This Old Testament story is ultimately about how Jesus Christ loves us, pursues us, and redeems us, most especially when we know we are unworthy. It is a beautiful story, the gospel, given to us through the life of David.
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Second Samuel #11. The Kind Messiah. 2 Samuel 9;1-13
2 Samuel chapter 9 contains an interesting anecdote about David. I assume that the Lord allowed this to be included in the bible for a reason, so let’s look at it.
2 Samuel 4:4 tells us that Saul’s son Jonathan had a son named Mephibosheth. He was just a little boy of five years old when his father Jonathan was killed in the battle with the Philistines. In the chaos that followed that battle, Mephibosheth’s nurse fled with him, and at some point there was an accident. The text says the nurse fell, presumably with the child in her arms, and Mephibosheth was permanently crippled in both feet.
If you remember, Jonathan was Saul’s firstborn son. Mephibosheth was Jonathan’s only surviving son. That means that he was Saul’s rightful heir. But if you remember, it was Jonathan’s brother, Ish-bosheth, who claimed the throne and fought with David. What this means is that when he was a child, Mephibosheth’s life was probably in danger from his uncle (Ish-bosheth) and also the war leader, Abner. No doubt, those who took care of him believed he was also in danger from David. So the adults in his life took him into hiding.
The fact that Mephibosheth was even alive was obviously not well known, and his location appears to have been a secret. He had probably lived in fear most of his life, thinking that both his own uncle, and then David, must have wanted him dead. Most civilizations in those days were not kind to people with disabilities, and certainly made no effort to make life easier for them. Especially a man who could not work or fight was considered somehow less of a man. So Mephibosheth was an outcast because his birth made him a threat to others, and he was doubly outcast because he was a cripple. There is little doubt that he spent most of his life hiding in both fear and shame.
Now once David was well-established as king and he had a little time to reflect, he wanted to honor the memory of his dear friend Jonathan. So he began looking for anyone in Saul’s remaining family he could help. His attendants found a man who had been one of the chief servants of Saul’s household, a man named Ziba. David said to Ziba
“Is there anyone left of Saul’s family that I can show the kindness of God to? ”
David’s choice of words here is interesting. If you have been a church-goer for a while, you’ve probably heard a sermon on the Greek word agape, which means “sacrificial, selfless love.” The Hebrew word David uses for “kindness” is essentially the equivalent of agape. In Hebrew is pronounced “hesed” (but it should sound like you are clearing your throat on the ‘h’). It is often translated “everlasting love,” or “faithful love.” It is usually used to describe God’s love for his people. I think the sense of what David is saying is, “I want to show the family of Saul the faithful love of God.” In a moment I will explain why I think this is so significant.
Ziba revealed the existence and location of Mephibosheth. Ziba is a complex person, and we’ll learn more about him later. He was the manager of Saul’s family’s land and property. I think it is quite possible that he was hoping David was being deceptive, and that he actually wanted to completely annihilate the family of Saul, because then he (Ziba) would have that land and property for himself. But Ziba played his cards close to the chest, and simply gave David the information he wanted. So David brought Mephibosheth out of hiding, and officially turned over to him the ancestral lands of Saul, and ordered Ziba and his family to work the land and manage it. This wasn’t entirely a bad deal for Ziba – it was a position of great responsibility and some honor, and they would be able to make a good living. But he may have wanted Saul’s inheritance for himself. I say this because later on it looks like Ziba created a nasty scheme against Mephibosheth. But we’ll tackle that incident when we get to it.
David also gave Mephibosheth a permanent place to eat at the royal table. Not only was this a great honor, but it also basically meant that Mephibosheth would never again have to worry about where he would live or what he would eat. In other words, it was kind of like being given a really good permanent retirement income. Mephibosheth’s reaction is understandable. He says,
“What is your servant that you take an interest in a dead dog like me? ”
These things really happened – they were real historical occurrences. I’ve shared many reasons at various times to believe that the bible is historically reliable. Even so, we need to realize that the writers did not record every single incident in the lives of those they wrote about; and many documents were lost or not included in the bible. As Christians we believe that the Holy Spirit guided the process all the way through. He prompted people to write what they wrote, he allowed the loss of some documents and the exclusion of others. The Holy Spirit had a purpose for including this particular piece of the bible (and in fact, every piece). The writer himself may have been unaware of God’s purpose. Jesus told his disciples that the entire Old Testament points to him. I think this is one more place where the Holy Spirit used something from the life of David to show people what the true and ultimate messiah would be like. David’s actions here reveal the heart of Jesus in him. This really happened – it isn’t an allegory. But we can still use it a little bit like a spiritual allegory, and learn about the heart of Jesus from second Samuel nine. Jesus once told the following story:
1 All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching to listen to Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them! ” 3 So He told them this parable: 4 “What man among you, who has 100 sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? 5 When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, 6 and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep! ’ 7 I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t need repentance (Luke 15:1-8, HCSB)
Jesus’ heart is for the lost and the broken. He has a special tenderness for those who think they are worthless. He doesn’t wait for people to straighten themselves up and come looking for God. Instead, he goes after them, seeks them himself.
David reflected this with Mephibosheth. He didn’t wait for someone in Saul’s family to summon the courage to find him. Instead, David sent people out looking for someone to show God’s faithful love to. This is one reason I think that Hebrew word is so important. David wanted to bring God’s faithful love into the life of Mephibosheth. Jesus wants to bring that same love into our lives.
Mephibosheth was afraid of David. Technically he was David’s enemy. As the grandson of Saul, he could have made a claim to Israel’s throne. Most middle-eastern leaders in David’s situation would have found him in order to put him to death. In addition, Mephibosheth felt he was damaged goods – a worthless man who couldn’t work or fight, because of his disability. No self-respecting life-insurance agent would ever write a policy on him, because clearly he was worth more dead than alive. I think when he called himself a dead dog, it wasn’t just an expression. More than likely, he really thought of himself that way.
But the king sought out this worthless “dead dog.” He brought him out of exile. He gave honor to the man who had none. He made others serve him. And he gave him a permanent place at the royal table, making him essentially a prince, a son of the man who by rights should kill him.
Technically, we should be the enemies of Jesus. Because of our ancestors, and tragedies in our own life, we belong in the kingdom of the devil. We aren’t worth much in the eyes of the world. And truthfully, a lot of people hide from God in various ways. They completely avoid him, or deny that he exists and spend their days as far from him as possible. Others hide in religion, using empty words and good works as a way to avoid actually dealing with him face to face.
But Jesus doesn’t leave us there. He doesn’t wait for us to come to him. He seeks us out, to show us the faithful love of God. He brings us back from exile. He himself restores us as rightful citizens of his kingdom. He honors us, and declares that we are not worthless, but rather worth his attention and love. Not only that, but he gives us a permanent place with him – eternal life in relationship with him. And he treats us as his own children, inheritors of the promises of God.
David’s treatment of Mephibosheth is a signal for us that this is how Jesus will treat us, if we let him. All Mephibosheth had to do is come when David summoned him, and gratefully place his life in David’s hands, allowing David to show him God’s everlasting and gracious love. That’s all we have to do with Jesus. Mephibosheth didn’t have to make himself acceptable to David, or earn what was given him. In fact, Mephibosheth had done nothing to deserve the kindness David showed him. We can’t earn God’s grace and kindness either. But he showers it on us freely if we will come when he calls and trust our lives into his hands.
Advent is a time when we remind ourselves that God is at work in human history. We reflect on what God has done in the past, and on his promises for our future. As we do these things, we can live with patience, and hopeful anticipation.
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ADVENT 2024 #1. 2 Peter 3:1-13
I grew up in a church that observed the “church year,” and the “lectionary.” Stick with me while I explain this a bit. Many centuries ago, one way that the medieval church sought to bring unity to congregations scattered around the world was to have all churches use the same set of readings from the Bible each day. These became known as “the lectionary.” As church became less central to the lives of most people, the readings were generally reduced to just the ones used each Sunday. The lectionary readings were organized around various “church seasons.” Even after the reformation, many protestant churches continued to use the church year.
There are some small variations, but in general the seasons are: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and “after Pentecost,” (sometimes call “ordinary time”). Each season has a kind of “character” to it. For instance, Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus and the significance of His incarnation. Lent is a time many Christians use to reflect on the suffering of Jesus, and to engage in personal repentance. Easter is about the resurrection, and so on.
I want to emphasize that these church seasons are not given to us by the bible; they are traditions, and no true Christian would say that it is necessary to observe them in order to be a follower of Jesus. One of the negatives of the church year is that it means that huge portions of the bible will never be read in churches which strictly observe it, since those churches focus only on the lectionaries given for each season. Even so, I think we can benefit at times from the traditions associated with the church year.
For me particularly, Advent is one of the seasons that I find very helpful. Advent is the first season in the church year, so that means the church year begins at the end of November, or in early December. One reason I appreciate advent is because the readings serve to remind us that God is still pursuing his goals for human beings. Advent reminds us that history is not random (as atheists might say) nor is it just an endlessly repeating cycle (as Buddhist or Hindus might suggest, and as most ancient pagan religions believed). No, the Bible teaches us that history is going someplace, that it is being guided by God toward a goal, an endpoint. God is at work in the world.
I think advent is a particularly helpful season in our current cultural moment as well. Things seem to be changing rapidly, and generally not for the better. The effect of AI is uncertain, and is likely to shake things up. Presently there is a war in Ukraine, and another in Israel, and both of them seem to be teetering on the edge of engulfing other nations. The economy is pretty good – but only for those who own businesses or a lot of stocks. Most of us ordinary people are paying a lot more for basic necessities than a few years ago, and our incomes haven’t kept pace. Our politics appear to be broken—people seem to be no longer able to maintain friendships with those who think differently from them. Advent can help to reorient our thinking, to make sure that our trust is in the Lord and his promises, not in our circumstances.
We’ll kick off advent with the third chapter of 2 Peter. Things weren’t exactly wonderful when Peter wrote this letter, either. The emperor was Nero, who blamed the great fire of Rome on Christians, and instituted a great persecution, burning many Christians alive. Peter himself was executed by Nero probably less than six months after he wrote this letter.
When Peter wrote, the days when Jesus walked the earth were thirty years in the past. Jesus said he was coming back, but apparently nothing had changed, at least not for the better. Instead, things appeared to be getting worse. What was going on? Peter wrote his second letter to address those kinds of concerns. Our first advent reading comes from 2 Peter 3:1-13.
In the first chapter, Peter reminds us of the amazing promises we have through Jesus Christ, and how they are enough to supply us in this life as we wait for our eternal home. Next, he identifies false prophets and false teachers who are trying to lead Christians astray. He makes it clear that they will be judged by God. Then he says this:
1 This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. 2 I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles. (2 Peter 3:1-2, NLT).
This is a pretty good description of what Advent is all about. It is intended to stimulate our wholesome thinking, and to remind us of the Biblical prophecies, how they were fulfilled in the past, and what we can look forward to in the future.
Peter writes that he wants to stir up his readers, to remind them of two things. In the first place, he wants to remind us of the teachings of the Old Testament prophets, and the teachings of Jesus through the apostles (in other words, the New Testament). These scriptures tell us that Jesus will return one day to bring an end to history as we know it, to destroy this present world, and then to remake it into a new creation. Jesus taught extensively about his own return in Matthew chapters 24-25. After speaking about it for a little while, he says:
36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Matthew 24:36-44, ESV)
History is neither meaningless, nor an endless cycle. The Lord is working in the world, and one day, his purposes will be complete, and then our history as fallen and sinful people will end, and a new history will begin.
Now, it often doesn’t feel like this is so. Instead, it feels like things are only getting worse. Peter, addresses this. Clearly drawing on the teaching of Jesus (above, from Matthew 24), Peter explains that though people believe nothing will ever change, they thought the same things in the days of Noah, and yet the flood did finally come.
The same was true about the first arrival of Jesus as a human. The prophecies about the messiah were spoken many, many centuries before Jesus actually came to earth. The people of Israel failed to recognize him when he did come, but the signs were all there. What Peter is saying is that we should live with an attitude of patient expectation. I want to consider both patience, and expectation.
We need patience because we mostly do not see how God is at work in the world, and things appear to be going on as they always have since the beginning of human civilization. Our technology is much better now than it was in the beginning, but our human nature shows no signs of improvement. We still murder each other, as Cain did to Abel at the dawn of human history. We still hate, still lust, still hoard our treasures selfishly, still get drunk and high, still manipulate and ruin one another. In fact the main change seems to be that with our advanced technology, we do all these things more frequently, and more efficiently: that is to say, we are becoming even more destructive.
Even so, we can have patience for two reasons: First: God’s timing is not our timing. For him, a thousand years might pass like a day; or maybe sometimes he can accomplish in just one day the work of a thousand years. Jesus will return in his own time, and we human beings are not given to know that time. So it could be another thousand years. It could also be tomorrow. Jesus himself made it clear that no one will know exactly when it will come. God doesn’t work like us. God has not forgotten us, nor is he moving too slowly. Just as he promised the messiah, and then sent the messiah, so too, he will send Jesus once more to lead us into the new creation.
