and Generous Justice.

^[1] Keller, T. J. (2013). The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

The Danger of The Gospel by Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

The Gospel makes us see…our real danger. These are the problems — not the Esaus we put up. These are the problems — my relationship to God, my relationship to myself, yes, and my real danger. Now to Jacob of course the danger was this, that Esau might rob him of a certain amount of his goods, or that Esau might kill his wives and children, or indeed that Esau might go so far as to take the life of Jacob — that to Jacob was the danger. As we look and watch him as he paces backwards and forwards, he says, “What is Esau going to do to me? I may lose this wonderful stock, that I bred in the land of Laban, I may lose it, it would be a terrible loss — I may lose my wives and children, I may lose my life, isn’t this terrible.” And he prays to God frantically. But what does God do? “Jacob,” says God, “you haven’t realized your greatest danger — your greatest danger is that you may lose your soul. Jacob,” said God to him, “these things about which you are worrying are things which of necessity sooner or later you are bound to lose. There is a day coming when you are going to die and, then you will have to lose your stock, you will have to leave your wives and children and all your possessions.… But at that moment and hour you will still have your soul and you will have to render up an account to me of that soul. I have given you that soul, Jacob — your greatest danger at this moment is the loss of your soul and not being the man I want you to be, the man with the birthright blessing — that is the danger — the wrong relationship to me that leads to wrath and punishment and hell and destruction.”…

The Gospel, I say, reveals to man that he worries and troubles about the wrong problem, it then goes on to show him the real problem, but thank God it does not stop at that. It then reveals to man the blessings of life, possibilities infinitely greater and transcending everything that man has ever thought of or dreamed of or imagined. Look at it in terms of Jacob. Jacob stands there and he says to himself, “Now what about my future, if only I can appease Esau I will cross the river, I will settle down and be a wealthy and prosperous man — I will have stock and the crop, I will have the wives and the children — that will be a wonderful life.” This is what he coveted. But when God met him there that night Jacob was given such a vision of blessing that he forgot all about Esau and his stock and crop and everything else. He saw God and he met God. God revealed to him the blessing that he had in store for him and Jacob said, “I will not let thee go, I will let my animals go, I will let my wives and children go, I will let everything go, but I will not let thee go and the blessing of God.” He had met the God who was offering him pardon for his failure, who assured him that He would place His hand upon him, who gave him there a vision of his own future as the father of a nation, the father ultimately of the Lord Jesus Christ who was to be the Savior of the world. Jacob, I believe, was given a glimpse of that — out of his seed even the Messiah shall come — and he said, “I will not let thee go. What are earthly honors and goods and possessions when I see that through me and out of this nation will come Shiloh, the Deliverer” — that is the blessing — the new name, no longer Jacob but “Israel.” And that is what the Gospel says to every man who hears it by the power of the Holy Spirit. It offers us, let me say it again, pardon, forgiveness, assurance that God blots out our sins as a thick cloud and casts them behind him. Can you think of anything greater in this world tonight than that, having your conscience cleansed, being able to face and look at God and say, “I am guilty but Christ suffered for my sin and I am free, pardoned and forgiven.” It means a new start in life, a new nature — the nature of God Himself, being made a child of God.… He offers new power and strength and new might; He will enable us to conquer old sins and get rid of the things that have spoilt and ruined our past existence; He gives us righteousness and joy and peace; He removes the fear of death and the grave; He enables you to smile at death and the grave and say, “I have gone from death to life, through judgment to eternity.” And it gives us an everlasting hope that can never fade away. In other words, what the Gospel tells us is something like this: It tells us that this world is ultimately going to be rid of sin. It tells us that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, is coming back into this world; He is going to destroy all His enemies…. It tells us that everything that is sinful and evil is going to be taken out of the world, even out of creation itself — that there is going to be “a new heaven and a new earth in which dwelleth righteousness” and that those who are Christian are going to live in that world with Christ at their head, looking into the face of God and enjoying everlasting and eternal bless. It offers that. That is why I said at the beginning that the Gospel surprises us. It does not mean just pulling yourself together and trying to be a better man — No, no, it means that God will make you a child of His own; it means He will put His own nature into you, He will make you an heir of that bliss which I have tried to describe so inadequately; it means death will have no terror for you; you can look forward to that glorified existence. That is the blessing which He offers us. We have but to realize our need of Him, the failure of our life, the danger to the soul, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and those are the things we receive.

An excerpt from a sermon, “The Life-Changing Meeting,” by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones from Old Testament Evangelistic Sermons, published by The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1995. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Dr. Tim Keller on “The Christian’s Happiness” – Romans 8:28-30

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:28-30)

Cheer Up Christian: “Your bad things turn out for good, your good things can never be lost, and the best things are yet to come.” – Tim Keller

Introduction

If you’re a Christian, you know that Christianity is supposed to be about joy. You probably also know that you’re supposed to experience joy in spite of circumstances. The Bible clearly teaches that joy is available that should make us happy no matter the circumstances. There’s a joy that the deepest trouble can’t put out and, if properly nourished and nurtured, can even overwhelm the greatest grief.

When Jesus prays to the Father in John 17:13, he prays for us—his followers. He says, I pray that “they may have the full measure of my joy within them.” One chapter before, he says to his disciples, “You will rejoice. and no one will take away your joy” (16:22). That’s pretty amazing! He’s talking to the twelve disciples, men who are going to be persecuted. They’re going to be robbed of everything they own, tortured, and put to death. Yet Jesus promises to give them a joy that will withstand all that. Nothing—not disease or persecution or alienation or loneliness or torture or even death—will be able to take it away.

I often wrestle with that concept. I have to ask myself, “Why do things affect me so much? Why is my joy not relentless?” Sometimes I wonder, “Do we have that kind of impervious joy?” I’m afraid not. I don’t think we understand the nature of this joy.

Romans 8 is all about living in a suffering world marked by brokenness. Paul talks about trouble and persecution and nakedness and poverty and how Christians are supposed to live in a world like that. In 8:28–30 he offers three principles for finding joy in suffering. Paul tells us that if we follow Christ, our bad things turn out for good, our good things cannot be lost, and our best things are yet to come. Those are the reasons for our joy.

Our bad things turn out for good

Verse 28 says: “For those loving him, God works together all things for good.”

There are three implications of this first principle.

First, this verse says that all things happen to Christians. That is, the Christian’s circumstances are no better than anybody else’s. It is extremely important for us to understand this if we’re going to experience relentless and impervious joy. Terrible things happen to people who love God. Many Christians explicitly teach—and most Christians implicitly believe—that if we love and serve God, then we will not have as many bad things happen to us. That’s not true! Horrible things can happen to us, and believing in and loving and serving God will not keep them from happening. All the same things that happen to everybody else will happen to people who love God. “All things” means all things, in this text. In verse 35 Paul says, “What can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, poverty, danger, or sword?” Those are terrible things. Paul is saying all the same things that happen to everybody else will happen to us, even if we love God. It’s very important to realize that.

The second implication of this point is that when things work together in your life, it’s because of God. Notice Paul does not say, “Things work together for good.” Things never work together for good on their own. Rather, if anything good happens, it is because God is working it together.

Earlier in Romans 8, Paul discusses how things fall apart because the world is burdened with evil and sin. Things are subject to decay. Everyone will eventually experience the decay of their bodies; that’s the nature of things. The little grains of sand on the beach used to be a mountain. Everything falls apart; things do not come together. This verse tells Christians to get rid of the saccharine, sentimental idea that things ought to go right, that things do go right, and that it’s normal for things to go right. Modern, Western people believe that if things go wrong, we should sue, because things ought to go right. But Christians have to discard that idea completely. Christians have to recognize that if our health remains intact, it is simply because God is holding it up. If people love us, if someone is there to hug us or squeeze our hand, if someone loves us in spite of all our flaws—if someone loves us at all—it’s because God is bringing all things together. God is holding it up. Everything that goes well is a miracle of grace.

The third implication of this principle is the most basic: Although bad things happen, God works them for good. This verse does not promise that those who love God will have better circumstances. Nor does this verse say that bad things are actually good things. Rather, it acknowledges that these are bad things, but it promises that they’re working for good. That means God will work them to good effect in your life.

