Isaiah 43:1-7 ‘When you pass through the waters’

 

Keith Jones worked with the Mission Aviation Fellowship.  He served for two years in Chad, and as chief executive.  His wife Lynn was diagnosed with Leukaemia.  He went to visit her in the isolation ward, and she was skin and bones.  She looked at him and declared, ‘Keith, get out of my life.  I don’t want to see you again.’  He told her at the end of the visit, ‘I will see you tomorrow.’  ‘Don’t bother,’ she replied.  ‘But, I can’t leave you.’

Lynn died at the age of forty-three.  

A few months later God spoke to Keith in his mind.  ‘Remember the time Lynn rejected you?  I felt something similar.  My Son was unrecognizable in his suffering, I wanted to embrace Him.  But I turned my back on Him.  I did that for you.’

The Father wanted to embrace His beloved.  The Father withheld that embrace in love for us!

1.      God does not love you because are good

Look back a few verses and see what these people are like!  God had brought His people into exile in Babylon because they would not obey Him in love.  There he sought to win back their hearts.  Yet they continued to sin.  They are blind—refusing to look at Him, deaf—refusing to hear Him.  Here was their God ‘in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?’ (42:24).

But in His amazing grace God is not going to treat them as their sins deserve but according to His loving kindness.  ‘But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’  They have shown no interest in God and yet He has always loved them.

2.       God is with you in the storm

I spoke on these verses in a church, and after the service a young woman, health problems came and spoke to me.  She said that when she was a young Christian God had woken her in the middle of the night with these words.  ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’  She wasn’t particularly familiar with this passage and had to look them up.  She holds on to these words in the storms she passes through.  The most important thing in your life is not what people say about you but who you belong to.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk on the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you (2).  It is quite like Psalm 23, isn’t it?  In the middle of that Psalm David says that he fears no evil ‘for you are with me’.

Notice that God says ‘when’ not ‘if’.  When you pass through the waters I will be with you.    These people in exile in Babylon would pass through many difficulties before they returned home.  They are loved by God, but they are not promised that life and easy life.  Circumstances may suggest that God does not love us, but His promises tell us that He is with us.  Corrie ten Boom famously said that ‘there is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper deeper still.’

Psychologists say that the brain cannot process anxiety and gratitude at the same time.  I have tried to use this to deal with stress.  When you are passing through the waters try to remember God’s presence by thanking Him for His goodness.  Try to thank Him for those beautiful pictures of Jesus’ sympathy that we see in the gospels.  Try to thank Him for the way that He has brought you through similar stressful situations in the past.  Most of all thank Him for what He has done through the cross.

3.      God wants us to know His love in the storm

He will be with us in the waters and the fires, ‘For I am the LORD your God.’  It is His very nature to be with His people in the midst of our storms.  He is Yahweh.  The God who revealed His name to Moses at the burning bush.  Moses was to tell his people that God was going to confront the Egyptians and bring them out of Egypt.  When they thought that the task was too great for them Moses was to tell them that God is the great ‘I am’.  Yahweh is the God they need Him to be in the situation to which He is calling them.  Yahweh is the God we need Him to be in the storms that we find ourselves in.

He is our Savior who gave up Egypt as our ransom.  He overturned Egypt to bring their ancestors our of slavery in Egypt.  Why did he do that?  ‘Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you’ (4a).  ‘I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life’ (4b).  In fact, God has done something far greater than overturning Egypt to bring His people out of slavery.  He has given a man—the man Christ Jesus so that we could be set free from guilt and the fear of death, and we could live our lives in the gaze of His love.  This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us (1 John 3:16).

‘And I love you’ (4b).  Those are life transforming words.  My friend Georgina was given a copy of the little book, ‘The Heart of Jesus’, by Dane Ortland.  She read it twice in a week and it turned her world upside down.  She said, ‘In all my forty-seven years no one ever told me that God actually loves me.’

For some of you those words are harder to accept than for others.  Maybe you look at the circumstances of your life and they seem to speak against God’s love for you.  Please ask God for the strength to trust Him.  Please ask God for the ability to look at the cross and see the objective evidence of His love of His love.  For some it can be our disposition.  In our struggles with our mental health we are beset with doubts.  I think one of the most important prayers that we can pray for our struggling brothers and sisters in Jesus is that they would have the strength through the Holy Spirit to comprehend with all God’s people what is the length and height and depth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:14-21).

Our reading ends with God gathering His scattered people to Himself for His glory.  He would bring the exiles home.  He continues to gather people from every corner to Himself.  Jesus invites us saying, ‘Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.’  He promises to never turn anyone who comes to Him.

Conclusion

When I heard that illustration about Keith Jones and his wife, Lynn, I actually thought of it a different way.  I say ourselves being like his wife saying, ‘Keith, get out of my life, I don’t want to see you again.’  And God is the one who says, ‘I can’t leave you.’  We break His heart all the time, but He goes on loving us.  He loves us despite all our failings; He is with us in the storm: He wants us to know that love in the storm.

Isaiah 55:6-13 “God is more merciful than you realise”

 

Has anyone ever said to you that ‘God’s thoughts are not our thoughts; God’s ways are not our ways’? 

We tend to say this when things happen in our lives that are not what we would have wanted or expected.  That is true, but it was only when I read Gentle and Lowly that I realised that the context of this truth is actually the mercy of God. 

