Why Bother with the Bible?

The title of my message today is, “Why Bother with the Bible?” When I say, ‘The Bible” I mean the entire Bible – Old Testament and New Testament. That’s an important distinction because I have discovered far too many Christians are content to focus their attention only on the New Testament – and some, even only on the gospels.

 

“Why bother with the Bible”? is a relevant question, not only for the unchurched, but also for those here in this sanctuary. It’s relevant because many in the pew and out of the pew DO NOT consider it relevant to their lives in 2024.

 

After all, the scriptures were written thousands of years ago and to a people living a very different life than we live. For the most part, the Bible was written to an agrarian people. We are urban and metropolitan. It was written to people, most of whom never travelled more than 25 miles from their homes. Today, many travel every day to their job much further than 50 miles. In the areas of medicine, economics, communication, industry, scientific progress – in dozens of examples, today is so foreign to the world of the Scriptures.

 

So, what possible applicability can the Bible have for me in 2024? Well, point in fact, it is completely applicable to 2024 because of its originator. I’m referring, of course, to God – who is eternal. Therefore, it logically follows that His words are eternal. Isaiah (40:8) tells us: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” And the Lord Jesus told us: (Matthew 24:35) “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”

 

As an aside, let me remind us that the Bible has a dual authorship. God ‘breathed’ His thoughts – that’s what the word ‘inspired’ means – God breathed out His thoughts to men who, in turn, wrote those thoughts on parchment. And so, for example, St Paul wrote to Timothy: (2 Timothy 3:16-17) “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

 

The men who wrote the Bible – from Moses in 3500 BC to the apostle John in 90 AD – these men did not act like automatons or executive secretaries, writing word for word, comma for comma, period for period according to the breath of God moving on them. God gave them His words, but they wrote in accord with their own experiences, language skills, and culture. But the RESULT was the very infallible and inerrant word of God on parchment.

 

So, why bother with the Bible? Without sounding overly simplistic, let me answer this way: Because our Creator has some THINGS to say to us – very important ‘things’ to say to us. Critically important ‘things’ that WILL impact our lives for the better – if we pay attention to those things. Otherwise, our lives will be impacted for the worse if we do not pay attention.

 

Therefore, it is no surprise that God's Son, the Word made flesh (as St John wrote of it in the first few verses of his gospel) – it is no surprise that Jesus would tell His listeners of 2000 years ago – and those who listen to Him today: (Matthew 7:24-27) “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

 

The promise and the warning really don’t get any clearer than these words of our Lord.

 

So, let’s talk awhile about our Creator who gave us the Scriptures for our instruction in righteousness, and for hope, and faith, and of judgment, and of His promise of eternal life. And to begin our discussion of our Creator and His scriptures, we ought to go back to the beginning of the creation which the Creator created.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  Genesis 1:1-3

 

God is more than just a noun – even a proper noun. God is – well, God is God.

 

In our feeble attempt to describe what that means we use words like ‘omnipotent,’ and ‘omniscient,’ and ‘omnipresent.’ Those words mean God is everywhere in the entire universe at the same time because He is God. Omniscient means there is not a thing in all of history, past, present, future that He does not know and has always known – and that includes our thoughts.

 

Listen to the psalmist (Psalm 139): “You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all . . . Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are

there. . . . If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.”

 

Omnipresent, omniscient, and – all-powerful. There is nothing He cannot do. Nothing.

 

Why bother with the Bible – especially (as some like to say) it must have been corrupted over the millennia?

 

But think for a moment how utterly irrational is that statement for those who believe in God. What that senseless statement says is: The all-powerful God – who simply SPOKE the universe and all that is in the universe into existence – this irrational idea suggests that this same God is UNABLE to ensure the accurate transmission of His instructions through the prophets and other writers of Scripture. What that ludicrous statement says is that this omniscient God is NOT able to ensure that His scriptures would REMAIN uncorrupted through the millennia. And those who suggest the Bible is full of errors are saying the omnipresent God is UNABLE to personally guide each writer and copyist in the transmission of His supernatural book we call the Bible.