The story of Jesus standing before the tomb of Lazarus is an endless source of insight for me. As he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, Jesus was not smiling. He was angry. He was weeping. Why? Because death is a bad thing! Jesus wasn’t thinking, “They think that this is a tragedy, but no harm done! I’m about to raise him from the dead. This looks like a bad thing, but it’s not. It’s really a good thing! It’s a way for me to show my glory. It’s really exciting! I can’t wait!” He wasn’t thinking that. Jesus was weeping at the tomb, because the bad thing he’s about to work for good is bad. The story of Lazarus does not give you a saccharine view of suffering, saying bad things are really blessings in disguise or that every cloud has a silver lining. The Bible never says anything like that! God will give bad things good effects in your life, but they’re still bad. Jesus Christ’s anger at the tomb of Lazarus proves that he hates death. He also hates loneliness, alienation, pain, and suffering. Jesus hates it all so much that he was willing to come into this world and experience it all himself, so that eventually he could destroy it without destroying us.

There’s no saccharine view in the Christian faith. The promise is not that if you love God, good things will happen in your life. The promise is not that if you love God, the bad things really aren’t bad; they’re really good things. The promise is that God will take the bad things, and he’ll work them for good in the totality.

Keep in mind that verse 28 says all things work together for good. That doesn’t mean that when something bad happens, we can decide to give God a week to show us how the situation is going to turn out for good. In fact, don’t wait a month. Don’t wait a year. Don’t wait a decade. The promise isn’t for a month or a year or a decade. The promise is not that we will see how every bad patch in our lives works out for our good. The promise is that God will make sure that all the bad circumstances will work together for your life in its totality.

The best summary of this lesson that anybody has ever come up with is John Newton’s. He said: “Everything is necessary that he [God] sends; nothing can be necessary that he withholds.” What John Newton and Paul are saying is that if God has withheld good things—things that you think are good—they would only be good in the short run. In the long run, they would be terrible. They would be good in the partial but not in the whole. On the other hand, God will only bring bad things into your life—things God knows are bad—in order to cure you of things that can destroy you in the long run. The premise is, the things that really hurt—foolishness, pride, selfishness, hardness of heart, and the belief that you don’t need God—are the only things that can hurt you in the long run. In the short run selfishness and self-deception feel great, but in the long run they will destroy you.

Your joy will be impervious if you hold onto these three principles. Bad things will happen to you. We shouldn’t be shocked or surprised when bad things happen. One of the main reasons a lot of Christians are continually overthrown is not simply because bad things happen to them. At least half of their discouragement and despondency is due to their surprise at the bad things that happen to them. Do you see the distinction? Fifty percent of the reason we get so despondent is that we’re shocked. We say, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” We may say life should be better, but that’s not what the promise is. Or we say we love God, therefore, surely we will have more good circumstances. That’s not the promise either. Until you understand what the promise is, you’re going to be continually shocked and even overthrown.

Our good things can never be lost

The second principle in this passage is that the good things we have cannot be lost. If you’ve been a Christian for any period of time, you know that Romans 8:28 is a very famous verse. People use it all the time. It’s what I call a “blessing box” verse. A blessing box is a collection of verses you rip out of context and recite without concern for what came before and after the verse. It feels good, so you use it. For example, people use Romans 8:28 to assure themselves that when bad things happen, then surely good things will happen. You might think, “I didn’t get into the grad school I wanted to get into, but that’s because there’s a better grad school for me somewhere.” Or, “I didn’t marry the girl or guy I wanted to marry, but that means there’s a better one for me somewhere.” That’s not the promise.

There’s a little word between verses 28 and 29 that indicates the verses go together. The little word is for. “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose, for those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed into the likeness of his Son.”

God does not promise you better life circumstances if you love him. He promises you a better life. Grad school and marriage are circumstances. We’re talking about a joy that goes beyond circumstances. How dare we interpret verse 28 as a joy that is dependent on those things! Here is an important principle: Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you’ll become like him. The gospel does not promise you better life circumstances; it promises you a better life.

Romans 8:29 tells us the goal toward which all our circumstances are moving us. Paul uses the word predestined. He’s not introducing the word to confuse you—he doesn’t intend to explain the doctrine of predestination or address the issues that arise when that word is mentioned. He uses this word to comfort us. Something that is predestined is fixed. What Paul means is that if you love God, you can count on a promise that is absolutely fixed, no matter what. That’s all he’s trying to get across.

What is it that is predestined? That we will be conformed to the image of Christ. The Greek word here is morpha, from which we get the word metamorphosis. Paul is saying that God promises to “metamorphosize” us. He promises to change our very inner essence into the very inner essence of Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is to become passionately in love with the character of Jesus. You read about him in the Bible and are amazed by the truth and love you find in his life. You see wisdom and utter conviction. You see incredible courage, brightness, and radiance. The good that God is moving you toward through everything that happens in your life—whether externally good or bad—is your transformation into Christ’s nature. If you love God, everything that happens in your life will mold you, sculpt you, polish you, and shape you into the image of his Son. He is making you like him. He’ll give you Christ’s incredible compassion and courage. God is working everything that happens in your life toward that magnificent goal. It’s predestined. It’s guaranteed.

One of the most astounding things in Romans 8:30 is this: “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” Glorified is in the past tense. Shouldn’t Paul say, “The ones he foreknew he predestined, and justified, and will glorify”? Because the apostle is so absolutely certain that you are bound—that God is going to make you as beautiful as Jesus and give you all these incredible things—he writes of the glorification as an accomplished fact. He talks about it in the past tense because it’s as good as done. God is not going to let anything in life get between you and that goal. You are predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son.

In Romans 8:29 Paul calls Christ “the firstborn among many brothers.” That means we are all sons of God. We are all adopted into the family. When Paul alludes to adoption, he’s talking about a practice that was common in the Roman world, but one that’s quite different from the way we think of adoption. In the Roman world, most people who were adopted were adults. When a wealthy man had no heir and didn’t want his estate to be broken up when he died, he would adopt an adult male, usually someone who worked for him whom he trusted. By adopting that adult male, he made him his son. The minute the legal procedure took place, their relationship was changed from formal to intimate, from temporary and conditional to permanent and unconditional. All the debts the man owed before his adoption were wiped out, and he suddenly became rich.

Being completely conformed to the likeness of God’s Son is something that we look forward to in the future, although the transformation is happening now gradually. Being adopted among many brothers is something that we have now. The minute you become a Christian, you have intimacy of relationship. You have an unconditional relationship. You become wealthy, because everything that Jesus Christ has accomplished is transferred to you. You become beautiful and spiritually rich in him.

Some people are put off by Paul’s language of adoption because it’s gender insensitive. They argue, “Wouldn’t it be better to say that we become sons and daughters of God?” It would, but that misses the whole point. Some time ago, a woman helped me understand this. She was raised in a non-Western family from a very traditional culture. There was only one son in the family, and it was understood in her culture that he would receive most of the family’s provisions and honor. In essence, they said, “He’s the son; you’re just a girl.” That’s just the way it was.

One day she was studying a passage on adoption in Paul’s writings. She suddenly realized that the apostle was making a revolutionary claim. Paul lived in a traditional culture just like she did. He was living in a place where daughters were second-class citizens. When Paul said—out of his own traditional culture—that we are all sons in Christ, he was saying that there are no second-class citizens in God’s family. When you give your life to Christ and become a Christian, you receive all the benefits a son enjoys in a traditional culture. As a white male, I’ve never been excluded like that. As a result, I didn’t see the sweetness of this welcome. I didn’t recognize all the beauty of God’s subversive and revolutionary promise that raises us to the highest honor by adopting us as his sons.

Our adoption means we are loved like Christ is loved. We are honored like he is honored—every one of us—no matter what. Your circumstances cannot hinder or threaten that promise. In fact, your bad circumstances will only help you understand and even claim the beauty of that promise. The more you live out who you are in Christ, the more you become like him in actuality. Paul is not promising you better life circumstances; he is promising you a far better life. He’s promising you a life of greatness. He is promising you a life of joy. He’s promising you a life of humility. He’s promising you a life of nobility. He’s promising you a life that goes on forever.

The best things are yet to come

That brings us to the third point. Why can you be joyful no matter what? Your bad things turn out for good, your good things can never be lost, and the best is yet to come. If you understand what is to come, you can handle anything here. What amazes me is that even Ivan Karamazov, the atheist character in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, understood how knowing what is to come helps a person endure present circumstances. He said:

I believe that suffering will be healed and made up for, that in the world’s finality, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that’s been shed, that it will make it not just possible to forgive, but to justify all that’s happened.

I don’t want you to think that this talk about glory and about heaven trivializes suffering. In fact, Ivan Karamazov said that this hope is the only worldview that takes our brokenness seriously. Our souls are so great and our suffering is so deep that nothing but this promise can overwhelm it. Glory does not trivialize human brokenness. It’s the only thing that takes it seriously. What else could possibly deal with the hurts of our hearts? Your soul is too great for anything but this. Don’t you know a compliment when you hear it?