What Isaiah is saying is, ‘while we struggle to forgive, and sometimes imagine that God is reluctant to forgive, his ways are not our ways, and His mercy exceeds our greatest expectations.’

God is more merciful than any of us can grasp!

1.      It is not to late to come home

‘Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near’ (6). 

You have to realise that the very ability to call on the Lord is a gift from God.  By nature, we run from God’s call.  We are hostile to the idea that we are wicked people whose only hope is God’s abundant mercy.  We would rather prove ourselves worthy than admit that our only hope is Jesus’ taking our guilt on His shoulders.  It is a sign of God at work when we call on Him!

John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, wrote that ‘you can never come too late to Jesus Christ if you truly come.’  Maybe you have resisted a real relationship with him for years.  You have a lifetime of rejecting His offer of grace.  It’s not too late.  But be careful.  It could become too late.  You could drop dead this afternoon and have to face Jesus not as rescuer but as judge.  It could become too late because your heart might become so hard from saying ‘no’ to Christ’s invitation that it reaches a place where it can no longer say ‘yes’.

Come now!  If you have never known him before, come now!  If you have drifted away from Him, come home!  He will welcome you with open arms!  ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the LORD, that he may abundantly pardon.’ (7).  Notice that there is no small print in this promise.  There are no exceptions.  Come and He will embrace you!

2.       God’s welcome has no exceptions

But maybe you have small thoughts of God’s forgiveness.  You fear that He could not forgive you.  Your problem is not that you have exaggerated thoughts of how awful your sins are—they are worse than you realise—but you have too small a view of God’s willingness to show mercy.

In Psalm 103:11-12 we read, ‘for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’  In our passage we God says, ‘as the heavens are higher than the earth, so and my ways greater than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’.  His thoughts are greater than ours because they are rooted in a love that can barely imagine and a forgiveness that is immeasurable.

John Bunyan lived an awful life before he came to Jesus.  He had rejected Jesus many times and had spoken hateful words against God.  He worried that he was too great a sinner to be forgiven.  He writes about it in a book called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.  He came to peace by thinking hard on Jesus’ promise that ‘I will never cast away anyone who comes to me’ (John 6:37).  He wrote a whole book on that verse, it’s called Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ.

‘But you don’t know what I did.  If you knew what I did you would realise that there is no hope for me.’  I don’t need to know what you did!  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’

‘But I strayed very far from Jesus.  I loved Him and left Him.  I denied Him and rejected Him.’  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’

‘But I knew exactly what I was doing.  I sinned against the light.  I knew how evil what I did was.  I willing broke Jesus’ heart’.  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’ 

‘But I think I have committed what the Bible calls the unforgiveable sin.’  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’  If you were guilty of the unforgivable sin you would not have the slightest desire to come to Him.

‘But I can do nothing to make up for what I have done.’  Look at the beginning of this chapter of Isaiah.  ‘Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat …’ (1).  Jesus is the bread of life who wants you to feast for free!

The great Welsh preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that the most common thing people came to him for advice on was ‘that one sin.’  They feared that there was something so terrible in their past that forever excluded them from the love of God.  Lloyd-Jones would point them to the promises of God and then explain that their real problem was not their past sin, which Christ has dealt with, but their unwillingness to take God at His word.

I have noticed that come people who suffer with clinical anxiety—I struggle with O.C.D.—can find it almost impossible to feel secure in Christ’s forgiveness.  Sometimes we need medical help as well as spiritual help.  Sometimes we need the doctor as well as the pastor.  But whatever stops you from taking God at His word battle against it.  We pray with that noble father who cried ‘I do believe, help me in my unbelief’ (Mark 9:24).  Remember that God is merciful with those who doubt (Jude 22).

3.       No how great your sin, God’s mercy is greater

Following on from our reading we read of the refreshing word from God that does not return empty.  This word is a word of mercy, forgiveness and life.  When we accept this word it refreshes our souls.  This word says that we need a new heart and promises that we come to Jesus he will change us from the inside out.  This word says we need to follow a new way of life and promises that when we come to Jesus He will give us new desires.  This word commands us to stand firm and promises that if we fall Jesus will pick us up and restore us.

For you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and hills before you will break forth in singing, and the trees of the of the field shall clap their hands (12).  These words were originally spoken to a nation whose guilt had led them into exile in Babylon.  But God had not given up on them.  They are coming home.  What celebration! 

I have noticed that the most joyful Christians are simply those who marvel in the fact that God has forgiven them.  They don’t try to justify any of their wickedness.  They are truly humble about themselves.  But they have thought God’s thoughts after Him and realised that he abundantly pardons.  They are really confident in God.

Conclusion

John Bunyan was onetime criticised for always going on about the love of God.  The objection came, ‘if you keep going on and on about Jesus’ love people will simply do as they please.’  Bunyan replied, ‘No, if I keep going on and on about the love of Jesus they will do what he pleases.’  Always keep Christ’s love before your eyes.  Love much as you see that you have been forgiven much.  Ask God to bring us to that place where obedience to Him is the source of our greatest joy!  

2 Corinthians 7:2-16 ‘Restoring love'

 

Supposing you were a doctor with unlimited resources.  You go to a remote tribe with a vaccine that can cure a sever illness that has ravaged their community.  But they treat you with suspicion and will not approach you.  In fact, worse still, they think their own tribal medicine is sufficient and are too proud to ask for your help.  How do you feel as you watch them die?