 

In the beginning, God . . . .

 

You might remember what Moses asked God in chapter three of Exodus: “Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?”  God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13-14)

 

This foundation of God's forever existence – meaning He exists in the eternal past, the eternal future, and the eternal present because He Himself CREATED time – the foundation of God's forever existence is critical to this discussion of the Bible’s relevancy to us in 2024. “If the foundations are destroyed,” the psalmist David wrote, “what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3)

 

We must be very careful not to neglect foundations. Again, back to what Jesus said to the crowds at the end of Matthew chapter seven: Unless we build our structure on solid ground, the storms of life will eventually overthrow even the most luxurious life. And since God is eternal, it logically follows that His word is eternal, as we saw a few moments ago from Isaiah and the words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew’s gospel.

 

Why bother with the Bible? Here now is some application of that question:

 

On what are you building your life? It’s a question you and I ought to routinely ask ourselves. Are we building it on the solid foundation of God’s word? Or are we building on the shifting sands of humanistic and anti-Christ philosophies brought to us by godless theologians, pastors, teachers, writers, entertainers, politicians, and news media?

Here is some more application: My next-door neighbor stopped me a week or so ago and asked for prayer for his family. He and his wife were on their way to visit, and try to comfort, the family of their 17-year-old son who’d just committed suicide.

 

Not long afterward, I read a tragic statistic in a 2024 article in The Brownstone Institute, an online journal. The contributor lives in a small town with a big problem where suicide is the leading cause of death for youth ages 10-19 years old. Nearly 30% of his county’s resident deaths ages 15-19 years are by suicide. Over 50% of his county’s high school juniors experience chronic sadness or hopelessness.

As I researched a little further, I found a 2021 study reported in the American Psychological Association. Did you know that more than 20% of American teens, in an attempt to deal with their feeling of hopelessness, considered taking their own lives? And adults don’t do much better with coping with life and its often darkness. A few years ago, the highest suicide rate was among adults between the ages of 45 and 54. The second highest rate occurred in those 85 years or older.

 

Why bother with the Bible?

I remember holding my wife’s hand as she dozed in her Intensive Care bed one morning in January 2019. She’d had a hemorrhagic stroke while we were visiting Florida.

She stirred in bed, then turned to me and said, “I wondered last evening . . . I wondered, ‘Jesus, are you here?’” She paused a moment, and then said, “I heard Him say: ‘I am here.’”

Three simple but profoundly comforting words. “I am here.”

 

Why bother with the Bible? That’s what God has wanted us to know all through the millennia. He wanted us – and still wants us – to know for certain that He is here. With us. He did not set this planet spinning into space and took off to the other side of the galaxy. He wanted us to know – and still wants us to know – perhaps especially when we walk through the valleys of the shadows of death – He is there with us, holding our hand. Your hand. My hand.

Which sort of begs the question, doesn’t it? WHY would a holy, HOLY God deign to even consider humbling Himself to speak to a humanity that routinely and repeatedly rejects and sneers at His call to our lives? Why has that Holy and unspeakably pure Creator taken to Himself the role of a slave, to wash our feet, to lead us to Himself through the prophets and finally through His Son whom He delivered over to that excruciating death to pay the price of OUR repeated and most defiant sins?

 

Why? I know it sometimes sounds trite to say it – but say it I will, and I must: Because He loves us. Because it is important to Him that we not feel alone in this universe.

 

John 3:16 is just one of His megaphones. But I think what happens so often is we who can quote the text so freely do so without paying much attention to what it really says – which is this: (Romans 5:8) “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

 

Said another way, God loved me and you, even while we were shaking our fists in His face, shouting, “I want to do it MY WAY!”

 

Yet, despite our lethal arrogance, He delivered His Son to death – and not just to death, but a TORTUROUS death – so that I, so that we, could have the chance to live forever with Him in the place Scripture calls heaven. That we could have a chance for a clean slate, a do-over, for adoption into His eternal family.