About the Author

Timothy Keller is founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City and the author of numerous books, including The Reason for God, King’s Cross, Counterfeit Gods, The Prodigal God, and Generous Justice.

The sermon above was adapted from a collection of Sermons in a book entitled “Sunday’s Best” published by Hendrickson Publishers in Peabody, Massachusetts, 2011.

David R. Helm: A Biblical Exposition on Sharing in Christ’s Sufferings From 1 Peter 4:1-6

“Embrace Your Calling to Suffer in the World”

“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does” (1 Peter 4:1-6).

Some would say that those who suffer most often suffer first from blind naiveté. Albert Schweitzer thought as much about Jesus, claiming that his cruel death on the cross was nothing more than the unfortunate result of naiveté. According to Schweitzer, Jesus, the misguided visionary, never saw the sufferings of the cross coming until it was too late:

There is silence all around. The Baptist appears, and cries: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Soon after that comes Jesus, and in the knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself upon it. Then it does turn, and crushes Him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend history to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His victory and His reign (Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New York: Macmillan, 1968, pp. 370, 371).

Peter, however, has been telling a different story. Jesus was vindicated in death. He rose victorious in the spirit and now reigns eternally as the Ascended Son at God’s right hand. According to Peter, naiveté is set aside. Jesus’ suffering was not the unfortunate result of an impoverished itinerant’s idealistic fervor. Instead, his suffering was by divine initiative. Persecution was the predetermined pathway for God’s Son.

All the Gospel writers concur. The Jesus they present to the world is well aware that his unique work required suffering and service. Jesus believed it on the strength of the Hebrew Scriptures. And Jesus embraced it every step along the way of his earthly ministry. Repeatedly he told his disciples, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed” (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33). When Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin on the night of his betrayal, never once did he defend himself in hopes of avoiding the cross. In fact, when he did speak, he intentionally said what he knew would seal his fate (Mark 14:62).

Clearly, Jesus fully embraced his calling to suffer out of his desire to save us. As Peter argued in 3:18: Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.

Now, with the opening phrase of our text, Peter again returns to Christ’s sufferings, but this time with different intentions — he feels no need to further encourage us with Christ’s triumphant vindication. He accomplished that in 3:18-22. Rather, he writes about Christ’s suffering in this particular text to call us to embrace it as well. In 4:1 he says: “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking.”

“Arm yourselves.” Emulate Jesus. It is as if Peter has finally come to the place in the letter where he rises up to unashamedly proclaim, “Followers of Jesus, be prepared to embrace not only submission but suffering as an aspect of your calling! Get yourselves ready for suffering!” (It is interesting that until this time suffering appears in the letter to be “if necessary.” But now he speaks with definitive force, preparing the church for the inevitable).

The question of course is, how? How do we go about getting ready? What does a person need to know and do to prepare to embrace his or her calling in the world?

Fortunately for us, the structure of our text unfolds the answers to these questions with clarity and simplicity. If we intend to embrace this aspect of our calling, there are three gospel commitments we must be willing to make (4:1-3), two personal costs we should be ready to endure (4:4), and one encouraging reminder that a final accounting awaits all humanity (4:5, 6).

THREE GOSPEL COMMITMENTS (vv. 1-3)

Become a Person of Resolve

How do we go about embracing our calling? First, by becoming persons of resolve. Take another look at verse 1. Peter writes, “arm yourselves with the same way of thinking.” Notice, to embrace our calling in Christ initially requires the attention of our mind. We begin by thinking clearly. And for that we need to develop the mental disposition of Jesus.

Today, in the West at least, it is the church that suffers from a naiveté of the mind. It is difficult for Christians here to understand and embrace God’s intentions in suffering. We prefer a gospel in which God gives us healthy bodies and bulging wallets. And we too readily think that material blessing is the entitled reward of the gospel. To put it bluntly, the democratized West expects in Jesus, comfort, ease, and acceptance from the world.

Yet, in actual fact the life of Christ challenges all of this. Jesus resolved to live as a stranger in the world. He expected hardship. And when he read his own Hebrew Scriptures, they taught him that union with God culminates in mixed reviews here on earth.

In one sense, when Peter calls us to arm ourselves with “the same way of thinking,” he is saying, “Beloved, grow up! Get the mind of Christ. Become a person of resolve. Be prepared. If you have been united with him by faith, you will need to identify with him in suffering.”

The first gospel commitment Peter calls us to embrace closes with a phrase that needs some explanation. Look at the latter part of 4:1:

“Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.”

The natural question this phrase raises is, what does it mean to “cease from sin”? Is the suffering person a sinless person? We ask this even though we know that such a wooden interpretation of the verse goes against all of Scripture and life experience. So what is Peter saying?

He is simply affirming that those who suffer for the gospel do, by their very willingness, demonstrate that they are done with sin. To put it as clearly as I can, everyone who suffers for Jesus first resolved, somewhere along the line, to cease from sinning. After all, the suffering they experience is a result of leaving off with sin. Thus, Peter says, “For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.”

Live for the Will of God

In the next verse Peter puts forward the second and third gospel commitments that followers of Christ make as they embrace their calling in the world: “…so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God” (v. 2).

The two commitments we are to make are spelled out by way of contrast: “…no longer for human passions” with “but for the will of God.” Since the following verse is going to highlight the kinds of behavior the Christian leaves behind, let’s look first at what we are to be about. Peter says we are to live “for the will of God.” What does Peter mean by the phrase “the will of God”? And how are we to start living for his will? Fortunately we have already seen in 1 Peter the kinds of godly pursuits he wants us to pursue. And in fact, in each of those places he contrasted the
things that God wills for us with the same phase he uses here — “human passions.”

So by looking back in the letter for “passions” we will run headlong into what Peter means when he wants us to make a commitment to “the will of God.” Look at 1 Peter 1:14,15: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.”

If the will of God is found by way of contrast to human passions, then we can know for sure that we prepare our minds for suffering by giving ourselves wholly over to the pursuit of holiness. God wants us to make a commitment to holiness, to sanctification, to putting on the new man. This is how we prepare to embrace our calling.

Another text in 1 Peter that teaches us what the will of God is can be found in 2:11,12: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”

We do the will of God when we “keep [our] conduct . . . honorable” by doing “good deeds.” This, of course, will require us to be countercultural. We will always be swimming against the current of today’s moral tide. We are to be known for doing good. And as we have seen in this letter, the supreme mark of goodness is our submission to difficult and ungodly people in authority.

Leave Human Passions Behind

I love the opening phrase in verse 3: “The time that is past suffices.” It is as if Peter barks out, “Enough already. Put sin in your rearview mirror.” And then he goes on to list the kinds of things that Christians are to put away. Look at how the verse finishes: “living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.”

Be done. Enough. The past is sufficient. Life as an ongoing fraternity party is a major problem in the church today. If we are not there in person, we are all too often present through what we watch on television, see in the theaters, or watch on the Internet. For men, sensuality is an especially prevalent issue. Sex is the elephant in the room. Peter says that in this matter it is time to clean house. Until we wake up and tackle this area head-on and out in the open, we will only continue debilitating a generation and will keep them from being grounded in their faith, unable to fly unencumbered toward Heaven’s delights.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard tells a parable of the disastrous effects of not putting to death the desires of the flesh, of failing to leave a way of life behind. One springtime a duck was flying with his friends northward across Europe. During the flight he came down in a barnyard where there were tame ducks. He enjoyed some of their corn. He stayed for an hour, and then for a day. One week passed, and before he knew it a month had gone by. He loved the good food, so he stayed all summer long.

One autumn day, when the same wild ducks were winging their way southward again, they passed overhead, and the duck on the ground heard their cries. He was filled with a strange thrill and joy, and he desired to fly with them once again. With a great flapping of wings he rose in the air to rejoin his old comrades in flight.

But he found that his good fare had made him so soft and heavy that he could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. He dropped back again into the barnyard and said to himself, “Oh well, my life is safe here, and the food is good.” Every spring and autumn when he heard the wild ducks honking, his eyes would gleam for a moment, and he would begin flapping his wings. But finally the day came when the wild ducks flew overhead uttering their cries, but he paid no attention. In fact, he failed to hear them at all.

What an apt parable for the church in our time. As Christians, too many of us have feasted for too long on the pleasant fare this world has to offer. We too easily forget that the time past was enough. We forget that we are still far from home — we haven’t arrived at our destination yet. Sadly, many go on day by day unfazed by the gospel thought that as we feed on the husks of this world we demonstrate that we think too little of the delights that await us in Heaven. Peter says to us, “Enough. Rise up, O men of God. Have done with lesser things” (From the hymn “Rise Up, O Men of God,” lyrics by William P. Merrill; http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/r/i/riseupom.htm; accessed July 31, 2007).