The second reason we can have patience is that God’s apparent inaction is, in fact, an open door that allows more people to repent and turn to him. The delay in Jesus returning is so that the maximum number of people will receive salvation. Since it is out of love and goodness that God waits, we too can be patient, knowing that every moment allows more people to join us in the new creation.
Now, what about the expectation? We aren’t just waiting around patiently for nothing. There is an end goal, a hope for which we wait. Peter gives it to us succinctly:
But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness (2 Peter 3:13, NLT)
Peter makes it clear that the old world will be destroyed by fire. That’s part of what we hope for, because it means the end of sin and suffering. But it isn’t just an end that we hope for. After the end comes the real beginning. We will be given new immortal bodies which will inhabit a new, uncorrupted creation. The limitations that bother us in this life will not be present in the new one. We will begin new lives that are untouched by sorrow and suffering, lives that will last forever.
Even though our bodies are corrupted by sin, we can still experience some of God’s goodness and joy in this life. In the same way, even though we can appreciate the goodness and beauty of the earth right now, it, too, has been corrupted by sin. Both our bodies, and the earth, will be recreated new, without corruption, decay, sin or evil:
18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) (Romans 8:18-25, NLT)
That is what we wait for with expectation. That is the promise of Second Advent – a Christmas present so amazing that the world itself groans in anticipation.
Peter tells us that our patience and our amazing hope should lead us to live in certain ways. He says that in anticipation of these promises we should live holy and righteous lives. Another way to say it might be this: we should begin living now the way we will live in the New Creation. Even now, we are citizens not of this earth, but of the one to come. So, live like it. If I am just a stranger on earth, just passing through, I don’t need to worry about getting everything I want here and now. The future is coming when my every desire will be fully satisfied directly in the presence of God. So, I can wait, and leave some desires unfulfilled now.
My friend Wade Jones has a great illustration of this kind of living. He and his wife were called, for a time, to be missionaries in Prague, Czechia. For a period of time they were still living in the United States, while they prepared for the move overseas. They started learning the Czech language, even while they were here. Czech wasn’t much use here, in America, but they were getting ready for their new home, so they learned it even though it didn’t benefit them immediately.
In the same way, as we learn to live like citizens of our eternal new home, some of the ways we live won’t make sense to people who live fully in this world. That’s OK. We have the patient expectation of an amazing hope, and the more we live like it now, the more real it becomes, and the more ready we will be when eventually we enter that hope.
Saul had abused his power and mistreated David in several despicable ways. But David’s main complaint was that Saul was cutting him off from worshipping in God’s sanctuary, and from God’s people. Even so, once again David refrained from harming Saul when he had the chance. In this incident David reminds us that we need fellowship with God’s people. He also shows again what Jesus is like: he does not treat us as our sins deserve, but instead showers grace on us unconditionally.
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1 SAMUEL #27. 1 SAMUEL CHAPTER 26;1-25
Often when I teach through the Bible, I am looking for tightly focused themes and messages in each passage. That works pretty well when we encounter the teaching genre in scripture. But often, when we get to narrative history, I feel like each passage is a box of chocolates: a lot of variety, a few surprises, but all of it is sweet.
I want to point out again David’s precarious situation. He was trying to lead and support 600 men who couldn’t stay in one place. In fact, they couldn’t stay in any civilized place, because the king had declared David an outlaw, under a death sentence. He was dependent upon gifts from friends and strangers. He was also vulnerable to those same people if they chose to betray David and his men. We don’t know for sure how long David lived this way, but it was certainly years – maybe even as long as a decade.
One of the reasons I like to point this out is because many churches and popular preachers seem to suggest that if you have faith in God, everything will always go well for you. By implication, if things do not go well with you, it must be because you don’t have enough faith, or you are not righteous enough. David was an imperfect human being, but he did live in faith. In fact he had a great deal of trust in the Lord, and always repented from his sins, and was willing to humbly learn to do better.
Even so, for many years, it did NOT go well with David. I just want to make sure that no one reading this ever falls prey to the teaching that if life is tough on you, it is automatically because you don’t have enough faith, or you are a bad Christian or something like that. Sometimes, by our own choices, we do make life harder than it needs to be. But sometimes, life is just hard, for no reason that we can understand. Certainly David had a heart for God and a great deal of integrity, and those did not save him from trouble and hardship.
Also, I want to make sure you don’t believe that you can earn favors from God by being righteous, or saying the right words or having the right kind of faith. We live by God’s grace. If we had to earn God’s favor, no one would ever earn anything good. You don’t understand the gospel if you think you can earn blessings by being righteous, or saying the right things, or having the right kind of faith. David was not the only person in the Bible who had great faith, but a difficult life.
I do want to say, however, that David became the great man he was because of his faith. Sometimes things went very well for him and sometimes they didn’t. But how it was going on the outside was not as important to David as the quality of his relationship with the Lord. And because that relationship was more important to David than anything else, God was able to use him in amazing ways, and also to bless David without David thinking he had earned it.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to receive all of life as blessing, whether or not it looks that way outwardly? If we could do that, it wouldn’t matter much to us whether circumstances were good or bad. We would always be experiencing life as blessing. David was getting there.
In chapter 26, David was still in a time of outward difficulty. But we will quickly see that things were very good with his heart. Once more, the Ziphites betrayed David – the same people who almost got him killed in chapter 23:19. They knew where David was, and they told Saul to come and get him. As far as we know, Saul had left David alone since the incident when David spared his life in the cave. But the Ziphites basically tempted Saul to sin. Having betrayed David once, this group of people probably thought that if David were not killed, he would take retribution on them if he had the chance, so they may have been quite urgent and persuasive in trying to get Saul to start hunting David again.
Apparently, David could hardly believe it, so he took a few men on a reconnaissance mission to see if Saul had really started hunting him again. One of the men he brought with him was Abishai. Abishai was one of the sons of David’s sister Zeruiah, which made him David’s nephew. Abishai’s brother Joab became the commander of David’s armies later on. If you remember, among David’s men eventually there were “the Three” who became outstanding warriors, and then “the Thirty” who were also an elite force of great fighters among David’s other men. Here is what it says about Abishai elsewhere:
18 Abishai, Joab’s brother and son of Zeruiah, was leader of the Three. He raised his spear against 300 men and killed them, gaining a reputation among the Three. 19 Was he not more honored than the Three? He became their commander even though he did not become one of the Three. (2 Samuel 23:18-19, HCSB)
Now, for those of you who are Bible geeks, like me, you might find a translation that says Abishai was commander of the thirty, rather than the three. In fact, the translators of the ESV couldn’t make up their minds about this, and older editions read like the HCSB (above) and newer editions have Abishai as commander of the thirty, rather than the three. The problem is that while most ancient texts read like the HCSB (quoted above) two well regarded ancient texts have it the other way, and it seems to make a bit more sense the other way – how could he be chief of the three, if he wasn’t one of the three? This is one of those “major issues” in Bible translation, but of course, it isn’t really that important. What is clear, no matter which way is correct, is that Abishai is one of the greatest warriors alive during David’s lifetime.
Since David was the youngest of ten, it is possible that even though he was technically Abishai’s uncle the two of them might have been basically the same age. It is even possible that Abishai was a little older. They might have spent a lot of time together as boys. At this point, they were both probably in their early or mid-twenties, in the prime of physical power and maybe a little inclined to try something crazy.
The two of them decided to sneak into the heart of Saul’s encampment at night. This was the desert, so the soldiers probably did not have tents. The picture seems to be that Saul chose his sleeping spot, and then the whole army arranged themselves around him, with his bodyguard closest to him and the rest spread around them generally. David and Abishai crept through the entire group of three thousand sleeping men and came to Saul sleeping soundly, along with Abner, the chief of Saul’s bodyguard.
This incident appears somewhat similar to the one in chapter 24. Certainly, the result, and the main point (David sparing Saul) is virtually the same. However, other than that, almost every detail is different. Saul didn’t come alone into a cave where David and his men were waiting. Instead David crept with only one companion into the middle of Saul’s camp. This time it wasn’t Saul almost finding David where he was hiding, it was David finding Saul where he was camped openly. Before, David was passive. This time he initiated the action.
I think that it is no coincidence that this second opportunity to harm Saul was given to David after his interactions with Nabal and Abigail. In chapter 24, we have the record of how David was tested in the cave with Saul, and he passed that test. But with Nabal, he failed. He fully intended to take matters into his own hands regarding Nabal, and was saved from sin only by the wisdom of Abigail. Now, once more, he gets the chance to either take matters into his own hands, or trust the Lord.
It is almost as if the Lord was giving David a chance to see if he really had learned his lesson from the incident with Nabal. It isn’t just a test – obviously, God already knew what was in David’s heart. But David may not have been sure of himself. He may have had times where he thought about the incident with Nabal, and condemned himself, and wished he had behaved differently. The Lord was giving him a second chance, a “do-over.” In the Torah, it says all legal issues must be established by at least two witnesses. Now there were two occasions that “witnessed” David’s commitment to not harm Saul, and to not take matters into his own hands. Those incidents were witnessed by both Saul’s men, and David’s followers also.
Abishai however, did not yet have David’s wisdom. He asked permission to kill Saul with Saul’s own spear. By the way, in one of Abishai’s exploits (recorded elsewhere) he killed three hundred men with a spear in one battle, so he knew how to use that weapon. He’s not just boasting when he says one thrust would do it. It would be all over. The good times could begin. The days of wandering homeless, despised by people around them, in danger all the time, could all be ended by one swift spear thrust. As before, it was a powerful temptation. Who could blame David? In Saul’s mind, anyway, they were enemies. It would be an act of war. It wouldn’t even be David who struck the blow.
But David had learned his lesson thoroughly. He said:
10“As the LORD lives, the LORD will certainly strike him down: either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. 11 However, because of the LORD, I will never lift my hand against the LORD’s anointed. Instead, take the spear and the water jug by his head, and let’s go.” (1Sam 26:10-11, HCSB)
He saw the battle with Goliath as the Lord’s fight. So now he sees the struggle with Saul. It isn’t his own fight at all, really – it is God’s business, and David trusted God to take care of it in His own time and in His own way.
As morning broke, from a safe distance, David called and awakened the camp. He showed them the spear and the water jug he had taken from Saul’s side. David was young and strong, and he had accomplished an amazing, bloodless feat of arms. So he teased Abner, Saul’s commander for a moment. I get the feeling he was rejoicing in what he and Abishai just did. Maybe he was “crowing” just a little bit. But then, once again he respectfully confronted Saul with his wrongdoing. Like Abigail did with David, so David now did with his king, Saul. He showed Saul he was wrong; he reminded him of true righteousness in God’s eyes – but he did it all with respect. You might say that similar to Abigail’s attitude toward David, David was submissive to the authority of Saul, but he was not subservient or a doormat.
Review the history of abuse Saul has heaped on David: He refused to honor his promises to the conqueror of Goliath. He didn’t reward him with money for killing Goliath, like he had promised to do. He initially didn’t allow David to marry his daughter (as he had promised). Then he made David pay a bride price for the privilege, even though he had promised that killing Goliath satisfied the bride price. He sent David on the most dangerous missions against the Philistines. He threw a spear at him, twice. He tried to have him killed. Then after David fled, several times Saul pursued him with thousands of warriors, to try and kill him. Even after David spared his life in the cave, here is Saul again, trying to kill him.
But listen to what David’s biggest complaint about Saul is:
For they have driven me from my home, so I can no longer live among the LORD’s people, and they have said, ‘Go, worship pagan gods.’ 20 Must I die on foreign soil, far from the presence of the LORD? (1 Samuel 26:19-20, NLT)
Saul’s worst offense, in David’s eyes, is that he is cutting him off from the people of God. David can’t go and worship at the sanctuary any more. Remember, things were different before Jesus came. God’s presence was in the sanctuary in a special way, and David was denied access to that. This is his biggest concern.
At the end of the discussion, David showed where his trust is:
23 May the LORD repay every man for his righteousness and his loyalty. I wasn’t willing to lift my hand against the LORD’s anointed, even though the LORD handed you over to me today. 24 Just as I considered your life valuable today, so may the LORD consider my life valuable and rescue me from all trouble.” (1Sam 26:23-24, HCSB)
He didn’t ask Saul to treat him the way he treated Saul. Instead, he declared that he trusted the Lord to treat him with righteousness and love.
Throughout this, Saul seemed to be full of remorse. But he was remorseful last time too, after David spared his life in the cave. David has learned something important from Saul: Remorse is not the same as repentance. Saul let his emotions rage through him uncontrolled. Sometimes he was full of murderous fury; sometimes he was full of regret and sorrow. But the regret and sorrow did not lead to true repentance for Saul – they were just feelings he had sometimes. So, even though Saul invited David to come back with him, David did not do it. Saul was in God’s hands, but David was wise enough not to trust him.
It’s another great story, and I love it just for the daring deeds and passion and trust in God. But what does it mean for us now? What does the Lord want to say to us through this passage today?