 

That we COULD have a chance . . . ‘could’ – because there could never be a chance without the death of Jesus in our place as our substitute. There could never be a chance for eternal life if our sins were not washed away in the most precious blood of the Lamb of God. There could never be a chance for eternal life if we – you and I, and all who have also come to Christ by simple faith – there could never be a chance of eternal life if the Creator did not bring this promise from Isaiah to pass on Calvary: (Isaiah 53:5-6)

 

“But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
to fall on Him.”

 

God loves, loves, loves us. THAT is why He has repeatedly spoken to humanity ever since the Garden of Eden. That is why He repeatedly speaks to us by His holy and infallible word – to tell us, “I’m here. With you. Always. You are not alone.”

 

Why bother with the Bible?  Because the Bible – from Genesis through Revelation is His love letter to us. Love letters. Letters that tell us in many portions and in many ways how to live and WHY to live that way. The scriptures are His letters to us, His instructions to us, born of His incomprehensible care for us, to tell us how to put our lives together for good – even if our lives are broken and seem unfixable.

 

Without His supernatural guidance through the Scriptures, trying to fix our broken lives would be as successful as trying to put together a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle blindfolded – knowing that one of the pieces is missing.

 

That analogy reminds me of what St Augustine discovered: “God made us for Himself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him.”

 

That ‘restlessness’ Augustine discovered of is the same one discovered by French mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal (d. 1662): “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”

 

Why bother with the Bible? I think if by now you still have that question – I’d say you’ve not been paying attention to what I’ve been saying.

 

I close this message in this way: If you have access to the internet, you can find dozens of recommendations about how to read the Bible in a year. If you do not have access to the internet, then my print version might be of help to you.

 

I’ve said this many times in the past, and this is a good time to say it again: If you read two chapters every day from the Old Testament (it takes about 10-15 minutes), and two chapters from the New Testament (again, it takes 10-15 minutes), you will read the Old Testament once every 12 months, and the New Testament THREE TIMES in a year.

 

If you do not now routinely read your Bible every day, I hope you will begin today to do so.

 

Why bother with the Bible? We might as well ask, “Why bother eating.”

Hush. It will be Alright

 

I wrote this years ago. I ‘think’ maybe I’ve changed. Maybe.

They have Moses and the Prophets . . . (Luke 16:29)

The other day I wrote an essay while in the valley of disappointment with God. In that essay I said I often think, especially lately, how good it would be if God would take a seat in my living room and tell me, “Hush. It will be alright”

But even as I wrote the essay, The Holy Spirit asked me why I think I need the Father to come into my living room and take a chair. After all, He left me the Scriptures of the prophets and apostles. They tell me all I need to know about God’s feelings toward me. They tell me often enough – “Hush. It will be alright.” Of the hundreds of God’s promises I remember from all my years of reading the Scriptures, here are some that filtered into my mind even as I contemplated the essay:

“Behold I have engraved you in the palms of my hands. Your walls are always before me.” (Isaiah 49:16);

“I know the plans that I have for you, plans for your good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11);

“I have seen your affliction. I am aware of your suffering.” (Exodus 3:7);

“I have loved you with an everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3);

“God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God and who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28);

“What He opens, none can shut. What He shuts, none can open.” (Revelation 3:7)

But as despondency settled over me, I argued with the Holy Spirit, telling Him how nice it would be, nonetheless, if the Father would take a seat in my living room.

Two nights later I opened my Bible to the place I’d left off the night before. Luke 16. It starts off with the parable of the dishonest manager, moves into a brief interchange between Jesus and some Pharisees, and a quick verse about divorce. Then the Lord brings us the lesson of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

The Rich Man lived in sumptuous splendor within his mansion. Meanwhile, the beggar Lazarus sat outside the man’s gate, covered with sores and begging for crumbs. Neighborhood dogs roamed by to lick his weeping wounds.

In time, both died. Lazarus went to Abraham’s bosom (a picture of paradise) while the Rich Man was in torment in hell. Here is part of their conversation:

[The Rich Man] said, “Then, father [Abraham], I beg you to send [Lazarus] to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.” Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” He said, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”   He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”’

As soon as I read that last clause, ‘neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead,” the Holy Spirit changed a few words in my mind:

“Richard,” the Holy Spirit said to me, “you have Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and the words of Jesus. If you do not listen to them, neither will you be convinced even if the Father takes a seat in your living room.”

Ouch.

I closed the Bible and repented for pouting. And for finding fault with God. And for insisting on seeing fulfillment of MY dreams, and not His. MY hopes, and not His.

Life’s circumstances often make it easy to succumb to doubt and to pouting. But the Holy Spirit always reminds us – if we will listen – we do not need to fret and worry and stew about any of those circumstances. Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and the words of Jesus assure us again and again – and again, God is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. (Psalm 145:17)

And we can cast all our broken dreams and shattered hopes on Him. Because He cares for us. (1 Peter 5:7)

Passover and the Painted Picture

 

Tomorrow is Passover. This holy day, along with Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), ranks among the top three holydays in Jewish faith. Unfortunately, Passover does NOT rank very high in the Christian calendar – probably because it gets lost in Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

 

But remember, the New Testament is concealed in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. That means, without knowing about the Passover, it would be impossible to fully understand Good Friday OR Resurrection Sunday.

 

St Paul and all the writers of the New Testament understood the importance of the Old Testament. It surprises many Christians to know that the New Testament quotes or alludes to the Old Testament nearly 900 times.

 

Nine hundred times.

 

St Paul, in his letters, quotes or alludes to the Old Testament nearly 150 times. Not surprisingly then that Paul wrote to the church at Rome: “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4)

 

I hope it is clear to us that God intends His people to be familiar with the ENTIRE Bible, not just the New Testament. And to that end, I still plan to preach a short series of messages on why the Bible matters. I will also begin a series of Bible studies after we finish Psalm 136, focusing on how the Bible came to be.

 

Now, regarding Passover, because of time constraints, I cannot now read the entire chapters in Exodus that speak of the Passover, though I’d like to do that for the sake of context. The best I can do now is simply recommend that you read Exodus chapters one through thirteen on your own as homework. So, now I will read only portions of those chapters to give us context for my message today. Here is a portion from chapter 11:

 

“Moses said (to Pharaoh), “Thus says the Lord, “About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well . . . But against any of the sons of Israel a dog will not even bark, whether against man or beast, that you may understand how the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. . . . [and] the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land.

Now to chapter 12: “Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt . . . Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household . . . .Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families and slay the Passover lamb. You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel [top of the door] and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you. And you shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and your children forever.

As many Christians who are literate with Scripture know, Jesus was crucified during Passover. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5:7 “For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” And Jesus told His disciples: (Matthew 26:2) “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be handed over for crucifixion.”

 

In point of fact, it was with His crucifixion that God placed His last brush strokes on the painting – so to speak – that He began some 1500 years earlier in Egypt. I like to call that canvas, ‘Redemption.’

 

In your mind’s eye, can you not see how our bruised and bloodied Lamb of God ‘painted,’ as it were, the ‘lintel’ of the cross with blood from His scalp wounds? He painted to two side posts with blood dripping from His hands. The blood from His feet finished the painting which should have reminded those there on Calvary’s hill of the Passover lamb’s blood that painted their ancestors’ doors – blood that held back the hand of the angel of death from their homes as he swept across Egypt.

 

How did those on Calvary’s hill not recognize that Passover link? I don’t know, but I hope YOU do not miss that link because the picture that God painted on those Israelite doors and on Calvary’s cross frame the eternal plan God set in motion before the creation of the world.

 

Israel had been a very long time in Egyptian bondage. So severe was that bondage that Pharaoh even forced parents to kill their own newborn sons so he could reduce the male population among the Israelites. And don’t think for a moment that Pharaoh didn’t have his ‘spies’ among the Israelite’s neighbors who’d report noncompliant Jewish parents to Pharaoh’s police.

 

It was a long time they’d been in bondage, but God knew of their groans and desperate heartbreak. And when He sent them a deliverer, He did so in the person of Moses. Many of you know the story of the plagues God inflicted on Pharaoh and his people, but – and again for the sake of time – we must limit this message to only the last plague – the death of the firstborn throughout Egypt. Here again is that text from chapter 11:

 

“Thus says the Lord, “About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well . . . But against any of the sons of Israel a dog will not even bark, whether against man or beast, that you may understand how the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

 

Blood on the top of the door and the two side-posts, forming a cross in blood. God ‘concealed’ in that event what He would eventually reveal 1500 years later on Calvary’s cross. But here we are yet another 2,000 years after Calvary. Does God's painting at the Passover and on Calvary’s hill really have any relevance to us in 2024?

 

Of course, it does, because God is eternal, His word is eternal, and His plan for humanity’s redemption is eternal. As the psalmist reminds us (Psalm 119:89-90) “Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations.”

 

God through Moses told the Israelites to paint their doors with the blood of the sacrificial lamb and the Angel of Death would ‘pass over’ their homes. And by FAITH they obeyed what Moses told them – and they were saved.

 

Let’s pause a moment and make some application: Are YOU covered with the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away your sins? (see John 1:29).

 

While we do not today sacrifice a lamb and paint our door lintels and side posts with its blood to deliver us from the power of our oppressors, we CAN and MUST – if we hope to be delivered from the power of sin and of death – we must by faith apply the blood provided us by God's Son Himself who, as the Scripture tells us, ‘loves us and released us from our sins by His blood.” (Revelation 1:5).

 

I love the hymn which includes these lyrics: “Would you be free from the burden of sin? There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you over evil a victory win? There's wonderful power in the blood.

 

By faith – faith in the commandment of God to paint their doors with Lamb’s blood – by faith they were saved during the Passover. And it is also by faith in God's commandments that we ‘paint our hearts’ – so to speak – that we today are saved from God's wrath and the oppressive power of sin over our lives.

 

Listen: It was by God's grace that Israel was saved. And it is STILL by God's grace that all who come by faith and humble obedience to His Throne that anyone today is saved from the angel of death who will bring all who have rejected the Blood of the Lamb to eternal death.

 

How do we come to God's Throne? I’ll say it again for emphasis. I don’t want anyone to miss this: Jesus is the absolutely critical key. All who desire forgiveness and eternal life must come through the only door God provided – Jesus the Christ. Jesus the Anointed One. Jesus the Messiah.

 

He alone is the direct link between the angel of death’s Passover of 3500 years ago, and the same angel’s passing over of your soul and mine. That is why Jesus said – and you and I must believe this by faith – Jesus said of Himself: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” (John 14:6). It was Jesus who said to Martha, the sister of Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, ²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

 

And notice how Martha responded to His follow-on question: “Do you believe this?” She *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.”

 

Jesus asked essentially the same question of the disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16)

 

Which circles us back to the Passover and the question Jesus still asks people today – men and women even here at Ashwood Meadows: Who do YOU say that I am?

 

Let’s pause again for a moment. What do you think happened in those Jewish families who did NOT believe Moses and did NOT paint their doors with the sacrificial blood?

 

We can extrapolate from what happened to the Egyptians who, for example, did not believe Moses’ warning about the plague of the hailstorm. God spoke to Pharaoh and his servants through Moses saying: (Exodus 9:18-21) “Behold, about this time tomorrow, I will send a very heavy hail, such as has not been seen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. Now therefore send, bring your livestock and whatever you have in the field to safety. Every man and beast that is found in the field and is not brought home, when the hail comes down on them, will die.”’”  The one among the servants of Pharaoh who feared the word of the Lord made his servants and his livestock flee into the houses; but he who paid no regard to the word of the Lord left his servants and his livestock in the field.”

 

What happened to the Jews who did not believe Moses and paint their doors with blood? I think it is safe to say, the firstborn in their home died. But please notice again here the mercy of God . . . even to the Egyptians who had enslaved His people for generations. Mercy – to warn them and to protect even them. Why? Because God is a God of MERCY and is not wanting ANYONE to perish.