C. S. Lewis struggled with his own inability to grasp the gravity of his sin in light of God’s clear teaching on the subject. He wrote:

Indeed the only way in which I can make real to myself what theology teaches about the heinousness of sin is to remember that every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us — an energy which, if not thus distorted, would have blossomed into one of those holy acts whereof “God did it” and “I did it” are both true descriptions. We poison the wine as He decants it into us; murder a melody He would play with us as the instrument. We caricature the self-portrait He would paint. Hence all sin, whatever else it is, is sacrilege (C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, chapter 13, as quoted in Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root, The Quotable Lewis. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1989, p. 547).

God has plans for your body, and they are plans for purity and for good. Don’t cheapen life. Don’t settle for distortion. Don’t poison the wine God decants into you. Be done with “sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.”

Make three gospel commitments that tell the world you are prepared to embrace this aspect of your calling in Christ.

Become a person of resolve.
Live for the will of God.
Leave human passions behind.

TWO PERSONAL COSTS (v. 4)

But as you do, know this: your newfound commitments come with a twofold cost. Consider verse 4: With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you.

They Are Surprised at You

First, your friends and family will be surprised. You will be misunderstood. Remember, there are no categories for them to understand why you no longer grab all that you can in this life without regard for the next. “Come on,” they will say. “What happened? Loosen up. Look out for your own happiness. Pursue some pleasure. Live a little!” Malcolm Muggeridge articulates well how your new life in Christ will affect your relationship with former friends who are still pursuing only happiness and pleasure:

Anyone who suggests that the pursuit of happiness — that disastrous phrase written almost by chance into the American Declaration of Independence, and usually signifying in practice the pursuit of pleasure as expressed in the contemporary cult of eroticism — runs directly contrary to the Christian way of life as conveyed in the New Testament is sure to be condemned as a life-hater (Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered. London: Collins, 1969, pp. 101,102).

Over time their surprise will turn to ridicule.

They Malign You

Surprise evokes misunderstanding, and misunderstanding evokes a sense of being judged. And when the world feels that it has been judged by your way of life, those who are of it will condemn you as “a life-hater.” They will malign you. Take a look again at the progression of behavior embedded in verse 4. “Surprised” gives way to the word “malign”:

With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you.

R. C. Sproul, in his book The Holiness of God, tells of a time when Billy Graham was invited to play golf with President Ford and two PGA tour professionals. He writes:

After the round of golf was finished, one of the other pros came up to the golfer and asked, “Hey, what was it like playing with the President and with Billy Graham?” The pro unleashed a torrent of cursing, and in a disgusted manner said, “I don’t need Billy Graham stuffing religion down my throat.” With that he turned on his heel and stormed off, heading for the practice tee. His friend followed. . . . His friend said nothing. He sat on the bench and watched. After a few minutes the anger of the pro was spent. He settled down. His friend said quietly, “Was Billy a little rough on you out there?” The pro heaved an embarrassed sigh and said, “No, he didn’t even mention religion. I just had a bad round.”

About the incident Sproul concludes:

Astonishing. . . . Billy Graham is so identified with religion, so associated with the things of God, that his very presence is enough to smother the wicked man who flees when no man pursues. Luther was right, the pagan does tremble at the rustling of a leaf. He feels the hound of heaven breathing down his neck. He feels crowded by holiness even if it is only made present by an imperfect, partially sanctified human vessel (R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1985, pp. 91-93).

ONE FINAL ACCOUNTING (vv. 5, 6)

Peter closes our text with a reminder on the final judgment. It is meant as an encouragement to his readers. In verse 5 it appears that he is especially thinking of the judgment that awaits those unbelievers who choose to malign us. But they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. In one sense you and I do not need to judge the world. It already stands condemned. Entrust yourself to God, and wait for Jesus to set all things straight. The closing verse in our text is tricky to get hold of at first glance. It is especially hard to see how it functions as an encouraging word to

Christians who await the final judgment. “For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does” (v. 6).

What we need to remember is that the early church had many questions about their family members and friends who had died after coming to faith in Christ. They wondered what happened to believers after death. There was a concern for those who had already undergone the penalty of death. Peter wants to reassure his readers here with news that although believers are “judged in the flesh the way all people are,” they need not worry about their future with God. He says they will still “live in the spirit the way God does.”

We have nothing to fear in Christ! We have nothing to fear in embracing suffering in this life. Peter wants us to grasp this as part of our calling. To do so, we need to make three gospel commitments: become a person of resolve, live for the will of God, and leave human passions behind. We must be ready to incur two costs: the surprise of those with whom we once lived in sin and the inevitable maligning and slander that is sure to follow. In all this, though, Peter reassures us with one encouraging reminder: there will be a final accounting for everyone. As those who are in Christ, we shall live on in the Spirit forever.

Dear Lord, help us to truly embrace our calling to suffer in Christ. May we receive it with open arms. We know that everything we bear for you in this life will be nothing to compare with the glory we will share in with you in Heaven. Make us people of resolve. In your precious name we pray, Amen.

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (4:7-11)

The Sermon/Article above was adapted from the sermon based on 1 Peter 4:1-6 in David R. Helm’s terrific book of sermons on 1 & 2 Peter, and Jude: Sharing Christ’s Sufferings in the Christo-centric Series of expositions published by Crossway books in Wheaton, IL. – The Preaching the Word Series edited by the faithful expositional preacher R. Kent Hughes.

About the Preacher:

David Helm, along with Arthur Jackson, serves as Lead Pastor of our Hyde Park Congregation, and is the Director of Ministry Training at HTC. After ten and a half years as founding Sr. Pastor of Holy Trinity Church, David handed off the Senior Pastor role to Jon Dennis on November 23, 2008. In addition to serving our South Side congregation, David is Chairman of The Charles Simeon Trust, a ministry devoted to equipping men in expository preaching.

A graduate of Wheaton College and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, David is ordained in the PCA and serves on the council of The Gospel Coalition. He authored I, II Peter and Jude in Crossway’s Preaching the Word series, and contributed to Preach the Word:Essays in Expository Preaching in Honor of Kent Hughes. In addition, David has written The Big Picture Story Bible and The Genesis Factor (the latter with Jon Dennis).

David and his wife, Lisa, have five children (Noah, Joanna, Baxter, Silas and Mariah) and reside in the Hyde Park neighborhood. In his spare time, he generally roots for the Chicago White Sox and enjoys Johnny Cash.

Pastor Geoff Thomas On Why We Should Give Thanks To God for Everything

GIVING THANKS TO GOD FOR EVERYTHING

Ephesians 5:19-21 “Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

We often hear that the Bible is a gloomy book, and we’re regularly told that a religion based on it, and worship that comes out of it is bound to be gloomy and sorrowful. So the Puritans are normally portrayed as melancholic, severe people, and Calvinism is especially targeted as a faith that tends to depression. Yet we come across this exhortation in this extraordinary letter with its immense theology. It is an exhortation to Christians, “Sing!” and, “Make music in your heart to the Lord.” The apostle tells us that our lives are to be characterised by constant doxology – “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

These exhortations are not rare in the Bible. In the heart of the Old Testament the Psalter is full of psalms of rejoicing, psalms of hopefulness, and psalms of abundant joyfulness. They are concerned with people singing to God, possessing an inward serenity, knowing a profound joy and peace. We are faithful to biblical religion not only if we knows its truths and live by its immensely stringent ethic but if we also reflect its praise.

Here is a Christian church in Ephesus, the first generation out of paganism, in a city dominated by the temple of Diana, and the congregation hear this mighty letter read to them explaining the glorious grace of God. They are urged to live in a vitally new way unheard of in Greek or Roman circles before – “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (v.21) – and they are being told to sing to one another in their homes and churches and places of work and to make constant melody in their hearts to God. That is the impression they are to make on their neighbours of sustained happiness. This is one of the ways they triumphed over Rome; they out-sang Roman philosophy and religion. They were singing because as they saw things, they had good reason to sing. In the great objective universe around them there were facts and entities, and there had been events; there were great concrete promises unfolding in their own experience day by day, and it was upon the basis of these realities that there was in their hearts music to God and songs of praise to one another.

You will find in the entire Bible this emphasis that this is the heart response of authentic Christianity. If you read this letter you will discover the rational for these emotions. We’re not only told to rejoice and sing but we’re shown why we should. We’re not simply told to exert feelings of delight and contentment; we’re pointed to certain great reasons why we must be gripped by them. In other words, the exhortations to a different kind of life in chapters 4, 5 and 6 are built on the glorious truths of chapters 1, 2 and 3, and within these chapters Paul is presenting us with the glories of God’s love and then exhorting our behaviour to reflect that love.