But supposing that some do come to you for help.  You have unlimited resources and so no shortage of medicine.  Surely it makes you happy to treat them.  After all you have come that they may have life.  Those same people come back every time they get ill.  Surely it always pleases you to help them.  You never get tired of treating them. 

Dane Ortland uses this picture to show the delight God takes in forgiving us.  He quotes the Puritan, Thomas Goodwin, who says that ‘Christ gets more joy and comfort than we do when we come to him for … mercy.’  Our joy in being forgiven is not as much as His joy in forgiving.  When someone lovingly addresses sin in our lives or we speak loving correction into the life of others we are pointing them to the path of joy.

Background

There was someone in the church at Corinth who was committing a serious open scandalous sin.  Paul had told the church to discipline this man.  But they would not.  Maybe the man was difficult and defensive, they were afraid.  Maybe they thought they were being open and tolerant in accepting the man as he was.  The truth is that they weren’t encouraging him to repent.  They were supposed to help bring him to his senses in order that he would come to Christ for restoration.

Paul had written to them about this, in a letter we do not have.  They changed their mind.  Titus has just told Paul the good news that they disciplined the man and that he had repented.  That is the purpose of church discipline!  Paul is over the moon!  You see Christians can’t treat each other with emotional detachment. That is our first point.

These Corinthians have a great hold over Paul’s happiness or sorrow.  ‘… you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together’ (4).  They can bring him encouragement (4).  They can bring him joy (4).  He also fears for their spiritual well-being (5).  He feels downcast or depressed when they refuse to walk closely with Jesus (6).  They have even caused him to cry (2:4).  Paul does not exercise professional detachment because they are not his job, they are his family.  How is our love for God’s people? 

Paul calls them to respond to his love with love.  ‘Make room in your hearts for us …’ (2).  He wants them to love him like he loves them!  Love longs to be received with an open heart!  Our security is to be in the love of Jesus.  We seek to impress Him even when that might lead to others being unimpressed.  But love is not indifferent to others.  Love can never say, ‘I couldn’t care less what they think!’ 

What impresses me most about Paul’s love for the Corinthians church is that there is lots of grace and forgiveness in it.  He had always acted towards them with the best of intentions and they had responded to him with hostility, yet he didn’t become bitter.  He didn’t give them the cold shoulder.  In love we are to pursue those who have wronged us.  Sometimes we will have to put a distance between ourselves and them, but we will still be bringing them before God in prayer.  I remember in a pastoral care class in theological college where someone pointed out that it is difficult to keep hating someone you are sincerely praying for.  Let’s put that to the test!

One of the emotions that the Corinthians stir in Paul is godly pride (4).  Godly pride is rooted in seeing God at work in people.  Parents, remember to rejoice in what really matters.  The apostle John writes of his spiritual children declaring, ‘I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth’ (3 John 4).  Their grades and trophies will not follow them into the next word.  They have little long-term significance.  Teach them that the along thing that matters is how they walk with Jesus.

This leads us to our second point: Christians must care about the spiritual well-being of others.         

I think that one of the reasons we talk so much behind people’s backs is that we haven’t the courage to talk to their faces.  We can be frustrated with someone’s behavior but we won’t tell them.  We don’t speak to them but we speak to everyone else about them.  That is not loving because it doesn’t give them the help to change.  It doesn’t care about their spiritual health.

Paul had commanded the church to address a man about an area of serious sin in his life.  Perhaps this man was defensive and angry.  So, they were afraid to discipline him.  But that is not vulnerable love.  Love seeks the spiritual well being of others.  They were to confront him so that he might repent and that this stain on the reputation of the bride might be removed. 

Now we don’t have to address every issue, for love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).  But sometimes issues have to be dealt with.  When this is the case we must speak the truth in love.  I remember asking John Samuel, former pastor of Grosvenor Road Baptist, how to address a person about their attitude.  He advised me to let them be in no doubt that I love them.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend (Proverbs 27:6).  We might not be living in open scandalous sin but we all have areas in our lives where we need to change.  We can be blind to our own faults.  How are we at seeking correction?  Are we defensive and angry when people point things out to us?  May God give us the maturity to welcome such help.

Now we come to our final point: Love is rooted in the welcome of Christ.

The Corinthians finally changed their minds and addressed the man about his sin.  They disciplined him and it had the desired effect.  He returned and received the welcome of Christ and His people.  Now Paul gives us one of the most important verses in the Bible on how repentance works.  ‘For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death’ (10).

Worldly grief is the pain of being caught.  It feels shame for being exposed.  It regrets the loss of face and people’s disapproval.  It gets frustrated with the consequences of what we have done.  It is rooted in pride.  It doesn’t really care that we have wronged God and there is no aching to change.

Godly sorrow recognizes that we have sinned against the immeasurable love of God and have hurt people.  In results in God-given repentance—a change of heart that shows its reality in changed actions.  It leaves no room for regret because it is not so worried about the fact that we have lost face but delights that God is so wonderfully forgiving.

Sometimes people will tell you that they can’t forgive themselves for what they did in the past.  I think the real problem is that we are refusing to live in the joy of God’s forgiveness.  We are living with regret.  We feel they let ourselves down.  We are being proud.  In His great sovereignty and mercy God uses even our past failings for our good and His glory.  Think of what Jesus said to Peter: ‘But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.  And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers’ (Luke 22:32).  Peter denied Jesus and repented.  He was not to spend the rest of his life filled with self-pity over what he had done, but was to remind people of the wonderful grace of God.