 

Mercy. And it STILL doesn’t matter today what we’ve done to others in the past. It STILL doesn’t matter whom we have hurt in the past. God will STILL accept the penitent AND will forgive the penitent, wiping each of those past sins as far as east is from the west.

 

Consider David and his egregious sins of coveting, adultery, and murder in the affair with Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. And consider God's willingness to forgive Saul the Pharisee – better known as St Paul – for his murders of Christians. And I won’t even begin to tell you of the horrible sins in my own past.

 

But all of this circles back again to the Passover and God's mercy toward the Egyptians, and His mercy today as He continues to warn humanity – even those in church pews and church pulpits: “Believe My warnings” He pleads. “Believe My threats. These are not idle warnings or threats. Repent. Believe the gospel. OBEY the gospel.”

 

Please hear this: All who will NOT bow in faithful obedience to Christ, they will experience God's eternal retribution when – and I now quote from St Paul’s letter to the CHRISTIANS at Thessalonica – “the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.”

 

Let me bring this message now to a close: Jesus the Passover Lamb takes away all of the sins of the penitent. Please, all of us – and I include myself here as well – we must pay attention to this warning of the Holy Spirit to Christians:

 

(Hebrews 3:1-7) “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts . . . .”

Do not harden your hearts as Pharaoh did and as people all around us still do day after day. It is vital that we remind ourselves that when Pharaoh persisted in hardening his heart against the Lord, God furthered the hardening. You can look up these texts on your own: Exodus 3:19; 5:2; 8:15; 8:32; 9:34 along with 4:21; 7:3; 14:4; 14:17.

The point of all that is this: God is not One to be trifled with. There is only one way to avoid Pharaoh’s fate of a hardened heart – and that is to walk HUMBLY with God, obediently following His commandments – not the least of which is, by faith trusting God to be telling us the truth about sin, righteousness, eternal life, and eternal judgment.

If you have never done so – AND even if you HAVE done so in the past – then today, while it is still called today – by faith, make Jesus lord of your life, your time, your talent, your treasure. His blood alone can cover our sins – just as the Passover lamb on Israel’s doors protected them from the wrath of God.

When the penitent tax collector prayed: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner,” Jesus told His disciples, “This man went to his house justified.” (Luke 18:14). And so, sinners – all of us here wear that label before God – remember that word of Christ about the penitent sinner.

Salvation is available even to the worst sinners – all because and only because of what Jesus did for us on Passover’s cross 2,000 years ago.

Lessons from the Ascension - Part Two

This will be part two of my two-part message drawn from the ascension of the Lord Jesus as Luke records in Acts chapter one. So, let’s turn our attention to that text:

“The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

 

And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.”

 

Last week we focused on three points found in this short text. The first point was this: Luke wrote his gospel and his history of the early church from eyewitness accounts and other research. Scoffers want us to doubt the veracity of Luke’s accounts – as well as the rest of the Bible – because Satan knows that God's infallible word from Genesis through Revelation is, as St Paul tells us – “able to give us wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

 

The second point we looked at last week was this: Jesus WILL return to earth. That’s good news for some, but very bad news for most. And finally, last week, point number three: God does not work according to OUR expectations. He works whatever He works to bring forth His will and His kingdom. His will, of course, is the eternal salvation of souls who will be part of His Kingdom forever.

 

Which now brings us to today’s message and two more points found in this short text from Acts. We begin first with verse 10 – “And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven. The Greek verb translated in this text as ‘gazing intently’ also can be rendered as ‘they were fastening their eyes’ on the sky as Jesus ascended.

 

Some might think they were gazing so intently because they were watching yet another miracle of the Lord. But I’m not so sure that’s the reason.

 

The apostles were not strangers to His miracles. They’d witnessed His feeding thousands with only a few loaves and fish. They saw Him raise Lazarus from the dead. They saw Him walk on water, heal lepers, deaf mutes, and paralytics. And, of course, they saw Him after His resurrection. And now – Jesus defied gravity and disappeared into the clouds.

 

So, I don’t think they were stunned to see Jesus defy gravity and ascend into the clouds. I believe there was much more going on in their minds as they watched Him leave them, because much more would have gone in in MY mind. I would have stared into the sky and thought: He’s gone.

 

He. Is. Gone.

 

Perhaps they’d been hoping – even if it was unconsciously – that Jesus hadn’t meant what they thought He meant when He told them: (John 13:33, 36) Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’ . . . . Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.”

 

He also told them: (John 16:5-6) “But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.”

 

I think sorrow and grief and pain filled their hearts because they lost Him – again. This time . . . for the rest of their lives?

 

They loved Jesus. Let me say that again for emphasis – they loved Jesus. But now He was gone. and I think they thought what I would have thought: “What do I do now? How can I go on without Him? I cannot bear the thought of not being with Him.”

 

As I pondered this scene, my mind brought me to another ‘farewell’ scene that Luke records for us later in Acts. Its poignancy reminded me of what was likely happening to the apostles at the Ascension.

 

St Paul and his missionary companions were traveling toward Jerusalem to be there in time for the Feast of Pentecost. Because he was hurrying to be there, he decided to avoid visiting Ephesus where, earlier, he’d stayed for about two years and developed many close friends among that church. So, when the ship they’d been sailing on docked at Miletus, Paul sent a message to the church at Ephesus, asking the elders to meet with him at Miletus. When they arrived, here’s what happened:

 

(Acts 20:36-21:1) “When he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And they began to weep aloud and embraced Paul, and repeatedly kissed him, grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they were accompanying him to the ship. When we had parted from them and had set sail, we ran a straight course to Cos and the next day to Rhodes and from there to Patara . . . .”

 

The Greek word translated into English for ‘parted’ means, “to tear oneself away.’ And it is THIS scene that is not only analogous to the scene on Mount Olive, but it is also applicable to us in the 21^st century.

 

Do you know of Christians who’ve lost a beloved spouse, or very close friend with who they’d spent years and years together, enjoying their companionship, their counsel, their emotional intimacy. Many of you here know what I am talking about. And then suddenly – they’re gone. Death has torn them away. The grave has ripped them from your life.

 

If that’s happened to you, then perhaps some of you at that time also said to yourself: “What do I do now? Where do I go?”  And perhaps even more to the point, you may have asked yourself, “WHY should I go and do?”

 

Those questions are quite normal for the grieving heart. And that’s also why this text in Acts is so very applicable to us in 2024. Most of us know from experience that after a time, the raw emotions become less enflamed, and what most mourners eventually want to do is more than just ‘move on.’  They want to successfully move on. But to do that – to successfully move on with life – the mourner first must find the answer to the question: “How do I move on?”

 

A quick and what might seem to some in the midst of their grief an insensitive answer might sound something like, “Get closer to Jesus.”

 

Now, please don’t misunderstand me. That answer is the right answer. And what might seem to some as an insensitive answer is, actually, a profoundly significant answer.

 

Listen, we all know life is neither simple nor superficial. And so, what I want to try to do at this moment is attempt to answer that question, “HOW does the grieving heart draw closer to Christ?” After all, it is never God's plan nor His desire for us to remain in grief. The prophet Hosea told his grieving nation: (Hosea 6:3) “So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.” And from prison, St Paul wrote words to encourage his readers – including us in 2024: (Philippians 3:13-14) “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

 

Press on. One foot in front of the other. And then the other. And then the other. But now let me give you a flawless recipe how to fail in pressing on: Do it on your own. Do it without God's supernatural help to put one foot in front of the other. Remember the Lord’s counsel to His disciples: (John 15:4-5, NIV) “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Now listen to His counsel through Solomon – and I paraphrase: (Proverbs 3:5-6): “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and not on your own understanding. In all your ways, call on Him, and He will direct your path.”

 

And now Jeremiah (33:3) “Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know.”