1. HOLY SPIRIT FILLS US.

Here we are told of the third person of the Godhead, God the Holy Spirit, and that he doesn’t just touch our lives, but that he fills every part of our beings, and that we under an obligation to ensure that he does, more and more. God stands pledged to be within his people, to make them his abode; the church is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and as long as we continue as an authentic Christian church, so long as this particular congregation remains faithful to its divine mandate, just as long as it continues in its testimony to the glory of God’s salvation then we will continue to know the Spirit glorifying Jesus Christ in our midst.

We may go beyond that fact; we will know in the depths of our hearts, in the profoundest realities of our own personal experience, that the mighty Creator of the universe is our God. He is the one who is supplying all our need. He has committed himself not only to the cause in general, not only to particular churches, but to us as individual Christians so that we can say from hearts as Paul said, “He loved me and gave himself for me.”

We sing and make melody in our hearts because God has come to us in his eternal and unconditional sovereign love. He has sent his Son into the world to bear my sin. He has sent his Spirit as the Spirit of consolation and courage into my soul. He is totally determined to present me faultless in the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. My God is a committed God. All his resources, and all his attributes, and all his grace and power he has dedicated to my salvation. There is a love that will never let me go. I am caught up, not in something visible and physical, and not in something temporal and terrestrial, but I am caught up in something eternal, something invincible, and something infinite. I am saying that in my heart there is music going out to the Lord, and on my lips are psalms and hymns and spiritual songs because the mighty God is not simply committed to his cause in the world, or in Wales, or even to this congregation’s testimony, but God is committed to each believer in particular. God is committed personally by his Spirit who indwells us so that we can know “He is my God; he is love; he has given himself for me; he has filled me with his Spirit.” I know that Almighty God is totally committed to my salvation, and that the work that he has begun is a work from which he will never desist until we are presented without spot or wrinkle before the throne. The Spirit of God fills his people. “Make sure you go on being filled with him,” Paul says, “and sing and make music in your heart to God.”

2. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS WITH US TODAY.

“Where can I go from your Spirit?” asks the psalmist (Psa. 139:7) because of the sheer naked fact of his omnipresence. He is everywhere in this universe and beyond. I take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the ocean but when I arrive there the first thing I discover is that the Spirit of God is already there. Paul and Silas were thrown into the darkest deepest dungeon in the jail of Philippi, but the first discovery they made in that stinking blackness was that the Holy Spirit was there. So they could sing to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and all the other prisoners listened to them. It is his presence in us in grace, in all the consolations of his personal love, in all his enabling resourcefulness that make us songsters. He is in us to help, and sustain, and guide, and encourage, and bless. It is not his universal cosmic presence that makes us sing so much as his presence in redeeming pity and encouragement.

You remember how the Spirit is with us, in every challenging phase of our lives. God has sent us individually on a mission. We leave this church today and enter our own mission field. We are to go and teach the nations. We are to hold fast to our confession, and we are to point men to the glory of God in Christ. And for us to fulfil this task God provides us with the indwelling Spirit. In every congregation which today is pointing men to that Lamb who bears away the sin of the world the Spirit is present and working. In every pulpit which declares the truths of the gospel – that we deserve eternal death because we are sinners, but Jesus because he loved us died for us – in every such pulpit the Holy Spirit is present steadfastly and consistently and unadornedly. In the life of every single believer who is holding fast to his confession then there is this great reality, the presence of God the Spirit, and as you go and stammer and speak and serve, and as you maintain the integrity of your own Christian witness then this is your privilege, the Holy Spirit’s presence in and with you.

I can put it like this, where two or three are gathered together in the Lord’s name then the Spirit is present, not only in our evangelism and outreach and our witness and testimony but as we meet at a prayer meeting for our own comfort and edification. Then we show forth the glory of our God and Saviour and we have the assurance that the Spirit is there, indeed that the Spirit is here now. He is blessing this sort of gathering right now; he is applying his word to every need of our souls; he is alongside us as we write that difficult letter, or as we turn the other cheek, or as Paul says here, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (v.21). We must know that we are indwelt by God’s Spirit permanently and irreversibly, no matter where we are or what we are doing. It is the greatest reality of this Christian life that we are temples of the Holy Spirit, that we have been baptized by one Spirit into one body. We cannot be, without the vitality of the Spirit coursing through our hearts and souls and spirits. We cannot be, and not be temples. We cannot be, and not have the presence of the Spirit. No matter what we are relating to, and no matter what we are confronting, and no matter what we are experiencing, and no matter what we are doing, we are doing it as those energised and motivated by the indwelling Spirit of God. I am saying that God the Spirit is present with us not only in the great evangelistic movements, and not only in the large worshipping congregations with their meetings every night of the week and their huge staffs, but the Spirit is in the heart of each individual believer. He is there with her private sorrows; he is there with her individual stresses; he is there with her personal temptations. The Spirit is there.

Yet, you remember this truth that you never take the Spirit for granted. “Go on being filled with the Spirit,” says Paul. His presence is, in some respects, an irreversible reality, and yet we know from the church of Laodicea something was missing. There was a curious and peculiar relationship to the Lord which they professed. He was very near that church, but he was only near it in so far as he was at the door. It is true that he was knocking; he was claiming admission and begging entry, but none of that alters the fact that he was outside. That church had no right to claim that is was a Spirit-filled congregation. She had the name of a church; she had all the machinery of a church; maybe she had the authentic message of a church, and yet the Lord was outside.

There may be moments in our own individual lives when we have given such offence to the Spirit that we have grieved him, and he has turned away and hidden his face from us. Though his preservation is not withdrawn yet his saving and comforting works are not present. There are Christians today – there may be even some at this meeting – and the Spirit is not filling them. Certainly God will never let them go; they will not fall utterly. Yet they do not know his consolation. They do not know his help. They do not know his guidance because for one reason or another they have grieved him. They are not singing and making melody in their hearts to God.

There is this whole emphasis on the presence of the Spirit with the Christian. It is a reminder to us of how accessible God is to us. He is within such easy reach. Let’s imagine for a moment that we are in trouble and need help. Where do we get it? We have illimitable access to the indwelling Spirit. Paul is saying, “You don’t have to go miles to look for him. You don’t need some special code. You don’t need outriders and guides to take you to him. He is in you and you talk to him.” Or to put it better, using Paul’s words in Romans, you just send him a message by means of a groan that cannot be uttered. He is so near that he hears that. We sometimes cannot sing a hymn with our voices; we sometimes cannot shout; we cannot send eloquent prayers or beautiful petitions to the Lord, and yet he is so near that if only we mutter a few words he can hear us. Just a wordless groan and the Spirit is so near he understands and cares.

3. WE RESPOND IN SINGING GOD’S PRAISE TO ONE ANOTHER.

We enjoy the blessings of God each day. Success in our exams, the joy of our families, food in our refrigerators, long life, happy relationships, all such temporal mercies from God call for songs of loudest praise. There are also the blessings that the gospel brings in this life and the life to come, justification, full forgiveness, adoption into the family of God, the end of the reign of sin, union with Christ and glorification. How do we respond to all God’s goodness? The world celebrates everything with its drinking, but in our hearts there rings a melody of love, and on our lips there is a song of doxology:

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Praise him all people here below.

Praise him above ye heavenly host;

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”

We respond to all that the Spirit of God applies to our lives by great praise. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. We have to make sure that each one of us praises God. “I am going to sing to him.” We are not going to leave it to others. We are not going to say, “Let all the world praise God.” I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve got breath. I will do it. My old, cracked, weak voice that is tone-deaf will sing to him, with my own powers and initiative, because I am not standing before the Force, or an abstraction, or a memory, but I am standing before the Jehovah Jesus who is “My God.” I will praise my God for myself.

Have you ever been struck by the opening words of the 108^th psalm. It says this. “A song. A psalm of David. My heart is steadfast, O God.” A psalm of David . . . my heart is steadfast O God. There seems to me such irony in those words. This is David writing these words, the man who once could babble away outside the gates of a city of the Philistines to give them the impression that he was mad. This is David who could walk on the roof of his palace and spot Bathsheba washing and then draw himself and her family into evil tragedy. Think also of David as he begins Psalm 69, “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God“ (Psa. 69:1-3). We say, “That’s David, so like me!” and we are glad to know someone as wobbly as David was in the kingdom; then there is hope for me too. If ever there was a man who was not steadfast it was David, and yet he begins Psalm 108, “My heart is steadfast O God.” He has enjoying a day of gospel assurance; he is expressing his highest confidence in God; he has grown in grace; through all his great falls he has kept coming back to God; a new maturity has come into his life. David’s heart is steadfast, and how does he show it? See what he goes on to say in that psalm, “I will sing and make music with all my soul. Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.” (Psa. 108 2-5). David is steadfast in praising God. This is what must characterise the Christian.