When I read this at first, I am tempted to see it as a reason to admire David and Abishai. Here are two deadly warriors who, between just the two of them, can overcome hundreds of enemies at a time. And now, they seem to be showing us that in addition to a capacity for incredible violence on the battlefield, they can move as silently as stalking cats. But verse twelve paints us a different picture. It says that it was the Lord who made this whole incident possible. It was theLord who made a deep sleep fall on the entire army. It wasn’t the skill of David and Abishai. This was an opportunity given by the Lord.
David shows that withholding violence takes more courage than doing something violent. With one violent act, his troubles could have been over. It was much harder – it was a much greater deed – to leave Saul unharmed. I think we can all learn from that. Jesus told us to turn the other cheek. It takes a lot more courage to do that than to take matters into our hands, and protect ourselves. It takes courage not to reply with harsh words or gossip when someone hurts us. It takes courage to not repay hurt with hurt.
As we read the Old Testament especially, I think it is helpful to ask: “Where is Jesus in this text?” Remember, David is sometimes a “type of Christ.” What this means is that God used David at times to show the world what the real Messiah (Jesus) is like – to people who would never get the chance to know Jesus in their earthly life.
This passage does show us a little bit of what Jesus is like. Like David, Jesus is a mighty warrior, forever in the prime of life, full of bravery and wisdom; ultimately and absolutely victorious over his enemies.
David held back from harming Saul, who, without a doubt, deserved to be harmed by David. In the same way Jesus holds back the punishment that we all richly deserve. Jesus told us to love our enemies, to pay back evil with good. David did that very thing. Jesus forgave the people who were crucifying him, even as they did the deed.
Here’s something else that I think is very significant. David did not know at the time that the Lord was using him to show the world what Jesus was like. He didn’t realize how significant his actions were. But because he lived in trust and obedience, many people in his generation, and for a thousand years after, had some idea of what the Messiah was like.
We don’t always know when someone has a chance to see Jesus through us. We can’t always tell when the Lord is doing that. Very often the opportunity comes when we least feel like it. There was a huge temptation for David to act precisely opposite of how Jesus is. So in the same way, it may be in our toughest moments that God uses us to show Jesus to the world.
The other thing that speaks to me here is David’s strong desire to worship God with other believers, his desire to be counted among all God’s people. I think today in the Western world, we sometimes forget how important this is. Through Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives inside of us, so it’s easy to begin to think we don’t need any other Christians to help us. But David had the Holy Spirit, also, and the Spirit caused him to yearn to be in fellowship with God’s people, and to worship with them. Sometimes the way we do church in the Western world is a bit messed up, and it doesn’t really reflect God’s design for church. I have a friend who has several valid criticisms of Evangelicals in America. But my friend takes it too far. He says that he is “in church” whenever he has coffee with fellow Christians, or goes to a barbeque with them, so he doesn’t need to be part of a local church. That is not what scripture says. It is vitally important for believers to be in real community with other believers, and especially to learn the Bible together, worship and pray together, and together renew Jesus’ covenant with us through the Lord’s Supper (Acts 2:42). David understood how important it was to worship with, and be connected to, God’s people.
The essence of following Jesus can be summed up in three words: Trust and Obey. But it is so very important that we keep the concepts in that order. Without trust, all the obedience in the world is only a pointless work of the flesh. And if we truly trust Jesus, we will naturally obey him. The two are deeply connected. Saul shows us a negative example: he did not trust God, and therefore he did not obey him. On the other hand, Jesus obeyed perfectly on our behalf.
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1 SAMUEL #15. 1 SAMUEL 15:10-26
The Old Testament has a lot of value for us in many ways. We can learn from examples, both positive and negative. We can see how God deals with people who live by faith, and with those who don’t. We can receive comfort in God’s promises to his people (and if we trust Jesus, we are his people, those promises are for us). We can learn about God’s standard for holiness.
But we must never forget that the Old Testament is first and foremost about Jesus. The Life, death and resurrection of Jesus are the central concern not only of the New Testament, but also of the Old Testament. Luke describes how Jesus helped his disciples to understand this.
He said to them, “How unwise and slow you are to believe in your hearts all that the prophets have spoken! Didn’t the Messiah have to suffer these things and enter into His glory? ” Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted for them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
Luke 24:25-27
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures
Luke 24:44-45
The Jews divided the Old Testament into two parts: “the Law” or “the book of Moses” which are the first five books of the Bible. The second part was called “the Prophets” and it included not only the books which we call “prophetic” but in fact, all of the other books of the Old Testament. So when the New Testament says “the Law and the Prophets” or “Moses and the Prophets” (as it does in the verses above) it means “the entire Old Testament.”
The purpose of the entire Bible is to help us to know Jesus better and walk with him in faith. So even as we read these Old Testament scriptures, we should be asking, “Holy Spirit, show us Jesus in this part of scripture.”
I think this is particularly important when we come to a section like 1 Samuel 15. We talked about the concerns of Holy War for two messages. Let’s be done with the considerations of Holy War and get to the main point of this passage: the obedience that comes from faith.
Saul disregarded the Lord’s command to utterly destroy the Amalekites. He spared the life of the Amalekite king. Quite possibly he did this because, out of fear for his own head, he wanted his followers as well as foreign armies, to differentiate between royalty and ordinary people. In any case, he disobeyed God’s command in this respect. He also allowed his followers to keep the best livestock alive. When Samuel first confronted Saul about what he had done (or, failed to do) Saul claimed that he saved all the animals for sacrificing to the Lord. He was lying. He got caught in disobeying the Lord’s command, and so he decided in that moment to make up for his failure to obey by making a sacrifice with the captured animals.
Samuel didn’t buy it. He said:
22 “Which does the LORD prefer: obedience or offerings and sacrifices? It is better to obey him than to sacrifice the best sheep to him. 23 Rebellion against him is as bad as witchcraft, and arrogance is as sinful as idolatry. Because you rejected the LORD’s command, he has rejected you as king.” (1 Samuel 15:22-23, GNT)
Saul’s warriors may have been grumbling about pointlessly killing good animals. Even if they weren’t, he may have wanted to appear gracious and become popular by rewarding those who fought with him. There may not be anything wrong with that, except that the Lord clearly commanded otherwise. In fact, Saul himself told Samuel that he failed to kill the animals because he wanted the approval of his men:
24 “Yes, I have sinned,” Saul replied. “I disobeyed the LORD’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of my men and did what they wanted. (1 Samuel 15:24, GNT)
Samuel’s proclamation that obedience is better than sacrifice is a theme repeated throughout both the Old and New Testaments. The Psalms reference this exact concept several times. So does Isaiah, and also Hosea. Jesus mentioned the idea a few times in the New Testament. Even so, we need to be careful as we apply this to our own lives. It is very easy to say, “That’s right. I just need to obey God. We just need to do the right thing. What’s the point of saying we follow God if we don’t obey him?” I understand this attitude. There are in fact times when some people just need to step up and obey what God tells us through the Bible. Some of us ought to stop making excuses, quit fooling around, and get serious about doing what Jesus tells us to do. It’s appropriate for some of us to take this approach at times. But this attitude, if it is applied in the wrong way, can also lead us away from what God is really after. It can tend to make us rely on our own strength and effort in the flesh.
So, first, we need to understand that Jesus fulfilled this passage on our behalf. The writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 40, and says that it is fulfilled in Jesus:
In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” Ps 40:6-8 (ESV)
Jesus delighted in God’s will. He didn’t live according to religious rules – the law of God was within his heart and during his time on earth he lived out that law through dependence upon the Father. He obeyed God perfectly. We cannot obey perfectly. So Jesus did it on our behalf. The obedience we owe God is complete and perfect in Jesus Christ, and only in Him. So when you think, “Oh, I have to obey God, because to obey is better than sacrifice” actually what you should hear is “I need to trust Jesus even more. Trusting him is my obedience, because he has already done the obedience for me.” Jesus even said so:
8 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:28-29, ESV)
I think in the New Testament most of the times it says “believe” it would be more helpfully translated as “trust.” So, trusting is our obedience.
One reason we sometimes get confused is because obedience and trust can sometimes look the same. When you live by faith, it does result in certain actions. It does eliminate other actions. The Bible does use the term “obedience.” But we must remember, it is the obedience of faith – not the obedience of self-effort and religion.
Saul was religious, but had no relationship with God. He claimed that what he did was good, because he was thinking about religious appearances. Saving the animals to sacrifice later was a religious thing. After all, sacrifices were part of Jewish religion. But Saul used this aspect of religion to keep from actually interacting with God, actually listening to him and responding in faith to what God said. Jesus said the Pharisees were religious in this way, also. Instead of listening to what the Lord actually said, they obeyed man made rules and put their trust in their own efforts. Religion keeps track of rules and regulations to follow, instead of living in a real, faith-relationship. The Pharisees obeyed religiously. But, again, they put their trust in man-made rules, and also in their own efforts to keep those rules.
So, what does living in faith look like? Are we supposed to obey, or not? Let me give you a little analogy to help us understand this.
I love spy/suspense shows like the Bourne Identity. Not everything in these shows is entirely righteous, but living in faith, we can find good things in them. Sometimes in shows like this, one of the characters may encounter a bomb that is counting down to an explosion. Picture a scene like this, where the heroine of the story has just a minute or so to defuse a bomb. She doesn’t know how to do it. But she gets on the phone with her superior officer who does. He tells her, “cut the blue wire, but be sure not to cut the red one.” So she carefully cuts the blue wire, but not the red one.
Now what is going on here? Is she obeying her boss, or trusting him? Reflecting on this takes us right to the heart of the matter. Before you read on, think about this for a moment.
She is doing, both, of course. But you see, her actions of obedience proceed from her trust of her chief. She trusts that he knows how to save her. She trusts that if she does what he says, she will be safe. And so, because of that trust, she acts according to what he says – that is, she obeys. She isn’t just doing what her bomb-expert supervisor says because obeying superior officers is the right thing to do. She isn’t doing it from a sense of moral obligation. She is “obeying” him because she trusts that he wants to save her life, and has the power (in this case knowledge) to do so.
You could call it obedience. But I would call it primarily trust. The obedience is a result of the trust. This is so important: we obey because we trust. Sometimes Christians call this “the obedience of faith.”
I want to pursue this analogy a little bit further so let’s return to the time bomb scene. In order to get this kind of trust-obedience, you need several factors. First, the heroine had to believe that her life really was in danger. If she didn’t believe the bomb was real, chances are, she wouldn’t have called her boss anyway. She would not have been seeking to follow his instructions, because she wouldn’t have believed she had any reason to do so. Second, she had to believe that her supervisor had the knowledge that could save her. Third, she had to believe that he wanted to save her.
When we encounter problems with obeying God in our own lives, I think it is usually a combination of these factors at play. Maybe we believe that the situation isn’t really very serious. Although we think obeying God is the right thing, when it comes down to it, we think we’ll be OK even if we don’t. We don’t see his words as life and salvation. So we don’t obey because we don’t believe our problems, or struggles with sin, are really that serious. We aren’t truly convinced that we need saving.
Second, maybe we doubt whether God truly has the answers we need. Perhaps we don’t obey him because we aren’t sure that what he is saying to us is relevant and helpful to us in our own situation. I think this was one of Saul’s major issues. He seemed to feel that God was fine for religious things, but in everyday life, you had to take care of yourself and use your common sense. Saul didn’t seem to think the commands of God had any value in his own situation.
Third, we sometimes don’t obey because we aren’t sure we can trust God. Maybe we aren’t sure if he really has our best interests at heart. This was also part of Saul’s issue. He was insecure about his position as king of Israel, even though God had called him to be king. Saul felt he had to look out for himself; he didn’t trust God to protect or defend him.
Do you see the solution to the obedience problem – no matter what causes it? Faith. In each case, we need to address what we believe; it is essential for us to learn to trust God more deeply. We must accept that our situation is in fact serious – deadly serious, fatally serious – and that we really do need the Lord at the very deepest level. We need to trust that the Lord really does have what it takes to save us, that his words are life. We have to develop the confidence that He is relevant in every moment of our lives. And we ought to rely on the fact that he truly loves us and has our best interests in his heart. I think this last one is where a lot of us struggle. We tend to think that what we want is best, and if there is a conflict between what we want and what the Lord wants for us, our own way is better. We have to abandon that attitude entirely, and place our hope in His goodness and grace.
Peter expressed this attitude of faith. A lot of people had turned away from following, and Jesus was left with just the twelve apostles.
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:66-69)
Peter understood that there was no alternative to Jesus. “Where else would we go? You are the one with the words of eternal life.” That is magnificent trust. He knew he needed help. He didn’t think he could, through his own effort, please God. He trusted that Jesus, and only Jesus, could save him. He actively trusted that God’s way was always best.