One Sunday I preached on this text and mentioned that God does not want us to live with the self-pity of pride.  I went up to a friend who I know who struggles with deep regret.  I said to her, ‘remember God wants you to let go of your regret.’  She looked at with me with tears in her eyes and said, ‘I am consumed with regret.’  I realized though that her regret was not rooted in pride, it was rooted in love.  A small lapse on her part led to devastation for someone she loved.  I think I had been simplistic.  How can she deal with her regret?  She needs to live in the light of God’s forgiveness, she also needs to hope in God’s sovereignty.  John Piper writes, ‘There is nothing. There are no circumstances. There is no past or present act that I’ve ever done that God can’t weave into a tapestry that is good and beautiful.  That’s the kind of God we have.’  I think that we need to deal gently with those who have such regrets.  We need to ask God to help them trust that He will bring His good purposes to bear.  We need to pray that through the ministry of the Holy Spirit they might experience peace. 

Love is rooted in the welcome of Christ.

Conclusion:  To love is to be vulnerable

C. S. Lewis writes, ‘To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.’  The love that is spoken of in these verses is a love that rejoices in the spiritual well-being of others, will speak with others about how they live and be open to the loving correction of others, and delights in the welcome of Christ.  It is a vulnerable.  If we care for each other we are giving people the opportunity to make we rejoice or depressed.

The fact that the Corinthian Christians themselves repented by being willing to address the behavior of someone in their church refreshed the spirit of Titus.  It also demonstrated that Paul was right to believe that the Corinthian church was truly a work of the Holy Spirit.  Their willingness to obey brought rejoicing to them all.

Do you want to bring joy to Jesus and His bride?  Do you want to bring joy to those Christians who have invested in you?  Do you want to experience joy for yourself?  Then be living a life of repentance!  That repentance longs for goodness to be seen in our lives and the lives of all God’s people.  It longs to delight the bridegroom (Jesus) and His bride (the church).  Let’s not rival each other but delight in what God is doing in His people!  Are we causing joy in heaven and in the church by our willingness to repent and change?  I think a healthy Christian prayer life has loads of ‘I’m sorry’ and even more ‘thank you for your mercy and grace’.

Let’s love Jesus by loving His people.  Let’s the church in heaven and on earth rejoice as we live lives of repentance.

Acts 10: A Saviour for all

 