Aren’t we in many ways a strange gathering? We are a company of men and women who say that for them to live is Christ. So the challenge comes to us that if that’s our profession and privilege then are we determined to sing our God’s praises? “I for myself will make melody in my heart and on my lips to my Lord.” It is simply marvellous that in this universe there are two such different existences. There is the unsearchable God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and there is puny man, a mere speck. Yet these two can come so close together, “I . . . and . . . Thee.” I may sing to Thee; Thou art pleased with my singing. There is this amazing proximity of us and him. My soul can be totally involved with God. I can sing, and he is listening. I can be making music in my heart with no one around able to hear my praise, but to God my heart-song of thankfulness sounds like a huge cathedral organ with all the stops pulled out.

The great challenge is to be doing it for ever and ever. We will praise him on special occasions when we are members of a vast congregation when every seat in the church is taken. We will praise him when the preacher happens to choose our favourite hymn on a Sunday. We will praise him, on every good day we have; at every gathering of the Lord’s people we will sing to him. “Always giving thanks to God the Father.”

Then there is something else, that it is to one another that we sing our psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. Often we are told of the existence of a ‘generation gap,’ but we cannot allow a generation gap in the church because in the church there is neither young nor old, but all are one in Christ Jesus. And this is one way that the gap between old Christians and young Christians is crossed; the old praise God’s works to the young. The old commend God’s works of creation and providence and also God’s works of redemption to the young. They do it in the words of their hymns. We have to be sure that we don’t compartmentalise the age groups of the church so that the young never hear the old, never hear them speaking of God’s faithfulness, and shepherding and love. The trend today is for larger churches to have two kinds of services. There is the so-called ‘contemporary service’ and all the young people go to that, and there is the so-called ‘traditional service’ and all the old folks go to that. What a tragedy. What a tearing apart of the body of Christ. The older generation has to praise his works to the younger and declare his mighty acts. We do this by demonstrating their reality in our lives. We believe these things. We commend these things. We praise God for these things, and of course, best of all, we live them. We live them out. As we grow older and become more feeble, death coming nearer, then God’s works are our theme. His mighty acts are the theme of our psalms and hymns and songs.

4. FOR EVERYTHING WE WILL GIVE THANKS TO GOD.

You notice Paul’s insistence on this, “Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.”Not all days are holy days; not all days are good days, but whatever its character, and whatever my circumstances may be I’m to be “Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.”Some days are simply dreadful; there are great dark weeks which come into the lives of some of God’s people, and for some of you, today, it may be one of these times. You ask your best friend how things are going, and she says, “Not a good day today.” There is darkness and no light; the waters are rising and going over my soul; deep is calling unto deep. Yet on these days too I am to be giving thanks to God the Father for everything, whatever the storms, whatever the pain and privations, however desolate I may feel, whatever burden is crushing my spirit, thanks . . . always . . . for everything.

Matthew Henry was once robbed; how can you possibly give thanks to God the Father for a robbery in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? That night Matthew Henry wrote these words in his diary: “Let me be thankful. First, because I was never robbed before. Second, because although they took my wallet, they did not take my life. Third, because although they took my all, it was not much. Fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”

Let our minds for a moment contemplate the grandeur of such a spirit. We can recall, I’m sure, some homes and some hospital beds where a word about thanksgiving has a special poignancy – “Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.”Men and women suffer intensely, and suffer helplessly, and suffer hopelessly, and suffer pathetically with their grieving families gathered around them; they are men and women of faith, but they have no hope of healing or of their lives being prolonged. These are the last months of their lives. What does this “always giving thanks” mean to them? What kind of day is it to them? It is a day the Lord has made. It is his workmanship and from their hearts they can affirm, “We will be glad and rejoice in it.” The Lord has made everything in it and suited grace for this day. You existentialists and atheists – none of you can say that!

Think of the despair of the unbelieving world. Its greatest hope is that men will be annihilated and cease to exist. They don’t want an eternal sleep with nightmares of memories of their lives eternally haunting them. They prefer non-existence, and they dread non-existence. What a life – a life without loving the living God! What a journey into darkness! Think of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and the character called Lucky (!) Pozzo’s slave, as he makes his final, long, anguished, monologue. In spite of philosophy, invention and progress what is his life without God(ot)? We “shrink and dwindle, waste and pine,” Lucky intones. Ours is the generation who put its faith in Caesar, that is, in the power of the state to regulate and control and provide for our lives from cradle to grave. This generation is now realising that Caesar’s promises to comprehensively help them are vain. This is the generation who have lived through the political confidence of their twenties but are now sandwiched between young children and ageing parents, burdened with mortgages and fears of dirty bombs and Islamic terrorism. The trust their parents had in the institutions of Caesar they themselves have lost, but there is no other object for their trust. The local maternity unit is so overstretched that new mothers have been turned away to have their babies on the kitchen floor. The neighbouring streets are clubbing together for private security to replace the non-existent police. The Old Age Pension seems to be shrinking as they approach pay day – like the pot at the rainbow’s end. What do they have to praise and worship?

There are those who think that being a Christian is something instinctive, simple and automatic. Now they ought to contemplate the glory of the notes of praise which run through a mere Christian’s life. You know how you can recognise someone who is full of the Spirit. It is not by glossolalia; it is that when he is in the depths and his heart is breaking he is still able to give thanks to God the Father for everything. Whatever kind of day it is he won’t be quarreling with God; he won’t be questioning the will of God he will be humbly praising giving God.

It is a description of the Spirit-filled life, and it is a commandment, and so by the grace of God it becomes our experience for whatever God commands to do he enables us to perform. We can give him thanks always for everything not because we force ourselves but because on every day there are subjects of new praise and fresh gratitude. Morning by morning new mercies I see. There are times when faith must concentrate; it must focus its attention; it must screw up its eyes; it must scan the horizon; it must look to the short distance, to the middle distance and to the distant horizons. Look every which way and consider every sign of God’s blessing. The apostle says that there will be a cause for thanksgiving always. Every day will I bless thee! Where is today’s reason to be grateful? I ask you.

Some of us have come out of comfortable, affluent, marvellously benign providences. I’ve come from such a background. I often think that I’ve had the easiest and most trouble-free life of anyone. Yet how often do we come to God with complaints? We have a sense of deprivation instead of this great alertness to the marvelous goodness of Almighty God. We grumble and complain; our spirits are hard, and I am saying that at such times, in the midst of so much human grief, could I suggest that you and I might have the discipline and self-possession by the grace of God to look all around and say to ourselves, “Well, God has said that there would be blessing every day, so where is today’s cause of thanksgiving? There must be blessings today because God said there would be. Then when I see it I think, “How good God is in providing this for me,” and I praise him, and bless him for today’s blessing – always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.

“Always”! I will never stop being grateful, even on the darkest days. You know how on many a dark day your prayers had stopped, but Paul tells us that we should never stop being thankful. Paul knows, as you and I know, that one day soon this poor lisping stammering tongue will lie silent in the grave, but when that happens the voice of thanksgiving will not be silent. I shall see the once crucified Saviour; he will bear the marks of my redemption and he now has all authority in heaven and on earth. That day will be the day of the fierce indignation of God, for the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand? Men will cry to the rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from his face.

We shall bow before him – we Christians, lost in wonder love and praise, for through the blood of Christ a sinner is justified, the Father is reconciled and all our sins are pardoned. Doesn’t that give us much to be thankful for? Then in a nobler sweeter song won’t I be grateful for God’s power to save? When I stand before Thy throne, dressed in beauty not my own, then I’ll be so grateful for the robes of righteousness. When I see the Lamb and his fair army standing on Mount Zion then I’ll praise him who loved me and washed me from my sins in his own blood. For ever and ever – “Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.”

5. WE WILL NEVER CEASE GIVING THANKS TO GOD.

Now, you see it’s a sad world; it’s a very empty world; it’s full of bitterness and resentment. “What have I got to give thanks to God for?” people say. I want to say to you that out there, objectively, really, sovereignly, there is the only God there is. You might think that he is tremendously august, and wholly other, a God of majesty and righteousness and unimaginable power to have made this whole universe. He is a God who speaks with such awesome holiness in his law and to our consciences, and all of that is true. But out there, I tell you, there is a heart so tender and loyal and generous and forgiving that the man or woman who is reading this and whose life is in the biggest shambles conceivable may go to this God, and ask him to forgive it. He or she may go to God and ask him to bless it with his own generosity. He may go and expect God to be true to every promise he has made.