 

How do we press on when we don’t know what to do or where to go – or even WHY to press on? We press on – successfully press on – when we do so with and through the Lord’s supernatural help. No one should expect grief to dissipate quickly. But we surely CAN cope better with and through our Lord Jesus Christ who lives in us. And so, by His supernatural strength we keep seeking; We keep trusting; We keep walking with our Savior.

Which now brings us to the second point number of today’s message: That they – even in their grief –  “Shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” And, by the way, Ashwood Meadows is included in that “remotest part of the earth” text.

I think it instructive that we focus attention now on what the Lord told His disciples to do after He was gone. He gave them WORK to do even in the midst of their grief. I believe He gave them that work for at least two purposes. First: To get them focused AWAY from themselves and onto others. As He once told them: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

 

And the second reason: To win souls for the Kingdom. As He had told them once before, (John 4:35-36) “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.” 

 

It was also the Psalmist who wrote (126:5-6): Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting. He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.

If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know I often urge all of us to not only be bold in our witness for Christ, but also to walk the talk that we talk. I’ve reminded all of us of the importance, for example, of bowing our heads at the table before we begin eating – whether at a restaurant out in town, or in the dining room.

 

Consider this: If we’re afraid or ashamed about thanking the Lord publicly for our food when it is NOT dangerous to be a Christian, then how will we act when it IS dangerous to be a true follower of Christ?

 

The other way we share our faith with others is by LIVING our faith before them. For example, we avoid gossip, telling or laughing at off-color jokes, we won’t lie, or look for faults in others, and we will be quick to forgive those who offend us.

 

These are all ways to be faithful witnesses for Christ in our own spheres of influence among our families, friends, and acquaintances, especially here in this Peyton Place called Ashwood Meadows.

 

But there is one method of sharing Christ with others that I do not speak about often enough. To that end, let me remind us of two of the Lord’s parables, one which follows the other. You’ll find them in Matthew 25:14-41. Because of time, the text is too long to read now in its entirety, so I will summarize the parables:

 

In the first one, a man went on a journey and entrusted his slaves with his possessions. He gave one slave five talents – meaning, ‘money.’ To another he gave two, and to another, one. If you remember the story, the ones who received the five and the two talents traded with them and earned more money for their master. But the one who’d received the one piece of money buried it in the ground. When the master returned, he praised the first two slaves, but the third received his wrath for wasting what was entrusted to him.

 

The Lord immediately followed that parable with the one about the final judgement of the sheep and the goats. The sheep were those who took care of those who were sick, and lonely, and imprisoned, and hungry, and naked. The goats, on the other hand, were those who did NOT take care of others.

 

Both groups were confused. They did not remember when they’d seen the Lord hungry or sick or naked and in need. And the Lord answered them – and I again paraphrase: ‘When you did it for others, you did it for Me. When you did NOT do it for others, you did NOT do it for Me.’ And then Jesus concluded with this very sobering word: “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Jesus was serious when He warned us about using – or ignoring – the various gifts He’s given us – gifts of time, talent, or treasure. And Christians also know that each of the gifts He’s given us are ultimately intended for the sake of HIS Kingdom. But sometimes we don’t know how or where to use those gifts – including His gifts of finances.

 

I’m sure many of you are already sending money to various Christian organizations. But there might be those here who would like to support Christian ministries, but do not know where to find reputable ones. That’s why I’ve prepared in a separate handout with a list of some ministries for your consideration. Whether it’s five dollars a month or a hundred dollars each month, every Christ-centered organization can use our support.

St Therese of Avila died in 1582, but what she said here reverberates across the centuries and into 2024:

 

“Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good, yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes . . .. Christ has no body now but yours.”

 

PLEASE!  I implore you. Do not bury what the Lord has given you. Offer it to Him as the young boy offered Jesus his few fish and pieces of bread. No one wants to face God at the Judgment and have to explain why we used what He gave us on ourselves and our pleasures when souls in need were left alone.

 

As I preached last week, Jesus is LORD. And He will return someday for His own. But on that note, If Jesus is not Lord of everything in our life – including our time, talents, AND treasure, then He is truly not Lord of our life at all.