I was listening to the radio a few weeks ago and an expert was speaking about group dynamics. He explained that people readily place themselves in tribes and that these tribes can be very arbitrary. For example he took a group of people and asked them about favourite colours. He then observed that in the following discussions people sided with those who agreed with them about colours. He even divided people into tribes on the basis of whether they thought a bundle contained more or less than a hundred matches. People are tribal. It is a part of the problem with humanity. I have no doubt that the troubles in the north had little to do with real religion. It was about people despising those who were not a part of their group. Tribalism, shows itself in racism, sectarianism, the snobbery of the rich, the inverted snobbery of the poor and ageism. The problem is not loving those who have things in common with us but hating those who are different. The Jews of the first century were deeply tribal. Prejudice was raw and unashamed. The apostles lived among a people who had a morbid dislike of those who were not Jews (Gentiles). Some rabbis forbade Jews from helping a Gentile mother in childbirth because that act would bring another Gentile into the world. There was a local proverb that taught that Gentiles only existed to fuel the fires of hell. Such attitudes are so far removed from what their faith actually taught. Israel had been elected to be a light to the nations. Amongst her heroes were a Canaanite like Rahab and a Moabite like Ruth. Their major prophets looked forward to a day when people from all over the world would come into a living relationship with God. Yet the Jews had become narrow and sectarian, and were out of touch with the heartbeat of the God they claimed to know. 1. Everyone needs a Saviour Our passage begins with a very noble Gentile. Cornelius is a man of some influence, a centurion. While those who worked for the occupying forces were hated this roman soldier was actually respected. He is what the Jews would have referred to as a god-fearer: he had not undergone the Jewish rites of passage but he had an allegiance to their God. He is conscientious with his household, generous towards the poor and he prays continually. However, this devoutly religious man needs to be forgiven. We know this because earlier in Acts the apostle Peter spoke of the name of Jesus, by which all people need to be saved. Then near the end of this passage we see Peter explain to Cornelius that everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness through his name. Good people like Cornelius need to be rescued from their sin. A man wrote to the Church of England newspaper, the Church Times. He explained: ‘Dear Sir, I am a country solicitor and was, at the time of my conversion some 18 months ago a churchwarden. I had been a churchgoer for most of my ... in theory at least, I appeared to have all the right qualifications for calling myself a Christian; but I have to say that I have serious doubts as to whether I truly was one ... Now by the grace of God I have joy and peace when before they were lacking. Why? Because I have been "born again".’ God is kind: he restrains our evil so that no-one is bad as they could be. God is no fool: he sees that even our best actions are tainted with self-centredness and pride. God is holy: he warns people of what our sins deserve. God is love: he sends his Son to die for a guilty world. God is merciful: he desires that all people would be rescued from condemnation. Everyone needs a saviour and that saviour is to be offered to all types of people. 2. The Saviour is for everyone Cornelius was not the only person who gets converted in this story. Peter is converted too. God deals with Peter's prejudices against the Gentiles. You see God sent an angel to Cornelius but the angel did not share the gospel with him; it was Peter who got to share the gospel with him. God could have had Peter arrange for the gospel to be sent in a message via Cornelius' servants but God wanted Peter there in person. You see God knew that Peter had to witness this conversion. Peter had to learn that God does not have cultural and ethnic favourites but accepts everyone who fears him. For Peter it began with a vision. He is praying on the flat roof of the house in which he is staying. It is midday, the day after Cornelius met the angel. The vision is of a sheet descending with all sorts of animals on it. 'Rise Peter, kill and eat.' Peter protests, these foods are unclean, but the voice responded, 'What God has made clean, do not call unclean.' You may know that Jews don't eat pork. Actually the Old Testament forbade eating many sorts of meat. The purpose of these food laws was to distinguish God's people as being different. But since the Day of Pentecost all of God's people have the Holy Spirit. Now what marks God's people as separate, or holy, is not what we eat but what is in our heart. The Holy Spirit produces his fruit in our lives. He enables us to be truthful, gentle, self-controlled and kind. He makes us think and behave more like Jesus. He makes us different, which is what it means to be holy. The animals on that sheet pointed Peter to people he considered unclean. He had failed to see that God had a plan for such people. These were people his culture had taught him to despise. Who might we be tempted to dislike? Who would we rather that God had nothing to do with? What would be on the sheet if he was calling us to share the gospel with those we call unclean? Would the sheet contain the rainbow flag of the gay and lesbian community? Maybe our attitudes towards gay people has less to do with defending the Biblical view of sex and marriage and more to do with our instinctive fear of those who can appear effeminate, loud and assertive. Would the sheet contain chocolate or peaches reminding us of those with brown skin or those called white? Would the sheet contain the caravan of a traveller, a boat for migrants, the needle of an addict, the bottle of a drunk or the burka of a Muslim? We are called to go to all these people groups with the gospel. The gospel is good news for all. We are to be a people rich in love and devoid of prejudice. When people from different backgrounds become Christians we are to welcome them into our church and homes as brothers and sisters. We are to delight in diversity for we are on our way to a heaven filled with people from every nation, tribe and tongue. One of the ministers of All Souls Church in London claimed that if we are not mixing with people of different cultures it is a denial of the gospel. 3. The Saviour died that we might live Cornelius gathers his family circle and close friends to hear what Peter has to say. It is our desire that our loved ones would be exposed to the message about Jesus. Peter reminds them of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. He tells them that we can either have Jesus as our judge or our saviour. He points then to the offer of forgiveness and life. The Saviour of the world died that we might have life. Notice that Peter speaks of Jesus dying on a tree. That is a strange way to talk about the crucifixion, especially to a Roman soldier. The Romans had developed crucifixion into an art form. Cornelius knew Jesus died on a cross. So why talk of a tree rather than a cross? Because Peter knows that Cornelius is a God-fearer who has studied the Scriptures. The cross could be thought of as a tree. The book of Deuteronomy said 'cursed is anyone hung on a tree.' Peter is teaching Cornelius that Jesus bore God's curse for our sin. Jesus died as a substitute in our place. He was counted guilty so that a holy God could punish our sin in him. As the apostle Paul later puts it, 'God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the rightness of God.' As Peter was still speaking the Holy Spirit fell on those who listened and the began to speak in strange tongues. This is not a description of what normally happens when people come to faith. This is an echo of what Peter and his Jewish friends had experienced on the Day of Pentecost. They are being taught that there won't be two types of Christian. There won't be one experience for the Jews who come to faith and another for Gentile believers. The same gospel speaks of the same Jesus who as risen Saviour gives the Holy Spirit to all his children. Conclusion The gospel message is humbling. It tells generous and devout people like Cornelius that they are actually in desperate need of forgiveness. It tells us that our sin is so serious that nothing less than the death of God's own Son could deal with it, and that is exactly what he has done for us. But racism, bigotry, sexism and ageism are arrogant and proud. They say, 'I am better than other people because of the group I belong to.' God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Therefore bigotry is anti-God. The book of Acts centres on a command of the risen Jesus to take the good news from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. The book of Acts finishes with the apostle Paul in Rome, the centre of their world at that time. For those Jewish apostles they needed to overcome their prejudices if they were to be faithful to Christ's commission. We should honestly evaluate what prejudices we might be tempted to harbour and ensure that they never get in the way if sharing the good news of Jesus with all people

Habakkuk 3: ‘Trusting the God who has proved himself trustworthy’

Joe sits in church with a big smile on his face.  He has a lot to be happy about.  He has a lovely wife, a great job and delightful kids.  Indeed every Sunday in church Joe thanks God for all God has given him. 

But what if everything fell apart?  Supposing Joe goes into work that Monday and finds out that he is going to be a victim of the credit crunch.  He arrives home to tell his wife that he has lost his job only to find that she has left him for someone else.  In the months ahead his misery worsens as one of his children struggles with a debilitating illness.

What happens to Joe’s faith when life hurts?  Does he see any reason for thanking God now?  Can he trust the God who has allowed such terrible things to happen to him?  How can he hold onto his belief in the goodness of God when his world seems to be falling apart?   

This is something every Christian needs to learn.  You see the truth of the matter is life is not always easy.  All we have to do is live long enough and we will experience some kind of loss or suffering.  So how do we hold on to our faith when our world is falling apart?  Habakkuk 3 shows us!