I have a great problem and that is this, that I speak to such ordinary people, and I have the impression sometimes that so many are trying to make themselves different. You are trying to make yourselves special, and if you achieve that then you think perhaps you may be converted. There are some very odd people and they’re afraid of being saved. They are afraid of some outburst of emotion and embarrassment. They don’t want to make fools of themselves. They are more afraid of missing a dance because they imagine being converted means missing a dance. That worries them far more than losing out on the love of God and experiencing a lost eternity. So you are doing all you can to avoid being converted.

There are others of you and I believe that you are very anxious to be converted, but you want to make yourself special first. You don’t want to come to God ordinary; you want to come to God standing. But everyone I’ve known who’s come to God has come kneeling. He has come to God ordinary, feeling unqualified and unprepared, wishing he was more sincere and with more conviction, hungering and thirsting for that. Some of us try to come breaking our hearts from guilt, but in spite of all this when we come to God we feel terribly unprepared. Yet many of you are playing with your souls because you are trying to prepare first, and you won’t come ordinary. I am saying, let’s come just as we are, with many a conflict and many a doubt.

That’s not a bad thing, as all of us can testify, to come to God saying, “Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling.” That’s not a bad way to come, and all who come that way say, “God met all my desires.” Why shouldn’t Christians go and tell people that? The world thinks of all that it will have to give up, and the difficulties it would face and how narrow the road would be. Well, let us go and tell the world we are so thankful to God for all he has given us every day. We are abundantly satisfied with him. What glory it has been to have Jesus Christ as our Saviour, and what hopes we have of eternal life.

Where is your music? Why is your heart silent? Where have your convictions gone? If the Lord is your salvation, and if you feel convinced by the great gospel themes of our preaching then where is the melody? Bring your heart under the control of your theology. “My heart is steadfast O God.I will sing and make music with all my soul”(Psa. 108:1&2).

You are seeing the enormous pressures coming on the Christian church. There is militant Islam and militant humanism. Two mighty threats. And yet throughout human history the church has faced such challenges. In the Old Testament there was Egypt and Assyria and Babylon. In the New Testament there were terrible attacks on the church of Jesus Christ, and where are those enemies now? Some of them seemed so mighty that they were the occasion for the writing of New Testament epistles. Yet where are they now? We don’t even know what Gnosticism was, and yet at one time it threatened to destroy the Christian church. Where is it now – Gnosticism? Where has it gone? All those enemies that emerged for a while, look what the Lord did to them. Today where is Hume? Where is Rousseau? Where is Voltaire? Where is Bertrand Russell? They are all dead, but the church lives on, as Christ lives.

In other words the gates of hell have not prevailed against the church. Is that not cause for praise? Time and again men have written the church’s epitaph; they have described the world as ‘post-Christian’; they have said that the influence of the church is gone never to return, and yet the men who wrote those epithets are forgotten and the church lives. In the 1950’s I remember the fuss George Orwell’s book and play called ‘1984’ made. What a bleak world it portrayed. No singing; no music in the heart; no church and no gospel would exist in 1984. There were the common prophesies of science fiction, that life in the 21^st century would be a bleak dictatorship. We boys in school asked ourselves, “Is that what it will be like in 30 years’ time?” But the year 1984 has come and gone and another twenty years have passed, and the church is, and the gospel is, and there is still melody in our hearts. “Come, behold the works of the Lord!” The very facts are saying to us that our labour in the Lord is not in vain. We are not whistling in the dark to keep our spirits up. We are singing and making melody in our hearts to the living God. Of course we would be facing enormous difficulties even if we gathered here in Aberystwyth all the Christians of mid-Wales with all their gifts and resources. Even then it would still be a huge battle, but is it an impossible one? Does any Christian here today hold to the principle that labour in the Lord is in vain? Not one. How can we possibly hold to such despairing ideas if the living God is our Shepherd, and Rock, and Teacher, and the Sovereign Ruler of earth and heaven? Then we will sing our praises to him and to one another. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

About the Preacher of this Sermon:

Geoffrey was born in Merthyr Tydfil and became a Christian in Tabernacle Baptist Church in Hengoed. He went to University in Cardiff to study Biblical Studies as did his wife Lola one year behind him. Geoff then went to Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, PA. In 1965 he was called to pastor the Baptist Church in Alfred Place, Aberystwyth where he has been ever since. Geoff and Lola have three daughters, eight grandsons and one granddaughter. His activities include maintaining the Banner of Truth website.

Geoffrey’s books include Daniel, Servant of God under Four Kings (Bryntirion), The Life of Ernest Reisinger (Banner of Truth), Philip and the Great Revival in Samaria (Banner of Truth), Preaching: the Man, the Method and the Message (Reformed Academic Press), and The Sure Word of God (Bryntirion). The full text of 550 of Geoff’s sermons has been published on the Alfred Place website @ http://www.alfredplacechurch.org.uk/ The sermon above depicts the original Welsh/English spelling of the preacher. It was delivered on August 29^th in 2005.

Why Not Be Anxious? A Great Quote From Dr. James M. Boice

James Montgomery Boice on Faith NOT Seeking Understanding:

“Whether you can see it or not – and often we cannot – everything is being used of God for your good as well as the good of others…This knowledge is by faith. It is not always by sight. But it is nevertheless certain, because it is based on the character of God, who reveals himself to us as both sovereign and benevolent…We are not to be anxious about the unknown future or to fret about it. We are to live in a moment-by-moment dependence upon God.” – excerpt from notes I took from a late 1980’s sermon of Dr. Boice

About Dr. James Montgomery Boice

*Dr. James Montgomery Boice, just 8 weeks after being diagnosed with a fatal liver cancer, died in his sleep on June 15, 2000. The senior pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, he was a world-famous Bible teacher, author, and statesman for Reformed theology. He informed his congregation of 32 years of his condition on May 7, proclaiming his complete confidence in God’s sovereignty and goodness.

In the past 72 years, historic Tenth Presbyterian Church had two senior pastors, Donald Grey Barnhouse and James Montgomery Boice – previous to Dr. Philip Graham Ryken (Currently the President at Wheaton College). Founded in 1828, the church itself predates their tenure by another hundred years. Tenth Presbyterian Church lies in the very heart of the city and today has about 1,200 members.

James Montgomery Boice accepted the position as senior pastor in 1968, and was the teacher of the Bible Study Hour since 1969 and the more recent God’s Word Today broadcast as well. Dr. Boice held degrees from Harvard, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Basel, Switzerland. He had written or contributed to nearly 50 books, including Foundations of the Christian Faith, Living by the Book, and exegetical commentaries on Genesis, Psalms, Acts, and Romans.

He was no less involved in the preserving of the fundamentals of the faith than his predecessor, Dr. Barnhouse. In 1985, Boice assumed the presidency of Evangelical Ministries, Inc., the parent organization of the Bible Study Hour, Bible Study Seminars, Bible Studies magazine, and other teaching ministries. In 1997, Evangelical Ministries merged with Christians United for Reformation and the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, taking the latter as the new organization’s name, and Dr. Boice assumed the presidency. In 1997, he was a founding member of, and chaired, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy.

Of particular concern to Boice was the matter of the church and her relationship to and engagement of society. His recent book, Two Cities, Two Loves, maintains that Christians are citizens of the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven and that they have responsibilities in each. He urged Christians to “participate in secular life rather than merely shoot from the sidelines at secular people.”

His wife, Linda, and three daughters survive Dr. Boice. Characteristic of his ministry was his pushing Christians to commit themselves to staying in one place. He lived what he preached, committing to the church and his downtown neighborhood for 30 years. A gifted pastor and leader, he turned down many attractive opportunities in order to build a sense of permanence and belonging. And he urged his parishioners to do the same.

John Piper on the Question: How Can We Be Thankful In The Midst of Suffering?

Thanksgiving in Suffering

“Since we have a great high priest, Jesus, the Son of God, who has passed through the heavens [or: gone into heaven], let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).

I want to present Jesus to you as a sympathetic Go-between for you and God. I want you to understand how Jesus, the Son of God, is alive today, and stands ready to serve you as your advocate with God the Father. I want you to see why you can draw near to the throne of God with Jesus as your Go-between and Advocate, and expect to find mercy and grace to help in times of need. If it’s true that we can always go to God’s throne and find mercy and help in times of need, then there can always be thanksgiving, even in suffering—and that’s my theme, “Thanksgiving in Suffering.”

