Advent: The God Who Was . . .

During the church’s season of Advent we look at two things: Christ’s first and His second coming. We look back at His incarnation—when He was born a small, helpless baby born in a stable—and we look forward to that Day when He will return in power and majesty. Now, what the end will look like we aren’t exactly sure. Yes, we’ve got some good prophecies in the Scriptures to guide us, to give us the signs to look for . . . but as for real, concrete specifics . . . well, let’s just say that we’re not quite sure. I think that’s one of the reasons the Left Behind novels sold so well . . . there is just a hunger to have the details . . . but we just don’t really know, do we?
The ancient Israelites, in the centuries before Jesus was born, had a similar problem. They had the desire to know when the Messiah would come, to know what He would do, to know what it would all look like. But history would seem to tell us that they wound up looking for the wrong thing, doesn’t it?
It seems as though there were three types of ways of looking to the Messiah: Looking up, Looking down, and Looking within. None of them produced the right picture of the Messiah that was to come.
The first, looking up, is probably the one that most of you have heard of—it’s kind of the popular view. From Old Testament passages like 2 Samuel 7:16, where God promised King David, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever” and Jeremiah 23:5-6, which say, “The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness” some people in Jesus’ day had developed a mental picture of a great and glorious Messiah, a Messiah who would rally the people, who would lead them in victory against the Romans, demolishing all of Israel’s enemies, and he would set up a throne and lead Israel into a time of unheard of prosperity and peace. This Messiah was a larger-than life figure, someone who had the spirit of Moses and the strength of the angels. Not exactly the type of person you’d expect the illegitimate son of a carpenter to be.
The second group missed the Messiah by looking down. This crowd fell into one of two categories: they either got themselves preoccupied with day-to-day living or they got preoccupied with making a buck . . . and then another buck . . . and then another buck. They were either consumed by the pressures of just making it or they were inflamed with the fast-paced life of wheeling and dealing. For them, the Messiah became just another part of a busy, hectic day, part of a religious backdrop that had ceased to have any real, spiritual meaning in their lives. Over time they began to believe that maybe the Messiah was just some myth, that maybe He was just some figure in the far-off future. No, that group isn’t likely to hear the beautiful words of yet another street preacher in dirty clothes.
The third group missed the Messiah by looking within. Today, you and I have been trained to see Jesus when we read passages like the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53:3-7, which says, “3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” But the Jews of Jesus’ day were living in a time of a harsh and limiting Roman rule. They could look back on a national history of oppression and hardship. With that in mind, what were they most likely to do? Right . . . they focused upon their problems and woes and in their minds they became sure the “Suffering Servant” was themselves. It’s really hard to make sense of a man on a cross when you think the worst of the world’s problems are your own.
Three groups, one that looked like this (Look up and away), one that looked like this (looking down at the ground), and one that looked like this (holding head in misery) . . . and they each missed the Messiah, the Savior, who was right there in front of them the whole time . . . and we’re no different. Think about that as we confess our sins before God.

The Jews of Jesus’ day had built up certain expectations of the way the Messiah was to appear, to be, to act. What they had done was formulate their own ideas and their own expectations, and project them on to God’s chosen one, the promised Messiah. What they had done was put God into a box. It was as though they wanted to see a lion . . . but not a wild lion, an untamable, unpredictable predator who might do anything to them . . . but a trained lion. A comfortable, predictable lion. A lion who would roar at their command and devour only their enemies. A tame lion. But Jesus Christ the Messiah is not a tame lion.
There is a fantastic illustration of this principle in book six of the great Christian author C.S. Lewis’ wonderful series of books The Chronicles of Narnia. In this book, called The Silver Chair, Lewis describes an encounter near a clear-running stream between a girl named Jill and a talking—and very wild—lion.
“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.
“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.
“Then drink,” said the Lion.
“May I—could I—would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
“Will you promise not to—do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.
“I make no promise,” said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty no that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
“Do you eat girls?” she said.
“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.
“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.
“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”
“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.
It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion—no one who had seen his stern face could do that—and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn’t need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once. Before she tasted it she had been intending to make a dash away from the Lion the moment she had finished. Now, she realized that this would be on the whole the most dangerous thing of all.

Were the Jews of Jesus’ day looking for a Messiah that was a lion . . . or one that was safe? They wanted a safe Messiah, a predictable Messiah. They wanted a Messiah that would do what they expected him to do, one who would smash their enemies and give Israel a prosperous and free life. They wanted a mighty Messiah who would work within their established system, enabling them to carry on just as they had during Israel’s glory days of King David.
They missed Jesus Christ entirely because they were either looking up . . . or down . . . or within. How often do we do the same thing? How often do we convince ourselves that we’re truly looking for Jesus Christ, but all the time we’re looking in the wrong direction?
See, I’ve got this theory that what we really want isn’t Christ . . . but safety. We want a tame lion. So we look everywhere, high and low and into ourselves, we’ll look to the TV, to the internet or something off the best-seller list, grasping on for some answer that sounds right . . . not even that, just something that sounds right enough. Something that’s predictable, something that makes sense. Something that doesn’t demand anything of us.
But the true Messiah, the true Savior, isn’t like that. Living a life that is committed to following Jesus Christ involves putting our necks on the line sometimes. Following the real Jesus sometimes involves risk.
Let me give you an example: There was a time when I had spent a week at a church-planting boot camp. We had spent the entire week about the need for reaching the lost, about growing churches that were serious about evangelism, about being people who took the call to make disciples seriously. We studied the Scriptures and we prayed and we asked God to work through us.
So at the end of that week I found myself ready to break out and witness to some people! Fresh off this fantastic week of communing with God, I found myself in a long, slow-moving line of people waiting to get on our airplane. I just knew this was my chance to make an impact for God’s kingdom. So, in a casual kind of voice, I asked the lady in front of me, “Did you ever think this is what the end of our lives is going to be like? Everyone waiting around in a line, not sure if we’re going to get through the gates or not?”
Now, at this point in the story, you’d typically here the speaker go on to tell you how the evangelist went on to lay out the plan of salvation and the poor pagan would be so convicted that he or she would break down in tears, and the evangelist would lead everyone on the plane—including the pilot and the attendants—in a prayer of repentance and of confessing Christ as their Lord and Savior. Boy, I wish I could tell you it worked out like that. But despite my well thought-out and appropriate leading evangelism question, that lady gave me just one look that said, “Oh, Lord . . . another one of those religious whackos. I hope to God I don’t get stuck in a seat next to him!” And BOOM! . . . I was blown out of the water, left looking like a fool.
But that was okay. I decided there and then that I’d rather take the chance, I’d rather look like the fool, because the other option was too horrible. It was okay for me to look a bit foolish, because I had something serious to offer. I had something serious to offer because Jesus Christ gave Himself for me, that He chose me as one of His own. Christ has given me everything that I need for eternal life . . . and it’s more dangerous to run away than it is to come and drink.
I was reading in Jeremiah a few weeks back, and a few verses struck me so strongly that I printed them up and put them on the back of my office door where I would see them. Jeremiah 5:30-31 says, “A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: 31 The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?”
What will you do in the end? Will you continue to look for your salvation everywhere but to Jesus, who is right there before you the whole time? Will you look everywhere but the Scriptures to find answers? Will you look for safety . . . or will you look for Christ?
Early in the most familiar book of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe(which, incidentally, has been made into a fantastic-looking movie and is due out in just a week or so),, Lewis portrays a fanciful world where four children are chosen kings and queens of the the land, animals talk, mythical creatures come to life . . . and a the great lion we met before is named Aslan. Aslan is what you would call a Christ figure, a literary metaphor by which Lewis attempts to explain Jesus Christ.
In this reading, the four children are being prepared for their first meeting by a couple of beavers. Watch what they say about Lewis storybook Jesus figure, Aslan:
“But shall we see him?” asked Susan.
“Why, Daughter of Eve, that’s what I brought you here for. I’m to lead you where you shall meet him,” said Mr. Beaver.
“Is—is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

No, maybe Jesus Christ the Messiah isn’t exactly what we might call “safe.” He certainly wasn’t predictable for the Jews of His day, He wasn’t what they expected. But He is beyond all doubt “good.” He is good because He is so much more than we are expecting, He goes beyond from what we merely expect to what we truly need, and He will always be there to guide us, because He is the God who Was, Who Is, and Is to Come.

Day of Judgment, Day of Joy

This past week CNN reported that Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design" and warned them Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck.
A few quotes from the article, entitled, “Robertson warns Pennsylvania voters of God's wrath,” seemed appropriate to the message today.
“Robertson, a former Republican presidential candidate and founder of the influential Christian Broadcasting Network and Christian Coalition, has made similar apocalyptic warnings and provocative statements before.
Last summer, he hit the headlines by calling for the assassination of leftist Venezuelan Present Hugo Chavez, one of President George W. Bush's most vocal international critics.
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."
"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there," he said.
. . . In 1998, Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Florida that it risked hurricanes, earthquakes and terrorist bombs after it allowed homosexual organizations to put up rainbow flags in support of sexual diversity.”
Now, regardless of any of our personal opinions regarding Pat Robertson, school boards, or elections, these quotes prove quite interesting. Simply put, what Pat Robertson is doing is declaring that a day of judgment is awaiting the sinner. Now of course I understand that Pat isn’t offering a prediction for the end of the world, but it’s the comparisons between Pat Robertson’s predictions of judgment and the centuries upon centuries of end-times predictions that I find interesting. Pat Robertson has a habit of predicting that God’s judgment will come down upon sinners. And in similar fashion, people have been saying for years that the end of the world is near. People have been saying for years that God’s judgment is coming . . . and yet has it?
For instance, in 1988 NASA scientist Edgar Whisenaut published a book 88 Reasons why the Rapture will Occur in 1988. The book sold over 4 million copies . . . but I don’t recall the end of the world coming that year.
How about another? The Watchtower Society—that the Jehovah’s Witnesses—has predicted the coming of Jesus Christ no less than eight times. According to various calculations, the Watchtower predicted that Christ would return in 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994. It seems as though they were wrong, too.
Remember all the hoopla surrounding Y2K? Well, at the turn of the first millennium—which I guess we’d call Y1K—many Christians were predicting that Judgment Day would occur. When it didn’t, a man named Gerard of Poehlde decided in 1147 that the millennium had actually started in 306 CE during Constantine's reign, and so Judgment Day was actually scheduled for 1306 A.D.
Now, with all these bad predictions, you might get the impression that Christ’s coming, that Judgment Day, isn’t going to happen at all, and there are people who would agree with you on that. But that’s not a new issue; St. Peter warned the believers of his day in his second letter, saying in 2 Peter 3:3-4 “First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, ‘Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’” You see, even in the first century there were people looking at the idea of Christ’s return, of Judgment Day, and cracking jokes about it.
But is there a Day of Judgment? A day when Christ will return to the Earth in His full power and glory and judge the deeds of men and women? The Bible says so. We see a little hint of it in today’s Old Testament reading, when Jeremiah says that the Lord’s judgment will be like a lion roaring from above, that the noise will be heard around the globe, and “the LORD will bring charges against the nations; he will bring judgment on all mankind and put the wicked to the sword.”
What will happen on that day? What will that day be like for the people of the world? Imagine—for a minute—that you are an unbeliever. That day—the Day of the Lord—will bring your worst fear to life. The fear that you have spent all your life denying the existence of God, of denying that Jesus Christ is both Lord and God; that fear will be realized. As the Lord Jesus Christ descends with a shout, leading a great army of angels, and seats Himself on His eternal throne . . . there will be no more time to receive His grace, no more time for faith. The very One you had spent your life denying and rejecting now sits before you in all His radiant glory . . . and your eternity will be sealed.
That day will bring judgment to the world. The Bible describes the coming judgment as something to be feared. In Matthew 24:30 Jesus says that His coming will cause all the nations of the earth to mourn. Jeremiah describes how the storm of the Lord will burst out in wrath, it will be a whirlwind swirling down on the heads of the wicked, and that the Lord’s anger will not be held back until He accomplishes His judgment.
On the Day of Judgment all who have spent their earthly lives in rejection of God and His Son will be given the very thing that they had been asking for: eternal condemnation. Revelation 21:8 says, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-- their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
In the coming judgment there is only one price to pay for sin: death. There is only word that God will utter: guilty. No favor is given for good intentions, nothing for attending church, nothing for being a good person. There will be no escape. There will be no repentance. There will be no mercy. There will only be God’s wrath . . . His eternal, unrelenting, righteous and mighty wrath; the wrath that an unbelieving world has invited upon itself . . . and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
What should our attitude be towards the Day of Judgment? Shall we sit tight, smugly confident in knowing that those sinners are going to get what they deserve? That Day . . . that Day will be terrible for those who do not know Christ. Who are those people? Your loved ones? Your neighbor? The waitress at the diner? The checker at the grocery store? You?
Our attitude towards judgment day should be like that of the prophet Jeremiah, who said in Jeremiah 8:21 - 9:1, “21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? 9:1Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.”
Listen up, people of God. You have a job to do. Let me put this simply: if you would keep your loved ones from the terrors of the end of the world, you must tell them about Judgment Day. But don’t frighten them with stories of the judgment that is to come: tell them what the Scriptures say of the judgment that has already been. Tell them of the first judgment day, the one that occurred nearly 2000 years ago . . . tell them of the cross.
There is a day coming when God will bring charges against the nations and judge the sin of the world; that is true. But there also has already been a day when that has happened . . . but on that day only One person would pay the price for sin. That person was Christ, and He was judged not for His sin, but for ours.

Answer this for me: Had Jesus Christ ever done anything worthy of judgment? __________ No, He hadn’t. He had no sin, He had no reason to fear God’s wrath. Yet Isaiah speaks of Christ, saying in Isaiah 53:9-10, “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.”
In the past judgment there was only one price to pay for sin: the death of Christ. There was only one word that God needed to utter: guilty. There was no escape from the cross, Christ received no mercy. Christ literally endured Hell on the cross, He suffered the full brunt of God’s wrath.
You understand, then, what that means? If Christ has already suffered God’s judgment on our behalf, there is no need to fear the coming judgment! Do you understand what a great gift that is? God Himself has created for us an escape hatch, a way out, He has made it possible to escape the wrath that is to come, because He has already poured out His wrath on Jesus Christ. And if you know it and believe it, and if you tell your loved ones and they know it and believe it, then none of you will have anything to fear from Judgment Day. You see, there is only one way to escape your coming judgment, and that is to embrace your judgment that Christ has already endured.
The Day of Judgment will be both great and terrible. Those who have refused Christ will receive God’s righteous anger for their sin, and they will be eternally condemned. It will be the first day in a living death of eternal torment. But for those who have received Christ, for those who have believed upon Jesus Christ and received the gift of eternal life . . . that final day won’t be terrible and condemning, but great and liberating. The Day of Judgment will be a Day of Joy.
There will be joy . . . and oh, what joy it will be! As believers in Jesus Christ we have been adopted as children of God, and even on this earth we enjoy the privilege of being called His own. But on that day, as believers we will receive our full inheritance.
Peter, consumed and overflowing with joy, puts words to the joy he has in his heart, saying in 1 Peter 1:3-5, “3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”
On that day we will leave behind forever all of the limitations that this world imposes upon us. The Apostle John testifies in Revelation 21:4 that God will wipe every tear from our eyes. “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away,” and the new order will have come.
There are two options for that final Day; Judgment or Joy. Both hinge upon what we do with Jesus Christ.

Sermon for Sunday, November 6th . . .

Is not yet available.

The sermon was a highly interactive sermon, as as such a formal manuscript does not exist. If possible we will have a transcript available soon.