Habakkuk knows that things are going to get very painful for himself and his people.  They are going to be overthrown by the ruthless Babylonians and taken from their land.  He will witness much that will surely give him reason to weep.  Yet as we read through this passage we see that it ends with a great expression of faith.  How does Habakkuk move from perplexity to praise and from fear to faith?

….. God even when life seems perplexing will be helped trust God even when life seems perplexi tell him what is on our heart.

1.  The big picture reminds him that God can be trusted (1-15)

LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.  Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.  Here is a prayer for revival.  It’s a prayer based on the fact that the God who has acted with such power and might in the past can work in similar ways in Habakkuk’s day, and he can work in similar ways in our day!  Habakkuk had asked God to step in and stop the rot that was so evident in his society but he also prays, in wrath remember mercy.  We might look at this corrupt society, we might look at churches that have sold out on the truth and behave in ways that bring dishonour to God’s name, and we might pray that God would put an end to the evil that we see.  Indeed one day he will deal with all evil.  But we also pray, ‘Lord, save many on these wicked people.’  On the day of God’s final judgement we will see his righteous condemnation of the ungodly and we will also have ample evidence of the mercy by which he has saved ungodly people like us.

God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran.  His glory covered the heavens—One commentator writes, ‘His radiance, as he comes, lights up the sky above and is reflected on the earth below . . . the spreading of his radiance throughout heaven and earth is compared to the rays of the sun, diffusing its light far and wide’ (Bruce).  So often our Christian lives are simply centred on ourselves.  We imagine that God exists only to serve our desires and we fail to ponder his magnificence.  We are the poorer for our self-centred spirituality.  Let’s read verses like these and wonder at the glory of God.  Let’s praise God for who he is.  Then, with this in mind, let’s be amazed that this awesome God has time for us; that this holy God values us; that this perfect God takes pleasure in us; and that this sovereign God even works his purposes for our ultimate good.  Let’s remember that the God who owes us no good thing has been better to us than we have ever realised!

Verse 4 seems to be recalling God’s presence at Mount Sinai.  The talk of plagues and pestilence, in verse 5, remind us of the punishments inflicted on the Egyptians in Exodus.  We are told of the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish—when God delivered his people from Egypt the neighbouring peoples were filled with fear.  In verse 8 there is mention of the rivers—remember how God turned the Nile to blood (Ex. 7), parted the Red Sea to enable his people to escape slavery (Ex. 14-15) and parted the Jordan to allow them to enter the promised land (Josh. 2).  Verse 11 talks of the sun and moon standing still in the heavens—this seems to be an allusion to the events of Joshua 10, where we read that the sun stood still and the moon stopped at the defeat of Gibeon.  You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one.  Here God’s people are referred to as his anointed and of course when we hear talk of God’s ‘anointed one’ we think of Jesus (‘Christ’ means ‘anointed one’)—God rescued him from death after he had been crucified and through his resurrection we have life.  You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness—this seems to be a reference to either Pharaoh or the leaders of Canaan, both of whom experienced God’s righteous anger.  In verses 14-15 there is another reference to the destruction God brought upon the Egyptians, who, like the ruthless Babylonians were soon to do, had set out to defeat God’s people.

Do we see what is happening here?  Habakkuk is remembering how God acted in the past!  Indeed as we read through the Old Testament we can see that people often recalled the great saving events of God.  In particular they remembered the events surrounding the exodus from Egypt for the exodus was the great saving event of the Old Testament.   As God’s people recalled it they were reminded that God is both great and good.  He has proved himself to be trustworthy. 

Of course the Exodus foreshadowed an even greater rescue—that surrounding the cross!  We move from perplexity to praise as we recall the great saving events of the past and remember that our God has shown that he is to be trusted.  It’s so important that we sing cross-centred songs, pray cross-centred prayers and think cross-centred thoughts.  As we are reminded of this great saving event of God we can be assured that God is both great and good.  And that is what we most need to know when life leaves us feeling perplexed.

2.  It will all work out in the end, but it will be tough until then (16)

Dreadful days lied ahead for Habakkuk and his people.  They would endure terrible suffering.  The very thought of it causes the prophet to tremble and quiver.  He hates the thought that the Babylonians would think that they have triumphed and give credit to their idols.  Then notice the little word ‘yet’ in verse 16 (there are two great ‘yets’ in this passage).  I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled.  Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.  Habakkuk knows that there will be a day beyond the day to come.  It might look like the enemies of God’s people win yet Habakkuk knows that that there will be another day when God will set the record straight and repay the ruthless Babylonians for their evil.  On that day God will show his wonderful righteous judgement.  Habakkuk waits for that day! 

For us today may be dreadful, tomorrow may be worse, but there will be a day ahead when God will set all things straight.  Ruthless people may seem to have their way but on that day they will be called to account.  Indeed we look forward to a day when the Lord will return to judge the wicked and bring an end to the suffering of his people.  That is the day on which we are to place our hope!

3.  From fear to faith (17-19)

Os Guinness writes, ‘God’s people may not always know ‘Why’, but they can always know why they trust God who knows why!’