A Wrong Way to View Jesus as a Go-Between

Now when I call Jesus a “Go-between” for you and God, I realize that I might be creating a false picture in your mind. You might take me to mean that God is the bad guy and we are the victims and Jesus is the good guy, and Jesus comes between us and God the way a level-headed son comes in between a furious father and a helpless child and rescues the child by grabbing the father’s arms and saying, “Cool it! Cool it, dad.”

We Are Not Victims but Sinners

There are three things wrong with that picture. You and I are not victims of God, we are sinners against God. The Bible says, “All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23). Our consciences tell us plainly that we have not even lived up to our own standards, let alone God’s.

Sending Jesus Was God’s Idea

The second thing wrong with that picture is that Jesus did not intrude himself between us and God. He didn’t jump in to wrestle God away from us against God’s will. God put Jesus between us and himself. “For God so love the world that he GAVE his only begotten Son, that whoever believes on him might have everlasting life” (John 3:16). The Go-between was God’s idea. He took the initiative to make a way for sinners to come to him through Jesus.

God Is Never Impulsive or Rash or Reckless

The third thing wrong with that picture is that God does not lose his cool. He is not impulsive or rash or reckless. He is perfectly righteous and unswervingly just and infinitely holy and pure. He never plays fast and loose with truth or with virtue. He upholds his law with unimpeachable equity and integrity. No shady deals. No bribery. No skeletons in the closet. “God is light and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

The Right Understanding of Jesus as a Go-Between

That’s why we need a Go-between. The Bible says, “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you” (Isaiah 59:2). God is like a blazing fire of light and truth and righteousness, and I am like a broken, dark, dead, dry piece of wood. If I get near him, I will be consumed.

And so God sends a Go-between—his Son. He takes on human nature, he lives a perfect life, he dies to bear the sins of many, and he rises to vindicate the saving power of his death. Now Jesus says, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Jesus is the only true Go-between with God. The apostle Peter said, “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Only Jesus can bring us to God. The apostle Paul said, “We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). Only Jesus can save us from the separation and alienation that cuts us off from the Father. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). It’s Jesus or alienation.

He came into the world and took on himself our human nature, our weaknesses, our pain, and our death. He was tested in every way like we are, and yet he didn’t sin. Since he didn’t sin, he can be a perfect High Priest—a Go-between—for us. And since he suffered and was tested and tempted, he can be a sympathetic Go-between.

The Amazing Invitation of Hebrews 4:16

I say all of this just to lay the foundation for the amazing invitation that God gives to us in Hebrews 4:16. He says, “Therefore, let us with confidence [not hesitation, not reluctance, but with confidence let us] draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” When Jesus is your Go-between, the throne of God is a throne of grace, not judgment, and what you find there is mercy and grace to help in time of need.

What this means is that when Jesus, the perfect Go-between, has met your need for forgiveness and acceptance with God, he doesn’t take off and say, “You’re on your own now; see you in heaven.” Instead, he stands ready to serve you all the rest of your life.

The Christian life begins with forgiveness and reconciliation with God. It’s like a great homecoming, with tears of repentance and hope and joy and acceptance. For some it’s almost too good to be true. But then the Christian life continues, and it’s a life of ongoing dependence on the grace of God. We don’t escape the pain and stress and disappointments and suffering and calamities and tragedies and frustrations and pressures of life in this world.

In fact, sometimes becoming a Christian and obeying the Word of the Lord increases our troubles rather than lessening them. But the difference now is, first, that the outcome of life is settled—it will be eternal life with infinite happiness (Romans 8:17–18)—and, second, all along the way in this world God helps us in times of need through our Go-between, Jesus. God’s invitation to everyone is, first, come to Jesus for forgiveness and reconciliation with me, and then, second, “Draw near to the throne of grace, that you may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

The Story of Sandra Tarlen

I want to illustrate this power and willingness of God to help you in time of need by introducing you to one more person who is living evidence that God gives mercy and grace to help in time of need.

This person is Sandra Tarlen. She has been part of our fellowship since early this year. Her story goes like this.

My major crisis started when I was four years old! I was burned in a gasoline fire. A little boy threw a can of gasoline into a fire and I was standing on the other side. The gas went through the fire and into my face and the flames followed. My face suffered 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns. These burns left ugly, disfiguring scars. When I started school it was very difficult. I felt different from the rest of the children and a lot of them were very cruel to me. I didn’t like school much, but I didn’t like summers either, because that always meant I would have to have another surgery on my face.

My father became an alcoholic and the word love or any action of love was not heard or seen in my family that I can ever remember. An old man who lived next door to us was always very nice and would buy or make me things—but there was a price to pay for gifts. He fondled and molested me repeatedly. One night when I was 13 years old, I was walking home from the show, and a gang of young men picked me up and raped me.

Although these things caused me to feel dirty and empty inside, they also gave me the feeling that at least somebody wanted me for something. I began to fill a lot of loneliness with sexual relationships. My heart began to get hard and bitter and full of hate. The hate began to eat at me from the inside out.

I became anorexic, then bulimic. I had chronic migraine headaches, ulcers, a hysterectomy, and other major surgeries. I was in and out of doctor’s offices constantly looking for a remedy. I experimented with alcohol, drugs and a couple of times even suicide! By the time I was 17 I already had two children and by the time I was 25 I had been married four times. Life seemed pretty hopeless.

I knew there had to be more to life than what I was living. In search for that, I went with my best friend Sherry to a Victorious Christian Living Conference. There I heard David Ritzenthaler talk about the Gospel. He explained how much God loved me, enough to send His own Son to die for me and save me from my sins. I knew that this God David was talking about was not the God of my life and I desperately wanted to know Him. Five days after hearing this, I called David. I went to his office and he shared with me the “Four Spiritual Laws.” That night on March 12, 1982, at 7:30 PM, I prayed and confessed I was a sinner in need of a Savior, I invited Jesus into my heart to be Lord of my life. At that very moment God gave me new life.

That was just the beginning of new life for Sandra. We will give her time to tell her story early next year. But there remained 11 more surgeries to bring the total to 32 in her life. She speaks of surgeries and scar tissue on the inside too. Broken relationships and broken dreams being healed. Amazingly Sandra writes,

He gave me new dreams as I continued to seek Him. Today after all those surgeries, I can honestly say with a joyful heart that I am thankful for the experiences I’ve gained as a result of them all. God has used each one to strengthen me and my relationship with Him and when I share my experience, it has helped to strengthen others.

The point of Sandra Tarlen’s story and the point of God’s word in Scripture is that Jesus is a very sympathetic, caring, and powerful Go-between with God. Because he loved us and died for us and rose from the dead, anyone—any one of you—who trusts him can draw near to the throne of grace to receive mercy and grace to help in time of need.

Sermon/ Article Above Used by Permission. By Dr. John Piper. © 2012 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org. Thanksgiving in Suffering is a synopisis of John Piper’s sermon in a Celebration of Thanksgiving at Maranatha Hall on November 18,1990.

About Dr. John Piper

John Piper was pastor for preaching and vision for over thirty years at Bethlehem Baptist Church in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. He grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and studied at Wheaton College, Fuller Theological Seminary (B.D.), and the University of Munich (D.theol.). For six years he taught Biblical Studies at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in 1980 accepted the call to serve as pastor at Bethlehem. John is the author of more than 40 books and more than 30 years of his preaching and teaching is available free at desiringGod.org. John and his wife, Noel, have four sons, one daughter, and twelve grandchildren.

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Series: Modern Problems; Ancient Solutions

October 24, 1993, Manhattan, N.Y. Based on Psalm 27

“The Problem of Anxiety” by Tim Keller

That’s God’s Word

1. Dwelling

2. Gazing

3. Seeking

They were going to do literacy work and Bible translation. They knew it was dangerous, so the night before they were to contact these Indians, they sat around a table, and they sang this hymn together.

We rest on Thee,

Our shield and our defender!

We go not forth alone against the foe;

Strong in Thy strength,

Safe in Thy keeping tender

We rest on Thee,

And in Thy name we go.

Strong in Thy strength,

Safe in Thy keeping tender,

We rest on Thee,

And in Thy name we go.

Jesus our righteousness,

Our sure foundation,

Our Prince of glory,

And our King of love.

About the Author

Timothy Keller is founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City and the author of numerous books, including The Reason for God, King’s Cross, Counterfeit Gods, The Prodigal God, and Generous Justice.

[1] Keller, T. J. (2013). The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

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An excerpt from a sermon, “The Life-Changing Meeting,” by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones from Old Testament Evangelistic Sermons, published by The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1995. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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James Montgomery Boice on Faith NOT Seeking Understanding:

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^[1] Keller, T. J. (2013). The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church.