The reality is, we all behave according to what we believe to be true. In the past, I’ve mentioned the story of the four minute mile. For decades, no one believed that a person could run a mile in less than four minutes. Then one man began to believe it might be possible. Within six weeks of believing it, he had done it. As soon as he proved it could be done, several others broke the same barrier within a matter of months. A few decades later, hundreds of people had done it. The only thing that changed from before was that people believed it could be done. What I’m trying to say is that if you truly do trust Jesus, your actions will begin to reflect that trust. It might be slow, with fits and starts, but over time, you will act differently. You will obey him because you trust him.
The devil likes to trick us into religion. Do the right thing because it is the right thing. And something in us responds to that. After all, it is the right thing. But it is the wrong path, the wrong way to go about it. This attitude can lead us to trust in our own efforts. We can do the right thing with our own effort – for a while. If we manage it, the devil leads us astray through our pride in our own accomplishments. But most of us fail eventually because it is based upon our efforts, not the obedience that Jesus has already done on our behalf.
Instead, we should do the right thing because we believe we are in desperate need of help, and we trust that only God can help us, and that he really does want the very best for us.
When we fail, the devil likes to beat us up: You just aren’t obedient enough. You just don’t try hard enough. But the problem isn’t effort. The real solution lies intrusting more. Jesus has obeyed perfectly. His righteous obedience has become ours (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our part is to trust. If we do truly trust, then our lives will reflect the kind of actions the Lord desires. But it doesn’t start with our action, it starts with our trust. You see, because Jesus has perfectly obeyed in our place, we can no longer fail at this. The more we truly believe that, the more our behavior reflects it.
So let me put it to you today. Do you trust that your situation is serious? Do you remember that no one gets out of this world without dying? Do you recognize that even handling day to day life is difficult? Do you know that you are in a desperate place, the bomb is about to go off and you can only get help from one place?
Do you trust that the Lord has the right, relevant Word for you? Do you accept that he knows better than you, that he will save you and guide you if you trust him to?
Do you know that he wants to save you and help you? Do you trust his goodness?
And finally, do you accept that Jesus has already obeyed perfectly as a “stand in” for you? In other words, do you trust that you are safe, that you can no longer fail?
Take a moment right now to let the Lord into your thoughts and prayers as you consider these things.
Whether or not we take the command to kill every last Amalekite as literal, and even though these commands are strictly limited to specific historic situations and places, we still have to deal with the fact that God commanded a very violent action against a few Canaanite tribes. This time, we will grapple with the reasons a loving God might give such a command.
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1 SAMUEL #14. 1 SAMUEL 15:1-35 (PART 2)
Last time we considered the topic of Holy War. I suggested that in the rare places when the Bible commands the killing of every man, woman and child, it may not mean that literally. That sort of talk was typical for the ancient middle east, and there are many instances from history, and within the Bible, that helps us to see that it was normal to use such exaggerated language. It is similar to the way we talk of one sports team “obliterating” another.
Having said all that, I don’t think we can say definitively that it is not literal. I could be wrong about it being expressed in cultural idiom. And even if it doesn’t mean the death of literally every last person in the tribes named, it clearly does mean death for a great number of them, and the complete destruction of their cultures. Therefore, literal or not, we need to grapple with this issue. How could a loving God command such violence?
First, God does not answer to us. The questions are natural, but the truth is, God does not owe us an explanation. Our human nature wants God to justify himself toward us. But this is exactly the opposite of the situation the Bible describes. We are accountable for our actions before God, not the other way around. If God indeed made the universe, if he is infinite and we are not, then he has the right to do what he wants.
Not only that, but he may choose to do something that looks terrible to us, and yet, if we only had the knowledge and wisdom he has, we would be able to see that it is actually good and right. In short, God’s ways are often beyond the ability of our limited minds to comprehend.
The third thing to consider is that this is about holiness. Several weeks ago I shared what happens when pure sodium is exposed to water. The sodium explodes and burns up. Pure sodium simply cannot exist in the presence of water. The greatest scientist in the world cannot bring the two things into actual contact without creating spontaneous combustion. In the same way, sin simply cannot exist in the presence of God. So unless there is some kind of intervention, God’s presence will destroy sin. We live after the time of Jesus. Jesus and his sacrifice have eliminated the holiness problem for us, if we trust him. He has made us holy. He took the destruction of sin into himself so we could be spared. But we sometimes forget that without Jesus, God’s holiness is a huge problem for sinful people (which is to say, all people). Sin is so serious and God’s holiness is so pure that if it wasn’t for Jesus every living thing associated with sin would have to be destroyed.
The Israelites, however imperfectly, were living in faith that God’s promises to Abraham and Moses were true, and that God would redeem them from their sins. So the Lord included them in what he was going to do through Jesus. Their faith in God’s promises protected them from the effect of God upon sin. Paul writes to the Romans:
1 So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? 2 Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the spoken words of God. 3 What then? If some did not believe, will their unbelief cancel God’s faithfulness? 4 Absolutely not! God must be true, even if everyone is a liar, as it is written: That You may be justified in Your wordsand triumph when You judge. 5 But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I use a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? 6 Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world? (Rom 3:1-6 )
Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? Absolutely not. His presence destroys sin, whether or not you believe his words. The only salvation is through Jesus Christ, by faith. This was true even for the generations who lived before Jesus came:
We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. (Romans 3:22-26 NLT, emphasis mine)
Everyone in the past who believed God’s promises was included in what God was going to do through Jesus. But in Old Testament times, before Jesus had come, those who rejected God became physical illustrations of how serious God’s holiness is, and how big a problem our sin is. God was showing the world their desperate need for a messiah who could bridge a gap between our sin and God’s holiness.
The fourth thing to consider is that all these people groups were given both a witness to God’s holiness and grace, and an abundance of time to repent and turn to him. All the way back in the time of Abraham, the Lord said this:
13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be foreigners in a land that does not belong to them; they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years. 14 However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions. 15 But you will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. 16 In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” Gen 15:13-16 (emphasis mine)
The Amorites were just one of the cultures that Israel was supposed to drive out or destroy. All of the Canaanite tribes were witnesses to the truth of God through Abraham, Lot, Isaac, and Jacob. They had four hundred years after Jacob to correct their ways. This was while Israel was in Egypt. God was still giving them a chance to repent and live in faith. Then, for forty years, after the Israelites left Egypt the nations in Canaan heard about what God did for his people. They had the chance to repent during that time, also, and a few of them did (Joshua 2:9-15).
The Israelites invaded the Canaanite lands under Joshua. Subsequent generations did not overcome the Canaanite cultures as they were supposed to. During that time, those Canaanite tribes often corrupted the Israelites, and led them away from worshipping the Lord. Even so, as it worked out, the tribes of Canaan had four hundred more years through the time of the Judges to repent and follow the Lord.
I want to make sure this is clear: If anyone in these tribes wanted to repent and serve the Lord, they were welcomed into the people of God. One of king David’s mighty men was a Hittite (one of the Canaanite tribes) who did exactly that. So did other, less famous people.
All told, these cultures had roughly 800 years before the time of Saul to repent and follow God. During all of those centuries, they were witnesses to the truth about God through the Israelites. So it isn’t as if God suddenly woke up one day and said, “ You know, I hate the Amalekites.” Basically, the Canaanite cultures had showed, over the course of those 800 years, that most of them would not live by faith in the Lord, that they would not repent, that they were determined to continue in their sinful, rebellious ways. As such, there was no purpose in giving them more time, and until they were eradicated, they remained a spiritual and military threat to God’s people.
Another reason for this harsh command was that while the Canaanite peoples continued to live in the land next to the people of Israel, the people of God were often led astray. The Israelites were the only people in the whole world who understood about living in faith. They were the people entrusted with the Word of God, as Paul points out in the first Romans passage I quoted above. God could not allow them to be corrupted and lose that truth. If they lost it, the whole world lost it. So the Lord commanded his people to take extreme measures to make sure the world did not lose the truth about faith-relationship with God.
Yet another point is this: the Promised Land was situated at a crossroads of civilizations, and the people who lived there influenced many, many other nations. Trade routes flowed through the land from Africa to Asia and Europe, back from Europe to Asia and Africa, and from Asia to Africa and Europe. It is the meeting place of three continents and two oceans. Whoever lived in this geographical location from the beginning of civilization until the fall of the Roman Empire was in a position to spread ideas, culture and religion to most of the people in the world. In fact, one reason Christianity spread so quickly and influentially is because it began in the Holy Land. It is not coincidence that the three most influential religions in the world – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – all began in the Holy Land. The reasons these three are so widespread is due in part to geography. Even today, Israel is a major epicenter of the world political situation.
Back in the time of Saul, God did not want the depraved, evil practices of the Canaanites to spread around the entire world. The Canaanites engaged in prostitution as a part of worship. They sacrificed their children to false gods in acts of demonic worship, burning the infants alive. They accepted sexual perversions without question, even bestiality. Their religion and culture was like a cancer. It was a cancer situated in a prime spot to spread quickly around the entire world. So God had to take the extreme measure of completely removing the cancer before it metastasized. He did not want traders and travelers carrying these depraved demonic ideas around the world. In Leviticus 18:21-30, the Lord describes some of the vile practices of the Canaanites.
21 “You are not to make any of your children pass through the fire to Molech. Do not profane the name of your God; I am Yahweh. 22 You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable. 23 You are not to have sexual intercourse with any animal, defiling yourself with it; a woman is not to present herself to an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion. 24 “Do not defile yourselves by any of these practices, for the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves by all these things. 25 The land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its sin, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants. 26 But you are to keep My statutes and ordinances. You must not commit any of these detestable things — not the native or the foreigner who lives among you. 27 For the men who were in the land prior to you have committed all these detestable things, and the land has become defiled. 28 If you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it has vomited out the nations that were before you.
We don’t have God’s all knowing perspective. Last time I mentioned how the Allied nations annihilated Germany and Japan, dismantling their economies, and their cultures of brutal conquest. It is possible that one of the Canaanite tribes could have become the Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan of the ancient world. We don’t know what kind of horror might have been unleashed upon the world if these tribes had been allowed to grow and prosper.
Another thing I mentioned previously is that Jesus made it clear that his disciples are not to engage in war to kill his enemies, nor to convert them. Just to make sure, here are some verses that are pretty clear:
52 Then Jesus told him, “Put your sword back in its place because all who take up a sword will perish by a sword. 53 Or do you think that I cannot call on My Father, and He will provide Me at once with more than 12 legions of angels? (Matthew 26:52-53)
49 When those around Him saw what was going to happen, they asked, “Lord, should we strike with the sword? ” 50 Then one of them struck the high priest’s slave and cut off his right ear. 51 But Jesus responded, “No more of this! ” And touching his ear, He healed him. (Luke 22:49-51, HCSB)
36 “My kingdom is not of this world,” said Jesus. “If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. As it is, My kingdom does not have its origin here.” (John 18:36 HCSB)
38 “You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. 40 If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. 41 If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.
43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. (Matthew 5:38-47, NLT)
So if someone ever comes to you and says, “the bible commands holy war, just like the Koran,” you know it is not true. The two are in fact very different. Even in the Old Testament this kind of “holy war” is very rare and limited both geographically and historically. In addition, the New Testament shows us that Jesus completely rejects it. We Christians interpret the entire Bible in the light of Jesus and the New Testament. The teachings of Jesus and his apostles are the lens through which we understand even the Old Testament. So this is absolutely clear: Christians are not to engage in literal warfare to spread the gospel, nor to kill the enemies of the gospel.
But there is still a kind of Holy War for we who have put our faith in Jesus. It isn’t literal warfare. But it is an internal commitment to follow Jesus, even if it means utterly rejecting something in our lives that is holding us back from him. Jesus did command this type of “war”:
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell! Matt 5:29-30 (HCSB)
In many ways, the challenge to obey this is the same as Saul’s challenge. Is there anything this coming year that God wants you to leave entirely up to him? Anything about which he is saying to you, “this belongs to me – all of it. And it all belongs to me alone. It is time to give it up.”
Maybe you like to drink sometimes. Drinking moderately – drinking without getting buzzed/tipsy or drunk – is something that the Bible does not condemn. But maybe in your own personal relationship with the Lord, alcohol is a hindrance. Maybe you can’t drink without getting a buzz. Maybe it is costing you too much money. Maybe it is something you find comfort in instead of seeking God. It could be that the Lord is calling you to stop consuming all alcohol. Maybe that feels radical. But the Lord may be calling you to that kind of radical obedience.
Maybe it is a friendship or relationship. I’m not talking about marriage now, but maybe you are dating someone that the Lord is asking you to break up with. Or maybe you are hanging out with friends who are actually a hindrance to you growing in your faith. I am not saying you should cut off all contact with them. But I am saying that sometimes the Lord calls us to obey him radically in that kind of situation, so radically that he does ask us to do those sorts of things. So, ask him, and pay attention.
God is compassionate and gracious. But this scripture reminds us that he also calls us to a life of radical obedience. It reminds us that he does not want anything to get between us and him. We might not understand immediately why we have to take such a drastic step, but we can trust that his reasons are good, even when we don’t understand. Let him speak to you right now.
David shows us what it looks like to have a life that is fully centered on the Lord, and on the love, security and joy that we can find only in Him.
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PSALMS #4. PSALM 16:1-11
Once again, I want us to begin by letting this psalm engage us at the level of heart and soul. Stop, and pray, and ask the Lord to engage your spirit and emotions as you read this psalm. Now read it. I have formatted it below to try and show the poetic parallels.
PSALM 16: A MIKTAM OF DAVID.
1 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
3 As for the saints in the land,
they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.
4 The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
5 The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
7 I bless the LORD
who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I have set the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
11 You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
This psalm is a song of praise, and also a declaration of trust in the Lord. It is attributed to David, and the apostle Peter also confirms that David wrote it (more on that below). The very first line is “Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.” I don’t think this means that David is in trouble when he writes this psalm – the rest of it, for the most part is joyful and peaceful. But it is a declaration of trust. David is announcing that his security is in God, not in any earthly thing. The remainder of the psalm makes this quite clear. He declares his full allegiance to God: “You alone are my Lord.”
David also says, “I have no good apart from you.” I don’t think David means that his life is so terrible that he has nothing good going on except God. Instead, what he means is that every good thing he has in life comes through the hands of God, and is a gift from God. Every good thing in his life has only one source: God. This reminds me of something written by James:
16 So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.
(James 1:16-17, NLT)
Among the gifts to enjoy for those who love God are other people who also love God. That’s the point of verse three. David delights in those who, like him, have God as their greatest treasure. Verse four gives us a contrast: if we learn to love God himself as our greatest treasure, and we treasure others who do so, we find that we do not want to participate with those who are pursuing other things. We may be friends with such people, and even love them, but we do not go the way they are going, or pursue the things they pursue.
However, I don’t think we should miss the main point David is making: the greatest treasure is God himself, not his gifts. He demonstrates this again in verse five. Let’s start with the idea of “cup,” as David means it here. In the Bible, sometimes the word “cup” is used in a metaphysical way. In psalm 23, David says, in a way similar to here: “my cup overflows.” At other times, the prophets speak about the “cup of God’s wrath.” When James and John ask Jesus for a special position in the Kingdom of God, Jesus asks: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” So, used as it is in psalm sixteen, the cup means: “the present and future that God has planned for me.” David is saying: I choose the cup that God offers me. I will drink in the life that he gives me, including all the blessings he chooses to give, and all the hardship that he allows. As it turned out, David’s life included both many hardships and many blessings. His life was very full, and almost never boring.
David also uses three key terms: portion, lot, and boundary lines. When the people of Israel came into the land of Canaan, God, through Moses, gave careful instructions about how the land was to be divided up between the tribes, and clans and families of Israel. Portions, lots, and boundary lines all refer to the dividing, and inheritance, of the land. In those days, in that part of the world, virtually all wealth came from land. Land allowed you to grow grain and pasture animals, so that you had enough to eat. It was security. It was sacred. Someone without land had nothing. Land-inheritance was a sacred right for Israelites; the land was given to them, and their families, in perpetuity, by God himself.
Now, David writes that he finds his inheritance beautiful. That could mean he is delighted with his ancestral lands. However, the way he puts it makes me think that he is saying something that would be shocking to those who first heard it. He says first: “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.” I think he is saying, “rather than my ancestral land, I choose the Lord. I choose him even above my land. He is the inheritance I want, and He is beautiful. He is everything I want and need.”
This fits with the psalm as a whole. To understand how shocking this sentiment is, imagine someone who inherits a sizable amount of money from his or her parents. With diligent management, that money will provide a lifelong income for this person. But that person says: “Forget the money. All I want is the Lord. He is worth more to me than my inheritance. I choose Him as my inheritance.”
David goes on to bless the Lord for counsel. God directs him, and gives him wisdom. It seems to me that is a wisdom that comes through the head, and thinking. I find it interesting that he adds: “In the night also, my heart instructs me.” He had an instinctive awareness that God speaks to us through our hearts, as well as our heads. This is part of his joyful experience of following the Lord: the Lord speaks to his head, and to his heart.
Again in verse eight he declares that his faith gives him more security than land, or anything else on earth. He once more proclaims his delight in God’s presence with him. He has chosen God above all else, and this means that his greatest treasure cannot be taken from him. He rejoices in God with everything within himself.
The last three verses are very interesting. From David’s perspective, it looks like, because of his faith in God, he is not afraid to die. The writers of the New Testament saw this part of the psalm as a prophecy about Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus. In the book of Acts, after the Holy Spirit was poured on the apostles and the group of close disciples, the apostle Peter preached a sermon. He explained what was happening with the Holy Spirit being poured out on the believers, and then he spoke about the resurrection of Jesus. He quoted directly from this psalm, psalm sixteen, and after quoting it, he said:
29 “My friends, I must speak to you plainly about our famous ancestor King David. He died and was buried, and his grave is here with us to this very day. 30 He was a prophet, and he knew what God had promised him: God had made a vow that he would make one of David’s descendants a king, just as David was. 31 David saw what God was going to do in the future, and so he spoke about the resurrection of the Messiah when he said, ‘He was not abandoned in the world of the dead; his body did not rot in the grave.’ 32 God has raised this very Jesus from death, and we are all witnesses to this fact. 33 He has been raised to the right side of God, his Father, and has received from him the Holy Spirit, as he had promised. What you now see and hear is his gift that he has poured out on us.
(Acts 2:29-33, GNT)
So what does all this mean for us?
I think David is a model for us. He shows us the joy, comfort and security we have when we choose the Lord above all else. The best this world can offer us is only temporary joy, temporary pleasure, temporary security. But when our deepest treasure is God, we can be joyful and secure even when things are not great in our outward circumstances. He writes:
8 I have set the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
As it turned out for David, this was an extremely important lesson, one that he must have relied on again and again during the many occasions when his life was in danger, and he had nothing to his name. He writes that because the Lord is at his right hand, he shall not be shaken. Well, we know that his circumstances were shaken again and again. But he was not shaken, because everything he really wanted and needed he had in the Lord.
Something else is worth remembering here. David is saying that his entire life is centered around the Lord. As we think about this we should remember that David was not a priest, nor was he any kind of full time minister for his vocation. David felt this way about the Lord, and arranged his life around his relationship with the Lord, and he kept up that heartfelt attitude to the Lord in the midst of “ordinary life.” He didn’t retire to a monastery (those hadn’t yet been invented). We know that David loved to worship with others who loved the Lord, and he did so joyfully whenever he had the chance. But his life was spent mostly as a warrior, and a king (and also a short gig as a professional musician).
As I just mentioned, for a time he was a professional musician for King Saul. He also engaged in military maneuvers, and in battles. He spent many years actively running for his life from other military units. Later, he became a king, and he had to have meetings with advisors, and engage in formal ceremonies, and do a lot of administration. In short, he always had a “secular job.” He wasn’t just sitting around praying, and contemplating God. And yet, whatever he was doing (with the exception of one or two horrible sins) he did with an awareness of God’s presence, and a desire to be used by God. He was a full-time God lover in all that he did.
I think this is a very important point. Sometimes, we compartmentalize our faith. On Sundays, we get encouraged in faith, and we seriously think about the role of the Lord in our life. But it’s easy to forget the presence of God in the middle of a phone call with a superior who is blaming you to cover her own mistakes. It’s easy to forget that we can be secure in the Lord when we’ve just been laid off, or when someone we love tells us that they are angry with us. It’s also easy to forget our Lord when we are kicking back with our friends and some cold beverages.
But the kind of faith that we read about in the Bible is meant to be for every day, and every situation. We are followers of Jesus (who is the Lord) at all times: at work, with our families, and when we are relaxing, or with friends. David understood, and rejoiced, that faith is a way of life. We don’t merely “practice it” on Sunday mornings, or whenever we happen to remember. It is full time. David shows us that anyone, no matter what their circumstances can live a life that is centered on the Lord.
I also think it is really important to connect with David’s word: “Apart from you, I have no good thing.” This doesn’t mean that the only good in the world comes through Christians, or things created by Christians; that is not remotely what it says. But it does mean that every bit of true joy we’ve ever had was originated by God, and brought to us by God, whether we know it or not. Paul, preaching a sermon in the town of Lystra, said this:
We are here to announce the Good News, to turn you away from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them. 16 In the past he allowed all people to go their own way. 17 But he has always given evidence of his existence by the good things he does: he gives you rain from heaven and crops at the right times; he gives you food and fills your hearts with happiness.”
(Acts 14:15-17, GNT)
All good things come originally from God, and we can and should receive them as such. I receive a lot of music as goodness from God, even when I know the musicians don’t believe in Him. He exists, and he is kind to us, and sometimes uses us to bless others, whether we believe it or not. The same is true of many books I read. It is true in the company of the people we love, and in awe-inspiring encounters with nature. These moments of joy, happiness and goodness are hints of what life is like in the full presence of God. Right now, our sin prevents us from experiencing more, but we are promised the fullness of God’s joy in the New Creation. I think that is what David means when he writes:
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11, ESV)
I think it is good for us to learn to recognize the goodness of God in every moment of joy and happiness we experience. The more we do so, the more we will start to feel the way David feels, as expressed in this psalm. It is easier to love God, and choose him above all else, when we realize how wonderful he is, and how kind he has been to us. This is not something we can do just once. I think the key is to develop a habit of gratitude, and a habit of recognizing the hand of God in everything around us.
We generally evaluate any historical event by three main types of evidence: documents, historical studies, and after-effects. By these three standards, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is as plausible as anything else we think we “know” about the ancient world.
What might be the “after effects” of the resurrection on you, personally?
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Resurrection Sunday 2023. Acts 26:22-29
I’m going to use a slightly unusual text for Resurrection Sunday this year. Let’s set it up:
After three different missionary endeavours, Paul journeyed to Jerusalem, because he believed God was leading him there. Once there, Jews from the province of Asia recognized him and began to cause trouble. Some people tried to kill him. Others started riots in protest of his presence. The Romans, never very worried about getting the responsible party, arrested him for causing trouble.
Paul says that the sticking point, the reason people were so angry with him, is because he believes in the resurrection of the dead (Acts 24:17-21). In fact, this is true in almost all of the opposition that the apostles faced. In virtually every sermon in the book of Acts, you find that the main point the apostles make is that Jesus rose from the dead, fulfilling the scriptures, and proving his claims to be the messiah, the divine God-man. Most of the persecutions they faced came about because of that claim, as did Paul’s in our text today.
The Romans kept Paul in prison. Some time later, a new Roman governor, named Festus, was visiting King Agrippa (a descendant of King Herod). They invited Paul to speak to them. Paul told his story, and then ended like this:
22 To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: 23that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.” 24 And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.” 25 But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. 26 For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. 27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”
28 And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?”
29 And Paul said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.” Acts 26:22-29
It is Paul’s claim that Jesus rose from the dead that provoked governor Festus to shout: “You are out of your mind!” But Paul’s response is very interesting. He says, “on the contrary, I am speaking true and rational words.” He then appeals to King Agrippa, who has spent his entire life in Judea. Agrippa knows the facts of the life and death of Jesus, and Paul appeals to him on the basis of those facts, and also what he knows of the Old Testament.
This is one of the several important things that make Christianity different from every other religion. In the first place, it is rooted in actual history. It names government officials, and locations, and other historical events. It refers to true aspects of life at that time in history. The stories of Jesus do not read like myths and legends, and in fact, they are not. The gospels and Acts are historical documents that can be placed in real historical time, and in a real geographical place, with known historical figures. There are other ancient documents which (though not as well preserved as the New Testament) attest to many of the same events and people. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus was born just a few years after the crucifixion of Jesus, and he treats that event as well-known history during his lifetime. The Roman court historian Tacitus, alive near the same period, also records many of the same events and several people referenced in the gospels and Acts. Archaeologists have continually affirmed that the New Testament accurately describes the world of the First Century Roman empire.
As Paul says to king Agrippa: “You are familiar with the events I am talking about.” These are not myths, they are actual happenings. As he says: “these things were not done in a corner.” The facts and the situations, and the people were known by many people who were alive at the time, and those people also left a lot of documentary evidence of these things for future generations.
The claims of Christianity might be true, or they might be false, but they are not irrational. They are not made-up legends or “magic” stories like those we tell children sometimes. I want us to spend a little time evaluating the historical evidence for the resurrection, looking at the facts that Paul said were well known.
Before we get into it, however, I want to point out that there is no historical event at all that can be proved the way certain things can be proved in laboratories. For instance, you can prove beyond doubt that water boils at one-hundred degrees Celsius at sea level. But historical events are not experiments in which we control variables and repeat over and over again. We believe in certain historical events based upon evidence, and for most of history the main kinds of evidence come from documents, historical studies (including archaeology), and after-effects.
Let’s take the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln as an example. We cannot go to a laboratory and prove that it happened. But there are documents that claim that it did happen. Those documents contain the testimony of some people who say they were there to see it. The documents appear to genuinely belong to the same period in history as they claim to. Compared to other documents that also come from the same time, the use of language is similar. Some of the same people are named elsewhere, by other sources. Documents are the main source of our information about Lincoln’s death.
In addition, there are historical studies. In the case of Lincoln, Ford Theater, the place where he was shot, has been preserved, as has the building across the street where he was taken immediately afterwards. The fact that these buildings are there doesn’t prove that Lincoln was shot there, but it lends credence to the story. Historians know generally about the weapons, culture, and procedures of that time, and the documents describe such things as they would if they were genuine. In other words, there is a great deal of consistency between what we know about that time in history, and the documents that describe Lincoln’s death.
Finally, we see the after-effects (from documents and historical studies) of the event. Immediately after the time Lincoln was allegedly shot, Andrew Johnson became the new President. Lincoln was not seen in public after that time. There is a burial site with his name on it. Mary Todd Lincoln lived like a widow afterwards.
I don’t think anyone seriously doubts that Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth in Ford theater, and died on April 15, 1865. It may surprise you, however to know that we have exactly the same kind of evidence, and quality of evidence, for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as we do for the death of Abraham Lincoln.
As with Lincoln, our primary evidence is from documents – specifically the New Testament. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: The New Testament is the best preserved, most thoroughly tested and vetted historical document of its time. The evidence that the New Testament is what it claims to be is many orders of magnitudebetter than evidence for any other ancient document. If you believe anything at all about the ancient world – say, for instance, that Julius Caesar was a real person, or that the Romans held circuses – then you should also believe what the New Testament says. If you haven’t been around to hear me talk about how we know that the New Testament is so reliable, I can point you to my speaking and writing on that subject, and I am certainly not the only one who talks about this.
Next, historical studies lead us to accept what we find in the New Testament. Pontius Pilate was truly the Roman governor of Judea. The Romans later abandoned the practice of crucifixion as too cruel, but we know that they were still doing it during the time described by the Bible. Even today, you can go stand in the places described by the New Testament.
Finally, we have the after effects of the resurrection. Something surely happened back then. The resurrection started a movement that has literally and profoundly changed the history of the world. It changed the way people think and live. You can trace the emergence of hospitals, universities, science, and even modern democracy back to the movement that began when Jesus rose from the dead.
Let’s look briefly at the substance of the claim that Paul was making to governor Festus and King Agrippa:
First, that Jesus was, in fact, physically dead. This is not described as a coma, but as complete death. The Roman soldiers saw and testified that he was dead (John 19:33; Mark 15:44-45). John describes a physical phenomenon in John 19:34. He writes: “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and at once blood and water came out.” Crucifixion is essentially death by slow drowning in body fluids. As the pain in Jesus’ arms and feet became too intense, he would be physically unable to raise himself into a position where he could breathe properly. Body fluids would begin to collect around his lungs and heart, eventually either making it impossible for him to breathe, or putting so much pressure on his heart that it would stop. So when the soldier plunged the spear into the side of Jesus, from below, the spear would penetrate areas of the body where those fluids had collected. John saw not only blood, but a clear body fluid he describes as “water.” This is entirely consistent with death by crucifixion. Only one who had seen such a thing would have described it like that.
Some people have protested that the primitive Jews and Romans did not have our modern medical knowledge, and so they thought Jesus was dead, but he was really just in a coma. Therefore, he was not “resurrected,” but rather, just recovered from a coma. But there are two problems with this idea. First, the people in those days saw dead bodies first hand far more often than we do. Ordinary people saw death all the time, and certainly Roman soldiers saw it even more. It is in our modern world that we don’t know what it really looks like unless we are medical professionals. Second, if Jesus was in a coma, consider this: He was brutally beaten and whipped, twice, and then crucified. He was also stabbed in the torso, and given no medical treatment for any of it. Then he was tightly wrapped in burial cloths, in a way that might suffocate an ordinary, healthy person. Then he was placed in a tomb which was then sealed in such a way that two grown women could not open it. After two days, Jesus unwrapped himself, rolled away the huge stone and went walking all over the countryside; in fact, the day he left the tomb he covered at least fourteen miles. No, the coma story requires a miracle just as much as the resurrection.
Next, that Jesus was physically raised. In other words, he wasn’t a ghost. Jesus was physically present on earth after his resurrection. His body was definitely different than an un-resurrected body, since he could go through locked doors (John 20:26) and disappear from visual perception (Luke 24:31). Even so, the New Testament says he ate (Luke 24:41-42), he touched people (John 20:27-29) and his breath could be felt (John 20:22). He said to them:
“Why are you troubled?” He asked them. “And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I, myself! Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” (Luke 24:38-39)
Finally, that both the death and resurrection were predicted by the Old Testament scriptures, and by Jesus himself (look at Isaiah 53 sometime).
Considering the evidence that he was dead, and the claim that he later physically rose from death, we need to ask ourselves: “If he was not raised from death, what are the alternatives?” Remember, we know, from extensive scholarly research the Bible was not edited or changed later; these texts were written not long after the actual events, and they haven’t been changed since they were first written.
One possibility is that the disciples made up the story. This, of course, is what the Jewish and Roman authorities said at the time. But there are some big problems with this. The Romans would often let the dead bodies of crucified criminals hang for a few days after death, as an example for the living to submit to Rome. In this case, they took the bodies down (there were two others, besides Jesus) in order to placate the Jews, since it was during a special festival. But once the disciples started talking about Jesus being resurrected, all the authorities had to do was go get the body and display it outside Jerusalem for all to see. That would not have been an uncommon practice. That would have certainly shut the disciples up quickly, and ended the story. But the authorities didn’t do that. Obviously, they could not produce the body.
So then the next question is, since the officials didn’t produce the body in order to silence the disciples, what happened to the body?
Possibility 1: Since the officials didn’t have the body, the disciples must have stolen it. There are several problems with this. First, these are the same disciples that ran away when Jesus was arrested; they deserted him while he was still alive. Are we to believe that now, after he’s dead, they’ve suddenly found courage to attack the soldiers guarding his tomb and then take his body?
Second, supposing they did somehow become transformed from cowardice to courage, and they fought the guards, or snuck around them, and stole the body. Next, they come back to Jerusalem and start preaching that Jesus is alive. They are brutally whipped for it – and remember, if they stole the body, they know they are suffering for a lie. Then some of them get imprisoned, and then even killed – all the while knowing that they are dying for a lie. If it was a lie, they got nothing from it – no riches, no power, no influence in their own lifetime, no revenge – nothing positive in their lifetimes, and a great deal of suffering instead. Why in the world would they sacrifice so much for no possible gain, and in fact, end up persecuted and dead for the sake of something they know is false? Of course, the answer is, they wouldn’t. So obviously, the disciples didn’t steal the body.
Possibility 2: The body was misplaced. This is the least likely of all alternatives. All four gospels clearly state that a Jewish leader named Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, which he placed in his own tomb (Matthew 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42). Joseph is described as a member of the Sanhedrin – that is, part of the Jewish ruling council that ultimately condemned Jesus to death. The first three gospels all explicitly state that several of the women who followed Jesus went with Joseph to see where Jesus was placed. John implies that same thing in 20:1. So all three interested parties know how to locate the body: The disciples; the Jewish authorities; and the Roman authorities. Pilate knows that Joseph of Arimathea asked for it. And Joseph isn’t some anonymous peasant – he is a Jewish ruler, and Pilate would know how to lay hands on him and find out where the body was placed, if he needed to. The Jewish leaders knew Joseph because he was one of them. In fact, Matthew records that the Jewish leaders went to Pilate and asked him for soldiers to guard the tomb to prevent the disciples from stealing the body. Pilate granted their request, and there seemed to be no confusion about which tomb it was placed in (Matthew 27:62-65).
On the other hand, there is positive evidence for the resurrection. There is, of course, the documentary record, the New Testament. The New Testament claims there were over five-hundred eye-witnesses who saw Jesus alive after he died (1 Corinthians 15:6). When Paul writes about those five-hundred witnesses, he says, “most of these are still alive.” In other words people could talk to them, and see for themselves if Paul had the story straight. This is Paul’s point to King Agrippa as well. He saying: “You know about this stuff. It didn’t happen in secret. There are still people you could talk to, who remember it personally.”
Once again, some of the evidence in favor of the resurrection is the after effect. There is the amazing transformation of the disciples from cowards to heroic martyrs. In addition, the resurrection of Jesus has continued to transform lives so much that it has affected the entire course of world history. I have already mentioned our learning, our knowledge, our hospitals, universities. There is also the exploration of the world, even our system of dating history – all of these sprang originally from Christianity and the Christian church, which, of course came about because of the resurrection. In addition, local churches and charities have made a difference all around the world for two thousand years. Something happened back then that resulted in a movement that changed history, and all the evidence is consistent with the idea that Jesus physically rose from the dead, giving people the courage to live for something beyond this life.
If Jesus’ resurrection changed the course of history, how might it change the course of your life? What difference does it make to you? Well, of course, it means that the claims and teachings of Jesus are true. He claimed not only to be human, but also to be God living in human form. If he wasn’t raised, we don’t need to worry about that claim. But if he was, we need to pay attention to him. That gives us a starting point, and that’s what makes it so important for us to read the Bible, to find out what his teachings are.
In the first place, Jesus said that his mission was to remove the obstacles between us and God. We are self-centered, and we consistently choose our own desires over those of God. When we do this, we are worshipping ourselves in the place of God. This is sin, and obviously, it creates a problem. But Jesus came, and died, precisely to reconcile us to God:
6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. (Romans 5:6-11, NLT)
Jesus calls us to find peace and rest by reorienting our lives around him:
28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, NLT)
We live in a different way because of Jesus, and because he will share his resurrection life with us:
1 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. 3 The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit. 5 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. 6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. 7 For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. 8 That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. 9 But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. (Romans 8:1-11, NLT)
Because Jesus rose from the dead, I have an unshakeable eternal hope. I’m old enough to feel the truth that no one gets out of this life alive. Last year a friend of our family, just forty-years old, died of cancer. Last month we lost two extended family members. We will all follow, someday. And within a generation or two, anyone who ever knew us will also be dead. Everything, all the struggle, all the work to build something good, all of it is pointless…unless there is something more. Jesus’ resurrection gives us a solid foundation to hope for more. His resurrection shows us that there is more to life than just this life we have right now. I can sacrifice and build for a future that I won’t be here to see, because, through Jesus, I actually do have a future that extends beyond my death. I can be at peace, because the very worst that anyone might do to me is to kill me, which only means my resurrection is nearer.
The psalms invite us into fellowship with Jesus in every conceivable frame of mind, state of heart, and situation in life.
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PSALMS: INTRODUCTION
Today we will begin a new sermon series on the book of psalms. My goal is to have these sermons continuously available, so you might be reading this years after I wrote it. In my present time, however, I have just finished a sermon series on the book of 1 Peter. It took us 33 sermons to cover the five chapters in that book, or approximately 6.6 sermons per chapter. There are 150 chapters in the book of psalms. If we go at the same rate as we did for 1 Peter, it will take us 19 years to finish the psalms – and that’s if I never miss a single week!
Thankfully, I am planning to approach the psalms a little bit differently. In the first place, I will not preach a sermon on every single psalm. Secondly, there is a large difference between the genre of Psalms and the genre of 1 Peter. 1 Peter is an epistle, and it aims to teach us truth that applies to Jesus Christ in a straightforward, and theologically dense way, which means there is a great deal of meaning packed into every phrase and verse.
The book of Psalms is something else entirely. We will begin this time by considering what it is, and what that means for how we should read the psalms.
Let’s start with the name. “Psalm” is basically a Greek word that is a translation of a Hebrew word that means “song,” or “poem.” There are two other Hebrew words associated with the book of Psalms: one means “prayers,” and the other means, “praises.” The book of psalms, then, is a collection of songs and poems that have been used for many centuries by God’s people for prayer and praise. To reiterate: a psalm is a song or poem.
In a book like 1 Peter, each verse and chapter builds upon what was written before. If you read chapter three without reading chapter two, you will not fully understand what Peter intends to say. In the psalms, however, each “chapter” is actually a self-contained unit. This makes Psalms one of the only books in the Bible where it doesn’t really matter if you read it in order. You don’t need to read psalm 22 in order to understand psalm 23. You could flip to almost any chapter in the book of psalms and find it meaningful without reading the preceding chapters.
There are just a few exceptions to this. It appears that psalms 1-2 are meant to go with each other. It is likely that is also true of psalms 9-10 and also, perhaps, psalms 42-43. The reason for this is that although scholars can be confident about the content of the book of psalms, there has been some confusion, in just a few places, about how, exactly, it is to be divided into separate psalms.
Also, because we are talking about poetry, we won’t necessarily be analyzing each verse the way we do when we look at a letter, or the teaching of Jesus. In general, the best way to approach a psalm is to look at the entire thing, paying attention to the overall emotion and message. There are, however, a few psalms that are too long to do that with. In fact, the longest single chapter in the Bible is psalm 119. I guess we’ll see how it goes as we proceed, but the way we approach the psalms should be somewhat different from how we look at other parts of the Bible.
A quick word about how we talk about the book. The book overall is called “Psalms.” When we talk about a single chapter, however, we are speaking about a single psalm. So I might say “the book of Psalms.” But, about one single chapter I would say: “psalm 10 (no ‘s’).” Again, this is a reflection of the fact that normally, each chapter is its own, self contained poem or song (psalm).
Speaking of poems, at first glance, the psalms don’t appear to be very, well, poetic. This is because Hebrew poetry is a bit different than what we call poetry in English. In English, poetry often has rhyme. Even when it doesn’t, it still usually has meter – in other words, a poem conforms to certain rules about how many syllables should occur in each line of the poem. So there is a kind of obvious rhythm to most English poems. There is also a kind of English poetry called “free verse,” which has basically no rules.
Hebrew poetry – the poetry of the psalms – does not normally use rhyme, rhythm, or meter. Unlike “free verse,” however, It does have a typical form, and that is parallelism. In Hebrew poetry this means that ideas are set up “in parallel.” A parallel consists of the same idea that has already been written, but is now re-stated in a slightly different way. Just as in geometry, you can have a virtually unlimited number of parallel lines, so in Hebrew poetry, parallels might come in groups of two, or three, or even more. There is an almost infinite number of ways to combine parallels. They might be set up to repeat an idea, or to contrast other ideas, or to play off one another, or to highlight certain thoughts.
For an example of one kind of parallelism, look at Psalm 43:1
Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me! (ESV)
In the ESV, this is formatted to help us see the four parallel thoughts. The first line, “vindicate me and defend my cause” is parallel to the fourth line, “deliver me.” They are two different ways of expressing the desire of the writer, and he puts them in parallel. The second line: “Against an ungodly people” is in parallel with the third line “from the deceitful and unjust man.”
You can also see that these parallels are organized into a structure with an “outside” parallel (vindicate me/deliver me) containing an “inside parallel” (ungodly people/unjust man). To map it out in an overly simple way, the structure looks like this:
First thought: Help me O God!
Second thought: save me from ungodly people
Second thought in parallel: save me from ungodly people
First thought in parallel: Help me, O God!
But of course, the poet uses more interesting words and expressions to express these parallel thoughts. Besides being ingenious and beautiful, this particular poetic expression has a way of highlighting what is most important. God’s vindication or deliverance are the first and last thought; the ungodly people, though a problem, are contained within thoughts about God’s salvation. In other words, the main point is the writer is praying for God’s help. Though he is in trouble, his main focus is not on his problem, but on God’s help.
By the way, I didn’t spend a lot of time looking for a verse to help me demonstrate this. My Bible app was bookmarked to Psalm 43, and I just picked the very first verse to show us how Hebrew “parallel poetry” works. It’s all over the psalms, though it has many different types of configurations. We’ll consider those different configurations when we encounter them in the psalms that we study.
By the way, when it comes to the psalms, I think it pays to be picky about the Bible translation you use. Not all of them capture the beauty and poetry of the psalms equally well. For instance, I checked a few other English versions, and they did not really capture the inside/outside parallelism I just described for Psalm 43:1. To make sure, I double checked the Hebrew, and the ESV did indeed portray it as it was originally written. Other English translations changed the word order to make it easier to read, but then they lost the underlying structure of the poetry.
By the way, though I know just enough Greek to be dangerous, I am basically incompetent with Hebrew. However, I have been trained in how to use various tools designed for incompetents like me, and so I know how to find the information we need when it comes to that language.
Now, at this point, I know that some of you are thinking, “I’m sorry Tom, but I’m not going to spend hours analyzing ancient Hebrew poetry.” Don’t worry, you won’t have to. But I want you to start with the psalms by understanding that, in fact, they are made out of a very intricate, complex and beautiful poetry. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the psalms contain some of the world’s greatest literature of all time.
If you want to, you can spend time analyzing the parallels, but you don’t need to do that in order to appreciate the psalms. The biggest thing is to understand that the psalms are expressed in poetic, emotional language. Enter into the thoughts and feelings that are expressed here. Let them move you. If you find you are not being moved, try a different Bible translation.
On the other hand, if, with any given psalm, you are having trouble understanding what the poet is trying to say, you might want to try to see the parallels he uses, and how he groups them. For that, you probably want a version like the ESV.
I say “he” about the poet, because in every instance where we know who wrote a given psalm, it was a man. However, there are many psalms for which we don’t know the author, and some of those could have been written by women.
So, for those we know about, who did write these psalms? A number of them say, in Hebrew “of David.” In some cases, it is almost certain that King David himself wrote them. He was definitely a poet and musician, and a couple of these same psalms also appear in 1-2 Samuel. In other cases, “of David” might mean something like “in the tradition of David.” The same is true for the psalms attributed to Asaph, or the Sons of Korah. It could mean that they were written by those actual people, or that they were written in the tradition and style of those people, or, more likely, sometimes the first, and in other cases, the second. One psalm says it is “Of Moses” but it isn’t clear whether Moses himself wrote it, or it is about Moses, or in the tradition of Moses.
Generally most of the psalms were probably written during a six hundred-year period, going from the time of David in 1000 B.C. until after the time the people of Judah returned from exile in Babylon, around 400’s B.C.. It is likely that many of the older psalms were well known and used in worship by the people of Israel for many centuries.
Some time after the return from exile, in the 400’s B.C., prophets and priests organized the psalms into the order that we now find them. They gathered them into five “books,” which were probably originally, five scrolls with the psalms divided up between them. Certainly, having them all together would have made for a large scroll that would be difficult to use, so it makes sense that they would be divided up into smaller scrolls. Most Bibles indicate these book divisions somehow, usually just by a bold heading saying “Book II” and “Book III” and so on. Also, If you pay attention, you will notice that the last psalm at the end of each book contains a kind of blessing that uses words like: “Blessed be the Lord forever! Amen!” or something similar, and then some other phrases.
It appears that someone (probably a group of people) deliberately organized the psalms within the five scrolls into a certain order. The majority of psalms of lament, and cries for help, are within the first two and a half books. The majority of the psalms of praise and thanksgiving are found in the latter half of the collection.
There are several different types of psalms. Some of them are laments. A lament is an expression of pain and grief, or a cry for help and deliverance, or a cry for God to punish enemies. Others are psalms of praise, which I think is pretty straightforward. There are wisdom psalms, which are poems primarily written to teach us something. There are psalms that seem to be intended for specific worship occasions – some of which are, even today, typically used during the Jewish festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles (Sukkoth). And there are several psalms that seem to be focused on Israel’s king.
When I preached through Matthew a few years ago, during part of that time I happened to be re-reading the psalms for my daily devotional. I was deeply impressed to realize that Jesus quoted from the psalms constantly. Sometimes, he used direct quotes. Other times, he just used the language of the psalms to express something he was saying, without declaring it as a quote. Since Jesus clearly loved this book, and it was in his heart, it is well worth studying.
Therefore, the very first way we interpret the psalms is to remember that they reveal Jesus to us. Sometimes, they show us his character, what he is like. Sometimes, they remind us what he has suffered for us, and a few of them even prophesy about his sufferings, or prophesy other things about his life. In other places, the psalms show us the types of things Jesus does for us. Many of them can be used to praise Jesus. So, first and foremost, as you read the psalms, ask yourself: Where is Jesus in this psalm? You might be surprised and delighted as the Holy Spirit shows you.
The psalms are also a tool for prayer. Sometimes I simply read a psalm out loud, and with my heart I agree with the words, as a kind of prayer. There are other ways to use the psalms in prayer and worship, and we will talk about those more during this series as we engage with individual psalms.
Another helpful idea in interpreting the psalms is this: they reflect and direct our experiences of living in faith. Through the psalms we can engage with all of life: with suffering, with hope, with joy, with anger, with disappointment – virtually every human emotion can be found in this book. But it is not merely emotion on display. It is emotion, and life experience, combined with faith. There is despair in some of the psalms. But it shows what despair looks like in someone who still has faith. It invites us, when we despair, into fellowship with others who walked through similar experiences while maintaining their faith.
In fact, the psalms invite us into fellowship with Jesus in every conceivable frame of mind, state of heart, and situation in life.
If you are using these sermons in a house-church setting, here is your assignment for this week. In addition to reading this sermon, please pick one psalm (any psalm, although psalm 119 might be challenging) and read it. Come to church prepared to talk about your experience reading the psalm.
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2022 Christmas Eve. The Wise Men, Matthew Chapter 2:1-12
I think it is significant that even people who do not trust Jesus are affected by Christmas. In Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, the six weeks or so before Christmas are noticeably different from the rest of the year. This is true in a lot of South American countries, also. South Korea is less than thirty percent Christian, but the whole population is aware of the Christmas season. We celebrated Christmas in Papua New Guinea, too. It wasn’t really like Christmas in North America, but there was something different about the season.
When I think about the record of the Wise Men, I’m reminded that Christmas is indeed for the whole world. Now, to be honest with you, if I was God, inspiring people to write the Bible, I would either keep the wise men out of the gospel of Matthew, or I would explain more about them.
Only two out of the four gospels tell us much about the birth of Jesus in the first place – Matthew and Luke. Matthew leaves out the shepherds; Luke leaves out the wise men. In the first six chapters of his gospel, Matthew takes great care to point out how the birth and early life of Jesus fulfilled various prophecies about the Messiah from the Old Testament. In fact, in the first two chapters, Matthew points out four specific instances where prophecies were fulfilled. Surely, if there was a prophecy in the Old Testament about these visitors from the east, Matthew would have mentioned it. But he doesn’t.
Not only does this incident have nothing to do with prophecy, at first blush it seems to have nothing to do with Biblical Christianity or even Orthodox Judaism. The term translated “Wise men” or “Magi” usually refers to a sort of Babylonian priest or scholar who was especially acquainted with the study and interpretation of the stars, and of dreams and things like that. In different times or places they might have been called Shamans, or Druids, or Seers, or even Magicians. That’s right. The Babylonian or Arabian Magi held roughly the same position in their society as Druids did in Celtic society. Do you understand? – we are talking about pagan priests coming to see Jesus.
Not only are these people pagan priests, but somehow, they have learned about Jesus’ birth – through astrology. It was the behavior of the stars which told them that someone very important and significant was born. The stars even told them generally where in the world to look for the child. As far as we know, it was not because they searched the scriptures, or listened to a Jewish preacher, or anything else. The wise men don’t really fit into my typical way of looking at world. Pagan priests are drawn to Jesus through astrology?! I think what bothers me most is this question: does this mean that all religions really do lead to the same God?
First, I want to point out that this is another one of those passages that seems to confirm the authenticity of the New Testament. If we are honest, we must admit that it raises troubling questions and ideas. If the New Testament were made up, or if the stories about Jesus were extensively edited and changed, this story would have been one of the first to be cut. In other words, there seems to be no reason to have this here unless it really happened, and God wants us to learn something from it.
I want to briefly set up the historical timeline here. Matthew makes it clear this occurs after Jesus was born (2:1). Herod asks the Magi when the star appeared. When the Magi find Jesus, he is living with his parents in a house (not a stable). Later, based upon what the Magi told him, Herod thinks that Jesus might be up to two years old (2:16). So, while it is very picturesque to imagine the wise-men standing in the stable with the shepherds and donkeys on the night of Jesus’ birth, that is probably not how it actually happened.
So, what does the Lord want to say to us through this little section of scripture? First, and probably most importantly, the message is this: This little baby, born in Bethlehem, in accordance with the prophecies for the Jewish Messiah, is for all people. His life, death and resurrection and his teaching also, are not intended only for the Jews and the small nation of Israel. From birth, his influence and significance are there for the whole world. The wise men were not Jews by religion nor by birth. But Jesus was for them too. We call Christmas a “Christian” Holiday. But God calls it a gift for the whole world; a gift for all people – including pagan priests. Even today, it affects millions of people who are not themselves Christians. Even today, anyone who desires to can receive Jesus in faith, no matter what they have done, no matter where they are from, or what religion they were born into.
Second, let’s look at those wise men. By the way, the Bible does not actually tell us how many of them there are, or what their names were. All of that is folk legend. Probably, the idea of three wise men came about because three kinds of gifts were presented: gold, frankincense and myrrh. We only know that there was more than one (the Greek word for Magi is plural), and it is reasonable to suppose that it wasn’t an extremely large group either. In any case, we can be reasonably sure that not every pagan priest in the region came to see Jesus. Presumably, other pagan priests also studied the stars. They saw what the traveling wise men saw. But why did only these particular men come to see Jesus?
I think the answer is this. These men saw Jesus in the stars because in their hearts, they were honestly seeking the truth and they were hungering for God. When they made it to Jerusalem, they told Herod they were there to worship the child revealed in the stars. When they actually found Jesus, that is exactly what they did – they worshiped him. You see, I don’t think this is an affirmation of pagan religion. Instead, it is an affirmation of honest seeking. These pagans didn’t know any of the Bible. They had never heard of the Messiah. But in their hearts, they hungered for God, and they pursued him honestly and diligently. And even though they were looking in the wrong places, they really were looking. Since there were no other means available, God used the stars to direct them to him.
This is in contrast to Herod and the Jewish leaders. Herod wasn’t a Jew, but he was surrounded by Jews and easily could have learned about God if he chose. The Jewish leaders studied the scriptures. They knew that Messiah was supposed to be born in Bethlehem. In fact, Matthew lists the scripture here, allowing us to see yet another way in Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy. But the Jewish leaders at that time weren’t seeking God. Instead, it was pagan priests, completely ignorant of the Bible, who found God when he came into the world. Jeremiah 29:13-14 says this:
If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord.
Jesus says it like this:
Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)
The wise men were seeking. And in accordance with the promises listed above, when they looked wholeheartedly, they found the true God. It wasn’t their pagan religion that led them to “the same God worshiped by all religions.” Instead, it was that their seeking, hungering hearts led them to true faith in Jesus Christ. Other pagans didn’t come to Bethlehem, even though they had the same information. Those men didn’t have the same hearts. Herod didn’t come, and neither did the Jewish leaders – even after they heard what the Magi had to say. They didn’t have seeking hearts as the Magi.
The wise men who saw Jesus didn’t go to Bethlehem and then perform pagan worship rituals. They went to Bethlehem, put their faith in Jesus, and worshiped Him, specifically. To express it another way, the moment they worshiped Jesus, they were no longer pagans, but Christians.
That may answer the question about other religions. I think the idea is sort of this: a true seeker will not remain in a false religion, but that false religion may be the initial point from which a true seeker eventually comes to know Jesus. The wise men didn’t receive eternal life through pagan religion – they received it through faith in Jesus. A Hindu won’t get to heaven by being a good Hindu. But suppose something in Hinduism leads him to find out about Jesus. Suppose he eventually puts his faith in Jesus – then he would have eternal life. It would not be Hinduism that saved him, but Jesus. By and large, Hinduism does not point to Jesus; but God could certainly use some aspect of it to draw a true seeker to the truth and salvation found only in Jesus Christ. That is very much like what he did for the Magi.
What initially drew the Magi to study the stars was only a shadow of the reality found in Jesus, who is called the Bright Morning Star (Numbers 24:17; Revelation 22:16). The Christmas tree is a pagan symbol too. But maybe the pagan imagery of tree worship, like that of astrology, is just a memory of the real thing, which goes farther back still, all the way to the Garden and the tree of life. The real thing is what those pagan priests sought.
So, with these strange pagan shamans in mind, I think there is a question worth considering: What are you seeking these days? Are you interested in finding the truth? Do you really want God himself, or do you just want God to do something for you? Maybe, like Herod or the Jewish leaders, your biggest concern is how Jesus might affect the plans and ambitions you have for your life.
What has led you to this place? Family, friends or your horoscope? The hope of a day’s comfort? Whatever it might be, let go of the shadow, and see the true reality that the Magi saw – the little toddler, invested with all the fullness of God. True hope. True life. True love. With the wise men, fall down, and exchange the empty shadows for the truth. Worship him. Receive him.
Our heart should know no other consolation or confidence than that in God. We should not let our hearts be torn from him, but for God we should risk and disregard everything else on earth. We should learn to seek all goodness in and through Him alone.
The temptation of Satan is to lead us to entrust ourselves to other people or things; to put our hope and confidence in anything other than the true God. Jesus overcame that temptation, and empowers us by the Holy Spirit to do the same.
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LENT #5. LUKE 4:1-8
Before we plunge into the text, I want to make note of one or two things. You don’t have to swing a stick very long before you hit someone who claims that the Bible is full of contradictions. Most people who say this cannot actually give an example of this – it is something they take on faith. But for the record, our text today is one of those places in the Bible that contains a “contradiction.” Are you ready for this?
When Matthew describes the temptation of Jesus, he says that the temptation to worship the devil (the one we will look at today) occurred not second, but third. That’s right – Luke says it happened second, and Matthew says it was third. They agree that there were three types of temptations. They agree about how Jesus battled them, and the scriptures he quoted. They agree about when it happened (just after his baptism). But one of the temptations is out of order.
If you are wondering what the big deal is, you are right to wonder: there is no big deal here. In fact, to me, this is something that proves that the Bible was neither made up later, nor edited later. If someone was either making it up, or editing it later on for some purpose, this “contradiction” would have been smoothed out. The fact that it is there shows that we really have the original writings of the people who knew Jesus personally. Just to make sure we understand – it doesn’t really matter in which order this temptation came. Both Matthew and Luke agree that it came, and describe it the same way. The order changes nothing about Christian belief.
All right, let’s get to Luke’s record of the second temptation. Satan reveals to Jesus all of the power and glory of the world, and then offers it to him. He says, “because it has been given to me.” Once more, we find out that the devil is a cheat and a liar. It is true that for the time being, God has not dislodged Satan from this world. Jesus later called him “the ruler of this world (John 12:31; 14:30, 16:11).” Paul calls him the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), and “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). John writes in his first letter that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:18-21, ESV)
So, though the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, the devil’s power does not extend to those who are born of God through Jesus Christ.
Therefore, Satan was not completely wrong in saying that he had power over all the kingdoms and peoples of the world. But he was lying when he said “it has been given to me.” It was not given to him – Satan rebelled against God, and then enticed human beings to leave God’s protection, and thus to come under his own dominion. In other words, Satan took all of it, by manipulation and lies. He is combining lies with truth. It is true that Satan has dominion over any human part of the world that does not submit to God. But it is not Satan’s by right. And of course, we who trust Jesus are not under the authority of the devil.
C.S. Lewis powerfully portrays how deadly it is when lies are combined with elements of truth, in his final Narnia book The Last Battle. I highly recommend it to you. Another of his books that depicts the way the devil often works is The Screwtape Letters.
I think it is good for us to be aware of the schemes of the devil, and how he tries to tempt us. When he combines a bit of truth with his lies, that prevents us from simply saying: “That’s a lie.” There is a level of complexity that he weaves to try and trick us. When we see the truth of one part of his temptation, we are tempted to believe the whole thing.
Let’s dig into why worshipping the devil would be any kind of temptation for Jesus. First and foremost, we need to keep in mind what I have said previously, which is that Jesus was limiting himself to his human nature. He had to take the fact that he was the Son of God on trust – trust in the word that God the Father spoke to him. Apparently, the Father had also revealed the details of Jesus’ mission – that he would suffer and die a horrible death. The goal of the mission, the whole point of Jesus coming to earth, was to bring the world back to God. Jesus was to be the means by which the world would know God. Ultimately the whole planet will one day come under the authority of Jesus Christ:
6 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, 8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. 9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11, NLT)
The devil is offering Jesus a shortcut. Instead of humbling himself, instead of experiencing suffering and death, Jesus could have every knee bow to him right now. “You don’t have to keep suffering through this miserable human existence,” he is saying. “You don’t have to suffer humiliation, and pain, torture and death. You can get right to the good part, right now. I’ll let you have the whole world without all that difficulty.”
So, this part of the temptation could be summarized as follows: What you want is good and right. But it seems like it will be very hard for you to achieve it. In fact, perhaps you’ll never achieve it. However, if you just make this one little compromise, you can reach your goal.
Think about how things actually went. Jesus spent three more years living in poverty and deprivation. He gathered followers who did not understand him very well, and even sometimes got entirely the wrong idea. He found himself in constant conflict with the religious leaders, who argued with him, slandered him, and even schemed to kill him. Finally, he was imprisoned, brutally beaten twice in one day, and then crucified – which is, by any measure, death by torture.
After his crucifixion, he still had to go to hell. Finally, he rose. At that point, his personal suffering was complete. However, even now, two-thousand years later, his mission is not complete. For two-thousand years, his people have sometimes spread his word, but many times they have been content to not tell anyone, and to not care about the world he came to save. Even now, the whole world has not come to know him.
“So,” says the devil, “– you have all that – after all your suffering, your mission still won’t be finished, not even after twenty-centuries. Or – if you just do this one small thing for me, we take care of the whole thing, right here, right now. Immediately, the whole world is yours. No suffering, no muss, no fuss. No twenty centuries of watching your people try and fail to spread your word. In many cases, they wouldn’t even try! But if you just join with me, you won’t have to depend on them. You won’t have to suffer. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s painless.”
Of course it’s a trap. If Jesus had bowed down in worship, all of the kingdoms of the world would have remained under the influence of Satan. Jesus might have had power over the world, but then Satan would have had power over Jesus. The world would glorify Satan, not Jesus.
There is another aspect to all this. We shouldn’t overlook the power of the temptation to worship things other than God. By worship, I don’t really mean “pray to,” or “sing praises to.” In this case, worship is about who, or what we put first in our hearts. It is about what is most important to us. So, part of what was going on was that Satan was tempting Jesus to make his mission (saving the world) more important than his relationship with the Father. He was saying, “You’ve got to accomplish your mission, right? Well, here’s how you do that.” But, of course, Satan’s way of accomplishing the mission was to move God out of first place in the heart of Jesus. The mission of Jesus was a tremendously important and good thing. Even so, it was not more important than God himself. This is why Jesus responded with another quote from scripture:
13 It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you (Deuteronomy 6:13-14, ESV)
Of course, there are many, many scriptures that reaffirm that we must worship the one true God alone, and no one, or, nothing, else. Martin Luther offers us a lot of helpful insights into what it means to worship God alone, and have no other “gods.”
A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart. As I have often said, the trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol… That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God. (Martin Luther, Large Catechism, first commandment)
So, whatever our heart truly clings to, whatever we entrust ourselves to, is what we really worship. It is that thing or person that has the place of God in our lives. Obviously, that can be (and should be) the God of the Bible. But the temptation of Satan is to lead us to entrust ourselves to other people or things; to put our hope and confidence in anything other than the true God.
In our culture many people do this with money. Their real confidence is in money. It is money that they look to for hope of the future. It is knowing that they have (or will have) money that brings them consolation. Satan says to them: “Look, you just want to take care of your family. You just want a secure future. You want to be able to get the most out of life, and enjoy life without having to work so hard all the time. All you have to do to achieve that is to make money more important than anything else.”
Some people do it with relationships. Their trust and hope for the future is all about the people who are important to them. Satan entices them to choose human beings over God. This happens in a variety of ways. For example, maybe you have a friend who doesn’t share your Christian faith. You might be tempted to keep silent about your own faith, rather than risk losing your friend. You might even pretend to agree with the friend about something that contradicts your faith. Perhaps when you spend time together, your friend wants to do things that the Bible says are sinful. You might be tempted to compromise, so that you don’t lose your friend. At that point, you are worshipping your friendship above God.
Success is another thing we are tempted to put before God. I could be more successful as an author if I wrote a mystery series that did not have a pastor as a main character. I would do even better if I included profanity, and much better if I wrote salacious sex scenes. But if I were to compromise, I would be making success more important than my relationship with God.
There are many other things we are tempted to put above God: the approval of other people, achievement, exciting or meaningful experiences (adventures and travel) – the list is almost endless.
The temptation of Jesus was one of the most insidious of all. Satan tempted him with the very mission that God entrusted to Jesus. In the same way, many ministers are tempted to put their ministry above everything else. That’s the nasty thing about this kind of temptation: it is often not a bad thing that tempts us. It is good to make enough money to pay your bills and take care of your family. It is good to make other human beings a priority. It is good to want to do ministry, or to use your God-given gifts to achieve big things. The problem is when these things become more important to us than God alone. The sin comes in when we look to those things for hope, when we trust in those things to bring us happiness or security, or when we make decisions that put those things above our relationship with God.
Luther explains again what it means to worship God alone, and serve only him:
Namely, that the heart should know no other consolation or confidence than that in him, nor let itself be torn from him, but for him should risk and disregard everything else on earth.
We need to come to a place where God is so important to us, that we will give up anything else to keep him. We need the Holy Spirit to bring us to that place, and it is good and right to pray for help – to ask God to work in us so that he is indeed our only true God. Luther again, offers a helpful thought:
He wishes to turn us away from everything else, and to draw us to himself, because he is the one, eternal good
God is actually the true source of everything good, everything that we need and love. Are you deeply blessed as you sit quietly in nature? That blessing comes from the one source of eternal good: God himself. Are you blessed by people you love? Rejoice in them, and recognize that it is God who put them in your life. Do you have all that you really need, financially? You can take pride in your hard work, but recognize that your ability to work, and opportunities you have had, came from God alone. Do you have a gift for music, writing or some other artistic ability? Surely you know that you didn’t get that for yourself – it came from God himself. Learn to see that everything good that we have ever experienced or had, and everything good that will come to us in the future, comes from God himself. It is vitally important, also, to recognize that when we have anything apart from God, it becomes no longer good. We need to learn to worship the Giver, not the gifts.
Jesus held fast to this. Again, he battled Satan by quoting the Bible. He rejected the easy way. He refused to let even God’s mission for him become more important than God himself. He did this for us, yes, but we should keep in mind that even more importantly, he did it for the glory of God, to reaffirm that nothing in all the universe is more important than God himself.
Let the Holy Spirit speak in your heart right now.
Clear Bible 