Habakkuk knows that there are grim days ahead.  He knows that he and his people will suffer.  There will surely be many tears.  Yet Habakkuk takes a backwards look, at the great saving events of the past, and sees that God has shown himself to be trustworthy.  Let us look at that great saving event of the cross and see that God is indeed trustworthy—even when our circumstances tempt us to doubt it.  Then look forward beyond the troubles of today and tomorrow and see that there is a day ahead when he will set all things straight, indeed we are assured that on that day he will bring an end to all suffering for his people.  It’s with a perspective of past and future that Habakkuk utters one of the greatest statements of faith in the Bible:

Though the fig-tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

(Then comes the second great ‘yet’ of this passage)

yet I will rejoice in the LORD,

I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

Everything appears to have fallen apart yet the believer still has reason to rejoice in our God.  In the distressing days Habakkuk knows that God will be with him.  In the difficult times we can experience God’s strength and ultimately we can prevail in grace—as we pray with honesty, remember the cross, wait with hope and even humbly rejoice.  Habakkuk ends this wonderful little book:

 The Sovereign LORD is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to go on the heights.

 

Copyright note:

Unless otherwise stated all Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE,

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission.

 

Habakkuk 2: The Lord reigns

In the film ‘The Remains of the Day’ Anthony Hopkins plays the role of an emotionally repressed butler, in an English country house in the 1930s, who falls in love with the housekeeper, played by Emma Thompson.  The butler is incapable of expressing his feelings and so the relationship remains stilted and unreal.  One commentator writes about this saying, ‘Often our relationship with God can remain at a similarly superficial and unreal level.  We think that we dare not explode and tell God what we feel about his silences, his decisions and his ways.  But God wants the kind of honesty with which Habakkuk confronted him.  God wants us to trust him with our deepest fears and our wildest feelings . . . God wants us to throw everything at him, not to pretend that we do not think and feel in ways which are, for a certain kind of believer, unacceptable or shocking.’   We have all felt frustrated with life, maybe we have vented that frustration with close friends, but do we feel the freedom to honestly tell God how we feel?  Do we think that we need to pray as if we are tip-toeing around a museum or can we open up with true emotion? 

I am not suggesting that we treat God without reverence.  I am saying that we need learn about prayer from people like Habakkuk, Job and the psalmists.  They were willing to cry out to God.  They brought their aching hearts to him.  They asked ‘How Long, O Lord?’  God is big enough for our questions and gracious enough to listen to our complaints!    

It’s around 600 BC.  Habakkuk lived in Judah, a kingdom that was in unique covenant relationship with God.  Yet these people ignored God’s law—they are like those today who claim to be Christians but won’t submit their thinking to the clear teaching of the Bible.  They were corrupt and violent.  So Habakkuk wanted to know ‘When are you going to step in and stop the rot?’  This first complaint was that God appears to do nothing.  These people are dishonouring his name and God is not doing anything about it.

When God answers Habakkuk the prophet is totally shaken and his second complaint is that God seems to be about to do the wrong thing.  God was not only going to remove the wicked from the land; he was going to remove everyone from the land, and use the ruthless Babylonians to do it!  This flies in the face of what Habakkuk understands about God and he asks more questions, including ‘how could you use such a wicked people to fulfil your purposes?’

At the beginning of chapter 2 Habakkuk is standing like a guard in the watchtower of the city awaiting God’s answer.  Then the LORD replied.

God has revealed his plan (2-3)

God tells Habakkuk to write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.  God reveals his truth to Habakkuk.  Indeed God has revealed himself and his ways right throughout the Bible.  Where our thinking is at odds with the Bible’s revelation we must realign our thoughts.  As we grasp God’s truth in the Bible we are to run with it—God’s words are to be shared.  Sometimes people will tell you something beginning ‘just between you and me . . .’  God’s word is the opposite of that—it is for sharing, we are gossip the gospel, we are to ask God for the opportunity and the courage to share what he was shown to us.    Christian truth is not private truth!

For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.  Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and not delay.  In our instant generation it might seem that God acts very slowly but he does act in his time.  God would stop the rot and judge Judah fourteen years later.  Sixty-one years later he would judge the ruthless Babylonians.  We still await Jesus’ return and the final day of judgement when he will set every matter straight.

We are to trust him (4-5)

God will stop the rot.  He will punish evil.  Indeed, on his day of judgement, he will justly repay people for all the evil that they have done.  Of course, that leaves us with a problem: ‘what about the evil that we have done—what about the fact that we too are guilty of sin?’  Verse 4 gives us the grounds for our hope.

See, he [referring to Babylonia in general and their king in particular] is puffed up.  Being puffed up refers to proud people who rely upon themselves.  His desires are not upright—but the righteous shall live by faith.  In this context faith means trusting God’s promises.  Faith believes something because God says it.  Habakkuk was to know the Babylonians would be overthrown simply because God had said it.  Faith knows there will be a day of judgement because it is foretold in God’s word.  Faith is confident that God will forgive the sins of those who turn to Christ because that is what God has promised.  Faith knows that God’s people will live in a new earth and a new heaven because that has been promised too.

This phrase ‘the righteous shall live by faith’ is picked up in the New Testament (e.g. Gal. 3:11) to teach that God’s people are saved by grace.  Grace is God’s free, unmerited, unearned and undeserved favour.  As we take God at his word, trusting in his promise to forgive those who turn to Jesus, we need not fear the coming day of judgement.  On the cross Christ dealt with our sins and we can now know what it is to be counted righteous.

The New Testament also quotes this verse in describing the sort of life we should live (Heb. 10:38-39).  We are to live a life of deepening trust in God.  We are to continue to cling to his promises and our hope is to be based on his faithfulness even when life is dark and confusing.  We do not have all the answers to all the questions that the pains of life throw up at us but we have been shown enough of God in his word to know that he is good and trustworthy.  We are not promised a life free from suffering and pain but because of Christ we have a living and eternal hope.        

Right throughout the Bible humanity is divided into one of two categories.  These are not categories that are based upon our wealth, our reputation or our appearance.  These are categories based on our relationship with God.  It is about being saved or lost.  It tells us that there are only two ways to live.  In verse 4 it is the difference between being puffed up—that is self-righteous and independent of God’s mercy, or living by faith—being made righteous through faith and depending on God’s mercy.

He will judge all evil (6-20)

Habakkuk complained that God was going to use the Babylonians to punish the people of Judah.  Habakkuk could not understand how God would use the wicked to swallow up people who were less wicked than they were.  It didn’t seem just!  But God shows Habakkuk what will happen to the Babylonians.  He might use them for his purposes but their evil will not go unpunished.  In a series of five woes we hear of the Babylonians fate.  These words are given in the form of a taunt song that the victims will sing when they see their oppressors face what is due to them.  They may describe the fate of a Babylonian empire in the past; they surely also point us ahead to the final day of judgement.  Martyn Lloyd Jones writes, “The principle for us to hold on to is that God is over all . . . Your worldly man may make a fortune by evil business methods and arrive at the top.  But see the end of the ungodly!  Look at him dying upon his bed; see him buried in a grave, and think of the doom and woe that are his destiny!  We should feel sorry for the ungodly that they are fools enough to become drunk on temporal success.  Their end is fixed.’  

Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion.  The Babylonians pillaged and made themselves wealthy by extortion.  Their lives have centred upon personal greed.  But the tables will be turned, their debtors will suddenly arise, they will tremble and they will become the victim.  The plunderer will be plundered.  They will face judgement for the fact that they had treated other people’s lives cheaply in search of personal gain.  Throughout the generations empires have exploited weaker states.  God notices!  Empires have claimed that they would last for ever but in the providence of God they all come to an end.  Indeed in the end it will only be God’s kingdom that will endure for ever!

Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin.  The picture is of a bird building an inaccessible nest.  The Babylonians thought that their empire was untouchable.  While people may think that they will get away with what they have done, no one will!  Even those who think they have covered their tracks will one day have everything exposed.  It may seem that people practice evil with impunity but one day they will face God’s judgement.

Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime!  Has not the LORD Almighty determined that the people’s labour is only fuel for the fire, that nations exhaust themselves for nothing?  For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea—‘One day God will act in a decisive way in his world, he will remove everything and everyone that refuses to acknowledge him and he will remake his world in perfection . . . One day God will be finally honoured as he ought to be.  Human life will be finally renewed, unspoilt by either sin or the consequences of sin.  One day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea’ (Matthew Brailsford).      

Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbours, pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk, so that he can gaze at their naked bodies.  This seems to relate to the humiliation of those that are conquered.  Those who have sought to shame others will find themselves shamed.  The cup from the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory.  In the Bible the cup is a symbol of divine retribution.  Remember Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, ‘Take this cup from me.  Yet not what I will, but what you will’—Jesus experienced the cup of God’s wrath that we might be spared it!

Woe to him who says to wood ‘Come to life!’  Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’  In our relativistic age it is improper to criticise someone else’s religion.  The Bible has no such qualms.  The Babylonians idols were nothing.  They were simply worthless creations of human hands.  Before we think of idolatry being something limited to other cultures remember that the Apostle Paul wrote of greed which is idolatry (Col. 3:5).  We live in a highly idolatrous society and we must be careful not to practice this form of idolatry.

But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.  The Lord alone in the living God!  He is God of all the earth.  One day all nations and all people will have to give account to him.  While the corrupt and violent may prosper and triumph that will come to an end!  Silence is commanded ‘so that everyone will consider his awesome nature and realise his sovereignty over all creation’ (ESV Study Bible).  

Conclusion

Habakkuk wanted to know how God could allow the evil Babylonians be instruments of his judgement.  God points out that the he would deal with the Babylonians.  Indeed the Persians overthrew them in 539 BC.  The judgement does not stop there.   There will be a future day of judgement when the Son of God has returned, when all evil will addressed, and when the earth will be filled with the glory of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

Imagine it is a cold night in April 1912.  You are a passenger on the Titanic.  Now there were three levels for the different social classes on that boat.  The boat contained a great assortment of people.  But in the coming hours there would only be two categories of people.  There would be the saved and the lost.  Which of those two categories you were in puts everything else in perspective.  Indeed nothing else much matters.  The Bible continuously presents us with an equally stark division.

You see there are only two ways that we can listen to these verses.  

We can be among the righteous that live by faith—admitting our guilt, enthroning Christ as our king, living a life of trusting him and delighting in the fact that Jesus experienced the cup of God’s wrath that we would not be condemned.  You are among the saved!  Indeed aware of God’s coming judgement we are to run with it, we are to share this news with other people that they too might be prepared.  

Or will we be people who know the awful truth of the word woe personally?  We can depend upon wealth, financial security or power but one day we will face the cup of God’s wrath ourselves.  So many people live for the now with no thought of the eternal future!  Those who refuse to turn to God in faith will experience divine retribution for all the evil that they have done.  They are the lost!

May God’s judgement be something that brings us comfort as we see all evil being dealt with, rather than something we experience with trembling as we face the consequences of our evil, having refused God’s mercy!

Copyright note:

Unless otherwise stated all Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE,

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission.