The Character of God- Part 4

Subtitle:  God is Gracious

Exodus 34:6-7.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 29, 2024.

Today, we move to the second aspect of God’s character that is revealed in these verses.  He is Gracious!  What does that really mean?

The concept of God being gracious is closely connected to the previous word, compassion.  In fact, they are often connected as pairs throughout the Old Testament.  God is compassionate and gracious!

A definition of Grace

They are somewhat synonyms, but they have different connotations.  Much like comparing Nacho Cheese Doritos with Cool Ranch Doritos.  They are both Doritos, triangular chips, and made of corn meal.  However, they have a different flavor.  Similarly, synonyms can point to the same thing, but with a different flavor, connotation.

The word compassion has the connotation of an inner softening to the plight of another, which leads to helping them.  The same act can be described with the words grace and gracious.  Yet, the word for gracious here begins in a different place.  It has the concept of favor or delight.  The giver of grace favors the recipient, may even delight in them.  This leads to some action on their behalf, which is intended to delight the recipient.

Like compassion, the noun form, grace, can refer to what is happening in the giver, i.e., God has favor for us.  It can also focus on the act itself.  Jesus is the grace of God.  Yet, it may focus on the resultant effect upon the recipient.  Salvation is the grace of God.

In fact, grace does not require a context of the recipient needing help.  It may simply be a gift for the sake of causing delight in another.  This is typically what is behind gifts that we give around Christmas.  The recipient may or may not have asked for the grace.  The situation may or may not involve needing help.  Yet always, the response is about favor and delight rather than merit.

God is gracious in the Old Testament

In the immediate context of Exodus 34, we were told in chapter 33, verses 12 and 17, of God favoring, having grace for Moses.  It is clear that God’s favoring of Moses is not so much about the job he is given.  Moses does not seem to delight in leading 6 million plus stubborn people through the wilderness.  Rather, the grace is seen in the relationship that God has with Moses.  God is with Him.  God reveals Himself, His character, His designs and purposes, to Moses.

We must be careful that we don’t narrow God’s grace only to powerful works.  You see, God favored Moses, and he did powerful works by obeying the Lord.  But, Exodus 34: 6,7 shows us that this is part of His character.  His favor is not just for Moses, but extends out to the Israelites God sent him to.  However, His favor is not just for Israel, but extends to the nations before whom Israel is to be a witness and bring forth the Anointed One who would fix humanity’s sin problem.

Just as Moses found grace in the eyes of the Lord, so we read the same of Noah in Genesis 6:7-8.  In this situation, there is an immediate threat.  Humanity has become so wicked that the chosen line of the “serpent-crusher” (see Genesis 3:15), is being threatened, which threatens the salvation of humanity.  There is an irony in the Flood passage regarding this.  God has to bring destruction upon humanity in order to protect His plan of saving humanity.  This is how horrible sin is.  God must judge humanity, but Noah found favor, grace, in the eyes of the Lord.  God delights in Noah, and leads him to make an ark that allows his family and many animals to be spared the devastating effects of the flood.

This irony crops up in the lives of individuals as well.  Sometimes God allows the destruction of certain things in our life to protect the possibility of our redemption.

These stories are not about Noah and Moses being the “teacher’s pet.”  He does see a faithfulness to Him within them and it draws His favor, but His work of grace in their lives is all about His larger desire to help, favor, humanity in our current problem of sin.

We see a similar thing in the story of Abraham.  We don’t end up with a statement, “Abraham found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”  However, Genesis 18 implicitly says it.  The LORD and two angels have approached Abraham in the heat of the day.  He sees them and runs out to them.  “My LORD, if now I have found favor (grace) in Your sight, please do not pass Your servant by.”  We then see that they come and eat a meal with Abraham.  The LORD even reveals to Abraham that the time for Sarah to finally conceive has come.  Within a year, she will give birth to a son!  On top of this, the LORD also reveals to Abraham the coming destruction upon Sodom.  Abraham intercedes for the cities of the plain.  He is pictured as the man of God’s favor interceding for a people who are in the dark about His coming judgment.  The intercession doesn’t save the city, but it does save Lot and his family.  The whole passage is dripping with the answer to Abraham’s conditional, “if I have found favor…”  Abraham has found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

Thus, the description of God as gracious has been highlighted throughout the passages leading up to this and continues on throughout all of the Old Testament.  Genesis three and the Fall of Humanity doesn’t have the words grace or gracious in it.  Yet, it is absolutely clear that Adam and Eve were dwelling in the favor of God in the garden.  It was His gift to them, a paradise.  Yet, the serpent tricks them into distrusting God and taking hold of their own benefit.  In the scene where all three of them are being judged before the LORD, it is clear that God favors humanity against the serpent.  Even the punishment upon Adam and Eve bears a grace in teaching them the goodness of God even in their unfaithfulness.

Thus, even though grace is simply a gift and doesn’t require the concept of help, this is and has been the true condition of humanity from the Fall to this day.  We are a world full of sin and distrust of God.  We are a world trusting in our own wisdom and our own ability to benefit ourselves.  If God doesn’t help us, then we are not going to make it.  The good news is that God has help us, is even now helping us, and will help us even more in the future.

Israel becomes a picture of God’s larger desire to help humanity in the face of our inability to trust Him enough to make that happen.  The chosen line, and then in Israel, the chosen nation, is not about those who obtain grace and those who don’t.  It is about God protecting the means by which He will give grace to all of humanity.  There are two more scenes of grace in the Old Testament that I want to visit.

In Genesis 33:10, Jacob has returned from what we call northeast Syria after being gone for 20 years.  He had taken advantage of his brother’s hunger to obtain the birthright (a double portion of their father’s estate, etc.), and then, through deception, stole the blessing that Isaac was going to give to Esau.  Jacob left because he knew Esau was angry enough to kill him.

Here, twenty years later, God has told Jacob to go back “home.”  He knows that he has to face Esau if he is to live there.  He needs Esau’s forgiveness, but can’t see how that is going to happen.  This verse is at the end of all that Jacob does to appease his very dangerous brother (who was coming with 400 very dangerous men).  Jacob is asking forgiveness.  “If now I have found favor in your sight, then accept my gift from my hand, for I see your face as one sees the face of God, and you have received me favorably.”  Notice that Jacob uses language of Esau as his master and lord, even as God.  This is how important forgiveness from Esau is to him.  Shocker of shockers, Esau gives grace to Jacob, and he is enabled to dwell in the land without fear of reprisals from his brother.  However, sin and forgiveness are not always at the heart of the recipient’s need for grace.  Let’s look at a part of the story of Esther.

Esther 8:5 has Esther approaching king Xerxes in order to ask for grace for her people.  The king has been manipulated by the wicked Haman to empower him to exterminate the Jewish people.  The king did not know that his queen was also a Jew.  Yet, Esther is not a queen like we might think.  She could not enter the king’s presence without a summons from him.  To do so carried the penalty of death, unless the king gave his grace, his favor, and forgave the offense.

The king does delight in Esther, and so, he is gracious to her and her people.  This gives a picture of the intercessor who approaches the king for the sake of their people, rather than for themselves.  We saw this intercession with Moses in Exodus 33.

This becomes a backdrop for understanding the person of Jesus, and ultimately his Church.  In Jesus, God has become a part of the human family.  Thus, he intercedes before God the Father on behalf of humanity, but particularly those who have put their faith in him.  Yet, it may be more proper to see Esther as a picture of the Church of Jesus.  Because God’s favor rest upon Jesus, He will grant him his requests, so our relationship with Jesus brings upon us the favor of the Father too.  We are to use that favor to intercede on behalf of our people who are in jeopardy of the judgment because we too were under a death sentence.

Jesus is the grace of God

This brings us to understanding Jesus as the grace of God.  John’s gospel presents Jesus as a gift from the King of Heaven.  In John 1:14-18, we are told that Jesus is “full of grace and truth.”  In verse 16, he is even “grace upon grace.”  The sense here is that Jesus is the capstone of a long series of God’s grace.  He is both the fullness of grace and the overflow of God’s grace.

In verse 17, the NASB says that Grace and Truth were “realized” through Messiah Jesus.  It literally came into being and came through him.  The body of Jesus began at a point of time.  Prior to this, the Word existed with God and as God throughout eternity past.  Thus, we can contemplate the man Jesus as the fulfilling of the grace of God through what he did.  However, as the Word, we understand that he was always the fullness of God’s grace set in the heavens where no devil could touch it.  Awaiting the moment when the Father would signal the time for incarnating into this world as a human.

When the Word took on flesh and became a human, it opened the door for a new relationship with God the Father that was not available before, at least not in that intimate sense.  Jesus is more than a vehicle of God’s grace.  Rather, He embodies the graciousness of God. 

This leads us to John speaking of the Son being given to the world as a gift in John 3:16-17.  Somehow, humanity has drawn the favor of God.  Yet, God has given His favor in such a way that we must believe in Jesus, trust in him, in order to receive that eternal life.  Imagine this.  The Bible presents both Israel and the Gentiles in a sinful fallen state, and yet, He favored us by sending a gift of His Grace, Jesus.  A gift is given as opposed to a paycheck.  We did not merit it.  Any of our works fell woefully short of accomplishing any salvation.  Yet, God gives us what we don’t deserve.

The Apostle Paul picks up on this in the classic verses on grace, Ephesians 2:8-10.  It says that we have been saved by grace (God delighting to do it) through faith.  If you look at the verses, they emphasize that salvation is a gift.  The work of salvation is entirely the work of God.  “Not by works, so that no one may boast.”  Yet, in verse 10, God does have works for us to do.

The point is that we are not to imagine that we can do a work that merits His grace.  Instead, we are to do works of thankfulness for His gracious salvation in Jesus.

Sometimes people over emphasize that it is faith that is the gift of God.  In other words, you couldn’t even trust God if He didn’t give you a gift of faith.  However, the gift of God refers not just to faith, but to the whole grace of salvation.  It is not just a gift of ability to trust, but of the whole grounds upon which trusting could obtain the grace of salvation.  It was the grace of God that created humans in a way that we could be redeemed.  It was the grace of God that sent a redeemer who would be faithful to do what we could not (would not, even if we could) do for ourselves.  It is the grace of God that our trust in Jesus is acceptable to him in our disqualified state.  It is the grace of God that we are able to believe even after a lifetime of being in bondage to sin.  This is the mystery of the immense grace of God lavished upon humanity.  All of it is grace; all of it is a gift from God.

John presents to us that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is offered as a generous gift of life that is more powerful than our mortality, than death itself.  We now have a relationship with the Father through Jesus in which He pours His eternal life into us each day.  This eternal life works to displace sin and fill us with the works of true righteousness out of thanks.  We can question if it is working, but God’s grace is working in our life.  We were saved when we believed in Jesus (from judgment), we are being saved (from sin and its effects), and we shall be saved on that day when He completes our redemption through the resurrection from the dead!  You can have assurance now because of the faithfulness of God Himself, not because of your perfect performance in the now.

This grace of Jesus is more powerful than our experience of life.  Imagine an Israelite who was a slave in Egypt, and had waited for God’s deliverance all of their life.  Imagine that they die the year before Moses comes out of the wilderness to confront Pharaoh with God.  Did that person miss out on the grace of God?  That is often how we picture it.  If such and such doesn’t happen in my life, then God doesn’t love me, doesn’t have grace for me.  The same is true for things that do happen.  God doesn’t have grace for me because I was born as a slave in Egypt!  These are the ways we tend to think about God’s grace.

But, the testimony of scripture is that God’s grace is bigger than our experience of life.  Of course, as Americans, we have had an experience of life that is better than most of humanity has ever experienced.  Yet, when you are in a problem, that line of reasoning doesn’t comfort you.  It is still the truth nonetheless.  The promise of the resurrection of the righteous will fill with delight even the most tragic of lives.  Countless numbers of people who were martyred via horrible methods will rise and shine like the stars.  They will bask in the favor and delight of God while being filled with delight themselves.  Their past lives of pain and sorrow will only cause the present glory to be all the more flavorful, all the more glorious!

Another thing we see in this story of God’s grace is that gifts only require a person to accept them.  We can also over-emphasize that God’s grace is a gift.  “You don’t do anything,” is the mantra of some.  Yes, but a gift does require someone to receive it, to take hold of it.  It happens every day that God’s offer of salvation is rejected by people.  “You can keep your ‘gift!’ I don’t want it.”  God is saying to the whole world that He has a gift of salvation for us.  However, He will not force us to take hold of it.  A person can spurn the gift of God, the grace of God, and miss it, walk away from it.  In fact, it is rare for those who do accept God’s offer of salvation to have not missed it throughout their life.  Few belief at the first presentation of God’s grace to them.

So, what makes us delightful and favorable in the eyes of the LORD?  Yes, Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD, but how will it ever be said that Marty (insert your name) found grace in the eyes of the LORD, to be favorable to Him?  We tend to look for merit.  Yet, this cannot obtain the grace of God.

In one sense, there is nothing we can do, should do, because we already have the favor of God.  He has favored humanity and made salvation possible for all, if they will only trust in Jesus.  He has done the heavy lifting and put the salvation of Jesus in front of you.  You don’t deserve it, but there it is.  God’s favor to you.  This is because of who He is and what He made us to be.  He made us to be His imagers.  He doesn’t crush failed imagers.  In His favor, He makes a way for us to be redeemed and image Him in truth!

Yet, in another sense, we do need to take hold of this favor.  If His current favor is to effectively bring me to favor at the final judgment, I must properly take hold of it.  We do this by owning our sin.  We quit making the case for our own righteousness (self righteousness), and we agree that it took Jesus dying on a cross to effect our salvation (my salvation).

Those who insist on their own works, and even deride the idea that Jesus paid the price for our sins, are being proud.  Their ego refuses to see the grossness of their sin.  Such pride and arrogance in the face of God’s grace is not lovely to Him.  But, humbling yourself and recognizing that you do not deserve the grace that He has lavished upon you, this is lovely and beautiful to God.  When we surrender and put our trust completely in Jesus and His wisdom, then the current favor of God becomes the same favor that will protect us when we stand before Him on the shores of eternity future.

Like the prodigal son who approaches the father only hoping to be a slave, we come to God knowing we really don’t even deserve to be His slave. Yet, He takes us in His arms and clothes us with robes of righteousness.  He slaughters the fattened calf and holds a celebration that, “My son who was dead is now alive!”

Our belief in Jesus is not just intellectual belief that he lived, or that he was resurrected.  It truly is a trusting in his work and his teaching to us.  Are any of us absolutely perfect in our trust?  Of course, not.  We often have times of doubt, selfishness, even choosing our way over the top of His.  Yet, God’s grace is not about perfect performance.  It is about trusting His character even in the midst of our own mistakes and failures.  Our goal is not to get away with sin, but to become like Jesus.  May God help us to see His great favor in our life despite all the things that we could point to in order to deny its reality.

God is Gracious audio

The Sermon on the Mount III

Subtitle: Jesus Opens the Door to the Kingdom II, also

Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God

Matthew 5:13-16, 17-20.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 17, 2023.

We are continuing our look at Jesus, King Messiah, who was also The Prophet like Moses.  He is giving the good news to the poor and misfortunate of Israel that the door to the Kingdom of Heaven is in front of them.  They only need to enter by faith in Jesus as its king.

This sermon will finish the introduction of Jesus.  Thus, I have titled this first part “Jesus Opens the Door to the Kingdom.”  Verse 17 will begin the main body of the message Jesus is giving.  I have titled it as “Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God.”

Let’s look at this first part.

Jesus Opens the Door to the Kingdom (5:3-12, 13-16)

Verses 3 through 12 are called the beatitudes, and they answer the questions of who God is planning to bless and how.  The surprise twist in these beatitudes show that God values things very different than we do.  None of these people would have thought of themselves as blessed, but rather cursed.  Jesus is not in the temple talking to the elite religionists of his day.  He is in the wilderness on a mountainside with the poor and afflicted of Israel surrounding him.  He tells them that they are blessed because God is opening up the Kingdom of Heaven to them.

We also pointed out last week that the beatitudes do more than tell them they are blessed.  They also create a composite sketch of Jesus himself.  Jesus is the ultimate poor and afflicted one whom God values, more, whom God loves.  Jesus is the ultimate person who is blessed of God to the ultimate degree.

This is exactly what Isaiah is prophesying in Isaiah 53:3-4.  Here is the text.  “He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”

Notice the intention is to show that our value system would be so messed up that we would think Messiah, the Servant of the LORD, was essentially cursed of God.  These people listening to Jesus would have been told by society (and believed it) that they were not blessed of God, otherwise their life wouldn’t be so filled with sickness and poverty.  Yet, Messiah would appear to be the most cursed of God, while all the time being the most blessed of God.  This is why Jesus not only puzzled people in the first century, but continues to puzzle them to this day.

Starting in verse 13, Jesus gives three metaphors that represent the purpose behind why God is blessing these unfortunates.  In other words, the blessings mentioned in the first part has a purpose that goes beyond those people.  Do you remember Abraham?  God blessed him above all others in his day.  Yet, that blessing was intended to be a blessing to all of the nations (Genesis 18:18; 22:18; and 26:4).

This is a principle with God.  His blessing to anyone is never intended to be only for their sake.  If you picture a reservoir behind a dam, then you will get the point.  We can be so fearful of the lack of future blessing that we dam it up and hold it to ourselves.  Yet, God has a purpose in blessing us that intends for us to find ways to release it to others in a good way.  He wants to bless others through the blessings that He gives to you, and He wants to bless you through blessings that He gives to others.  May God help us to understand this way of God so that we can be truly blessed.

The first purpose in our blessing is pictured by salt.  Those who enter the Kingdom of Heaven through Jesus are intended to be the salt of the earth.  Jesus doesn’t tell us what the salt represents, but he does give us a hint by emphasizing the flavor of the salt.  Through the years, two aspects have been pointed out about salt.  It makes things taste better, and it preserves things from rotting.

So what is the flavor?  Are we making the world taste better for God?  Or, are we to be making this life taste better for the lost, so that they will see God?  This is not explained.

A good principle to remember is to let Scripture interpret Scripture.  We can look for other places where the Bible talks about salt and see if it is used as a metaphor for anything.  You are going to find about 42 places in the Bible where it uses the word “salt.”  It almost always simply means salt.  However, there are a couple of references that are interesting. 

In Leviticus 2:13, we see that a grain offering was required to be salted, even referring to it as the “salt of the covenant.”  So whatever the salt represented, it was important to God.  We should also put on the back burner of our thoughts that Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.  Jesus tells us to remember her.  The most helpful verse is given to us by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 4:6.  It reads, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”  From this verse, it appears that the salt most likely represents grace in Matthew 5.

Does this make sense in the story of Lot’s wife?  Notice that she had been the recipient of a lot of God’s grace, particularly being saved from the destruction of Sodom.  Being turned into a pillar of salt may represent the sad reality of her perishing over the top of all the grace that God had given her.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, who is the ultimate grace of God, graciously opens the door of the kingdom to the poor and afflicted of Israel.  Yet, such grace in their lives, is intended to be spread, salted, on others in Israel, and even to the Gentiles, by extension.  This grace of God is what not only makes this life that He has given us flavorful.  Yet, for the lost, we become the flavor of God by being His grace to them.  Only some will like the taste, but it is God’s intention for us nonetheless.

If the salt loses its flavor, its grace, there is something missing.  Essentially, we are missing Jesus.  We are then not helpful for the purposes of God.  We will simply be trampled upon by men.  In this world, there will be trampling.  The trampling itself does not mean that you have lost your flavor.  Rather, if we have lost our flavor, that is the only thing that we would be good for.  Don’t miss that point.  In Jesus, any trampling that happens to His people will accomplish the work of God because we have the flavor of God in us, essentially Jesus.  They trample us over the top of being the grace of God.  This will open the eyes of some as they see that something is wrong.  On the other hand, the trampling of those who do not have the grace of Jesus only seems fitting to the world.

Jesus then gives two metaphors back to back because they essentially point to the same thing.  Believers are to be the light of the world and a city on a hill.  These are both about visibility.  Light enables people to see things that they couldn’t see before, and elevation helps whatever is on it to be seen as well.  Of course, Jesus is the light of the world, but because he is in us, we become the light of the world (like a lamp). 

We have no light in and of ourselves.  Rather, we become a container of light that is supposed to be made visible to the world around us.  A good metaphor for this is the earth, the moon, and the sun.  Only the sun makes light in and of itself.  However, the moon can reflect light to the earth because of its relationship to the sun relative to the earth.  Jesus is not on the earth, but our relationship with him makes us able to give light to them, i.e., information about God, His character, and His purpose.

God’s intention is that the truth, about who Jesus is and what he has done for those who will believe, will be made known to everyone.  If this is hidden, it is not done by God.  If our light is under a basket, it is because we are not cooperating with His intention for whatever reason.  In fact, a city on a hill has no say about it.  It will be visible.

The principle given in verse 16 is that we are to do good works, live out the righteousness of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, in such a way that those good works point them to our Father in Heaven.  God wants them to see true righteousness born of the Spirit and out of relationship with Jesus.

This will set up a later tension in the Sermon on the Mount between things that should be visible to others and things that should not be. The flesh tends to make things public that it shouldn’t and keep private what should be public.  In more simple terms, the flesh makes public what should be private, and private what should be public.  How do we know which should be?  We know through the word of God and relationship with Jesus by the Holy Spirit.  He leads us.  Nothing can replace true spiritual relationship with Jesus.

Fulfilling the Torah and Prophets of God (5:17-20)

In verse 17, we come to the main body of Jesus’ teaching.  It is going to come across as something totally new, as if Jesus was adding to the Torah, or even changing it.  Thus, Jesus begins by clarifying exactly what he is doing.

Jesus knows that his teaching will be misconstrued by some, whether purposefully or ignorantly, as anti-Law.  Paul had this same problem.  In fact, even in the Church, there are some pastors who basically tell their people that they don’t need to know the Old Testament.  It isn’t for Christians.  However, instead of destroying or abolishing the Law (the instructions of God given at Sinai), Jesus had come to fulfill it. 

This is Matthew’s 7^th use of the word “fulfill.”  It is easiest to see this with the prophets.  They often pointed to future things that God was promising to do in order to encourage the faith of people before they were fulfilled.  You might picture this as an empty glass, or a glass that is not completely full.  The presence of the cup, or rather many cups of prophecy, gives us hope that God will keep His word.  Past fulfillments encourage waiting for future fulfillments.  The Law also has aspects that need to be fulfilled, like an cup that is only partially filled.  An example of this would be the sacrificial system.  It begs the question of just how does the blood of an animal remove my sin from me.  The work of Jesus on the cross and at the resurrection becomes a fulfillment of the sacrificial system.  We now understand what it was trying to teach us.  And, herein lies the problem.  We too often think of the Law as a list of infractions and penalties.  However, it’s true purpose is to teach us about righteousness, sin, judgment, and the loving grace of God.

We should be careful of just thinking of Jesus as fulfilling some of the prophecies.  He is what all the Law and Prophets were pointing us towards.  Their whole purpose is so that we would recognize, embrace, and follow Jesus.

Paul explains this in Galatians 3:23-25 by comparing the Law to a tutor or a schoolmaster.  Israel was like a child who is under the rule of a governor or governess.  When the child becomes an adult, the job of the governor will be over, and the young adult enters into the next phase of life.  Jesus was too valuable of a gift to simply send.  God took precious time training and teaching Israel through the Law so that they could recognize Jesus for what he was, the ultimate servant of the LORD.

Jesus is coming forth as the Messiah to lead Israel into the Kingdom of spiritual adulthood.  “The Kingdom is here; it is time to step up, son!”

In verse 18, Jesus speaks to the certainty that every bit of the Law and the Prophets would be fulfilled.  To do this, he refers to the durability of heaven and earth.  This heaven and earth are not eternal.  They are destined to be transformed (melted down and reformed) into a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 20).  How are we going to survive that?  The answer is only by Jesus! 

Jesus explains that before the heavens pass away, i.e., the Revelation 20 event comes, every bit of the Law and the Prophets will be fulfilled.  In order to emphasize both the certainty and the attention to detail of its fulfillment, Jesus mentions two words that are strange to English ears.  The KJV and NKJV have the words “jot” and “tittle.”  The ESV has the words “iota” and “dot.”  The NIV doesn’t even try to come up with a word for them.  It has “smallest letter and least stroke of the pen.”  What is he talking about?

If you were in our church when I preached this, I walked us through the Hebrew letters and what these words are referring to.  In a shortened form for this article, the word “jot” or “iota” is a reference to the Hebrew letter “yod.”  It looks like an apostrophe but is a consonant that has the sound of /y/.  It is the smallest letter in Hebrew (at least half the size of the others).  The “tittle” or “dot” refers to a small protrusion on a letter that distinguishes it from another letter.  This is the case between the Hebrew letters Resh and Dalet.  The Dalet is not rounded like the Resh, having a protrusion on the upper right-hand side of the letter.  This small stroke on the letter is important to distinguish the letter.

Notice what this means.  It makes sense that God is going to fulfill all of the statements and promises that He made in the Bible.  However, this takes it deeper.  He is not only going to fulfill the statements, He is going to fulfill the words, the letters, down to the small distinctions between letters.  The detail to which God is fulfilling the Law and the Prophets will go to a level that we can’t even comprehend looking forward.  It is similar to the disciples after the cross.  Beforehand, they had trouble getting what Jesus was saying.  It seemed so contradictory to the Scriptures.  However, after the cross and after the explanations of Jesus, they look back at the Old Testament and it suddenly explodes with meaning that they did not see before.  They had been trained not to see it.

Verse 19 then moves to underline the importance of the commands and their fulfillment.  Jesus didn’t come to break the commandments, but some would.  Some would even teach others to break the commandments.  Breaking the commands is parallel with the earlier destroying the Law.

Now, if you read what Jesus is saying like a Pharisee, then you will think that we should still be doing sacrifices, and that the Apostle Paul really was a heretic misleading early Christians.  However, this is an uninformed application.  The Church does not teach that the Law has been destroyed so Christians can eat pork if they want, go to church on Sunday if they want, and skip doing sacrifices.  Rather, we teach that Jesus is King Messiah who sets up a new covenant in which we now fulfill the Law and the Prophets by obedience to him and the instructions that he brought down from God the Father (like Moses).  Jesus teaches us to accomplish the whole purpose of the Law.

This is what Jeremiah was getting at in 31:31-34 of his book.  The new covenant was not taking away the Law, but putting the Law (the Torah, instructions of God) in their minds and writing them on their hearts.  The new is absolutely connected to the old because the old was pointing to the new all along.  Israel was by and large stuck on the superficial aspects of the law but not understanding the deeper truths that it was pointing towards.

It would be similar to parents giving their children a bed-time.  They go to bed at a specific time, not because it is the inherently moral time to go to bed.  Rather, the bed-time teaches a discipline and greater lesson that there is a time to go to bed and a time to wake up.  All responsible adults who do not live like children, understand this and respect it in their lives, regardless of when exactly they go to bed.  Yes, some laws are inherently moral.  “You shall not murder.”  But, the sacrificial laws, dietary laws, and feast days, were illustrative, even prophetic, of things that they only typified.  They were training wheels to help us understand what Jesus was, and is, doing.  Through Jeremiah, God basically says that their penchant to focus on the superficial aspects of the Law had kept it from getting into their hearts and minds.

Yet, God was going to fix that.  How?  Verse 34 tells us that God would forgive their iniquity and their sin.  It is important to understand the power of God’s forgiveness of our iniquity.  Jeremiah doesn’t explain the mechanism that God would use to make it possible for Him to forgive our iniquity.  However, Isaiah 53 does.  When you are given forgiveness undeservedly, it can have a powerful transformative affect upon your heart.  It is not guaranteed.  Some are not seeking forgiveness and don’t believe that they have done anything wrong.  But, forgiveness powerfully affects the repentant heart that desires restoration of relationship.  This is what John the Baptist meant when he said, “Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29). 

Jesus is instituting a new covenant, a covenant of the adult-children of God who are no longer under the tutor of the Law, but for whom the lessons of the Law point us to the ultimate fulfillment that God intended in it.

Lest we be arrogant towards Israel, let us remember that no one gets to adulthood without first going through childhood.  Don’t think of it as God loving one more than another.  Rather, it is God doing what is necessary to save humans.  In fact, the kingdom is first offered to Israel, and a remnant of Israel entered into the Kingdom, becoming adult-children of God.  The Church is founded upon the faithful work of Jewish men and women who took the Gospel of the Kingdom to the ends of the earth, bringing Gentiles into the saving work of Jesus.

Christians do not throw off the Old Testament.  Rather, we fulfill it in our lives through faithfully following the instructions of King Jesus.

To slam this point home even further, Jesus gives a serious, even severe, warning.  Those who misunderstand his teaching here will be the least in the Kingdom as opposed to the greatest.  This is not a time to be humble.  Jesus is speaking about a judgment by God as to our service.  We can be saved by believing in Jesus, but still misconstrue some of the finer points of what he is doing.    It appears that a person can be in the Kingdom, but become hampered in our ability to truly serve Him.  The key is to stay humble, stay in the Scriptures, and keep prayerfully seeking the help of the Holy Spirit.

Yet, verse 20 gives us a more powerful warning.  Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  The idea of being shut out of the Kingdom is a fearful one.  All of Israel saw the Kingdom as the apex of God’s promises to us.  The Kingdom is perfect relationship into eternity.  To be shut out of the Kingdom is to be shut out of all that will come for those who are in relationship with Yahweh.

It is only the righteousness of Christ that saves us.  Yet, Christ wants to impact us by His Holy Spirit to live out that righteousness on this earth through a real relationship with our Maker, and Redeemer.

If we think of this warning in superficial terms, then we will be exasperated at the idea of doing more righteousness than the Pharisees.  However, we need to understand the heart element here.  A Pharisee may do a ton of things that he believes to be righteous because of the traditions of men.  His righteousness could amount to filthy rags before God.  But, one sinner who believes on Jesus and has even an ounce of Christ working in his heart can produce more righteousness, more true righteousness, than the other.  It is quantity, but quantity that first survives a hurdle of quality.

May God help us to be a people fulfilling with Jesus all that the Law and the Prophets are pointing towards!

SOTM3

The Acts of the Apostles 56

Subtitle: Pressing on with Jesus

Acts 14:1-20.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 24, 2023.

It is generally a given in any great work that hasn't been done before that there will be difficulties, obstacles, and resistance.  Learning to press on is an important skill (we could say), but it should never be separated from the Lord Jesus.

The story of the Church is just as much about the price that had to be paid by believers to spread the Gospel, as it is about the miracles and powerful moves of God.  Both were working together.  This interesting mix is demonstrated in the book of Acts.  God is moving, and yet, men like Peter, James, John, Stephen, Paul, Barnabas, and many others, pay a price in difficulties in order to spread the Gospel.

Most people would say to a man like Paul, "What are you doing here in the middle of Asia Minor?"  Of course, when we face difficulties and obstacles, we might ask this of ourselves.  What am I doing here?

Pressing on always has to be about Jesus.  We first do this with and for Jesus.  And then second, anything that is done is only done by His strength, His sustenance, and His power.  If Jesus doesn't go with us, then how will they know that God's favor rests on us? 

So, we want to be pressing on in the thing that Jesus is doing.  May God strengthen us and give us courage in this great mission that we are doing with Him!

Let's look at our passage.

They press on to Iconium (v. 1-7)

Though Paul and Barnabas ran into resistance, they continue on to another town.  We cannot let ourselves obsess on resistance.  If you are doing something with God, there is always going to be some resistance.

Even people who are working for the devil run into resistance in life.  Of course, I don't advise that. Yet, note that sinners and saints alike have to deal with resistance.  We can think that everything should miraculously go without a hitch if God is really with us, or at least, that it would be much easier.  However, if you have read your Bible for more than 5 minutes, then you know that this is not the case.

The problem is not that Christians don't know this, but that our "feeler" doesn't always check-in with the brain first.  Thus, we need to take possession of our inner life and not let our feelings push us in the wrong direction.

What matters in the end is that the work of Jesus is being done and that he is pleased.  Yes, they ran into resistance in Pisidian Antioch.  However, there was a group of believers in that town now!  The resistance moves them to a town called Iconium that is about 100 miles east of Pisidian Antioch.

In Iconium, a "great multitude" of Jews and Greeks believe.  Luke doesn't hand out this phrase generously.  "Great multitude is only used in one other place in the book of Acts.  Chapter 17 describes such a multitude in the Greek city of Thessalonica.  Now we should be careful of thinking that God is not moving if only a few people are saved.

They end up staying a long time in this city, preaching boldly, and discipling the new believers.  It also mentions that "signs and wonders" were being done by Paul and Barnabas.  Luke doesn't give us a particular example here like he does elsewhere. 

Yet, notice that it is Lord who "grants" signs and wonders as a witness to the word that is being preached.  When we are dealing with miracles, there are different issues involved.  It does involve the person who is speaking and being used of God.  But, there is also the place where you are and what God is doing there.  Miracles are ultimately an aid to faith, a help, a grace of God that He grants to us from time to time for His reasons. 

Thus, it shouldn't shock us that some places that have seen many miracles in the past are often not seeing those signs any more today.  People there might wonder where God is.  Or, they may think that "it doesn't work any more."  Some are inclined to think that it wasn't even real.  They are just stories by people who are easily tricked by charlatans.

God is faithful to move in powerful ways, but then He waits to see what we are going to do with that grace.  We need to walk those things out in faithful service to Jesus, whether he continues to grant miracles, or allows us to be tested in this area.

In the midst of signs and wonders, unbelieving Jews stir up the Gentiles of the city against Paul and Barnabas.  This creates a division within the city.  Verse 4 states that the division is between the Jews and the apostles, but in the context, Luke has emphasized belief.  This really is a division between unbelieving Jews and believing Jews.  This has always been the case from Cain and Abel on down to the modern era.  Some believe and many do not. 

Here, it is a hostile few who stir up and motivate the great middle, those who are unsure.  Be careful who you are stirred up by.  When God moves, it can divide not only people within a city, but it can also divide a denomination, a church.  You can find yourself in that strange place where sinners are believing you, and the "believers" are resisting and kicking you out of their church.

We are then told that a plot developed to stone Paul and Barnabas.  This causes them to flee to another city.  We are not told how, but God caused the plot to come to their attention.

It may seem strange that they "flee."  However, they are merely following the instructions of Jesus.  In Matthew 10:16, 23, Jesus told his disciples that he was sending them out among wolves.  They would need to be "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."  He then told them that if they are persecuted in one city, then they should flee to another.

We can misinterpret what is meant when Jesus says that "the gates of hell will not prevail against [his Church].  This doesn't mean that we as individuals are untouchable or invincible.  As an individual, or even as a whole, God may allow His people to be persecuted, and even martyred.  Our blood will only become the fertilizer to the growth of faith in the hearts of those who see it.

Yes, they flee to another city, but they are also pressing on in the mission of sharing the gospel with Jews and Gentiles.

They press on to Lystra (v. 8-20)

There is a lot in this passage, but it all involves pressing on with Jesus, and in the face of tough circumstances.  It involves keeping our eyes upon Jesus, but also, keeping focused on what part we want to do in that great work that Jesus is doing.

There is an aspect to this in which God has spoken some personal things to Paul.  But, there is also a sense in which we should want to do great things for God.  He laid his life down for me.  The least I can do is let go of my life for him and only live for his purpose.

The call of God is always challenging.  Some of that challenge we know about up front and some we do not know.  Yet, we can say "yes" to the Lord.  Mary was only a young teenager when she said to the angel, "Let it be unto me as you have said."  She is really saying this to God.

We can be guilty of over romanticizing the call of God.  It was great news that Mary would give birth to the Messiah.  Yet, the bad news is that it would be a miraculous birth, which few if any would believe.  Even Joseph thought that she had been ungodly, immoral, and was ready to put her away.  This is a tough ask, and yet Mary embraces it.

It is always easier said than done when the Lord calls us to something.  Later, she would be told by Simeon that a sword would pierce her own heart as the thoughts of many were revealed.  Further down the road, she would understand this meaning better as she watched her son being tortured to death in crucifixion.

There are some things that are a part of the call of God that He doesn't tell us about, as a grace to us.  Instead, He walks us up to the moment and prepares us spiritually for it.  He then enables us with His Holy Spirit to go through things that would seem to be unthinkable and more than we can handle.  There will be tears, but there will be the bonding that happens from joining Christ in his sufferings.

So, Paul and Barnabas press on to Lystra.  If there was a synagogue, they would have preached there, but Luke jumps right to a lame man who is in the crowd listening to Paul preach.  This was a man who had never walked from birth.  We are told that Paul saw that he had faith to be healed.  Most likely he is believing in the message about Jesus, though it is possible that Paul was also preaching about the healings that Jesus had done.  Yet, this is this lame man's day!  The Lord is going to heal him.

When Luke describes Paul seeing that the man has faith to be healed, we should be careful of seeing this as a theological statement, or the sum total of the theology of divine healing.  Paul could have gone over and whispered into his ear.  However, Paul publicly, loudly, (even rudely?), tells the man to stand up straight on his feet.  So we have two people here who have faith: Paul who is being used to administer the healing, and the man who is receiving it.

 At this point, it is probably not remarkable that Paul has faith.  However, this man is a different story.  Like I said earlier, he didn't get up that morning and see that being healed of his condition was on the schedule for the day.  It was just another day when he woke up. 

How many times do we wake up thinking that it is just another day, ho hum, until it isn't?  God can step in and change things in a moment.  We have need of endurance.  We should not become weary in the work of God, or at least, we should put our weariness on the altar before God in prayer and ask for strength.  We just don't know what a day may hold, and being faithful between such days is important.  It is the lion's-share of what we do in Christ, being faithful to what we know.

We have this man's faith and Paul's faith meeting up with the "granting" (verse 3) of God.  We could boil this down to the idea that God will do this every time if He really loves us.  However, too many saints, and even Paul himself, had things that were not healed, even when God was moving.  Paul prayed three times for God to heal him, but God said "no."  "My grace is sufficient for you."

We don't always know why God allows certain things like this.  It is part of a fallen world in the middle of being redeemed.  Yet, the grace of God is still with us!

At Paul's command, the man quickly stands up and realizes that he is able to walk.  Everyone there would hear the command and then see a man they absolutely know cannot walk get up and walk.  This is one of those jaw-dropping moments.

In their shock, the people think that Paul and Barnabas are gods.  They begin excitedly calling them gods, but in their local language, which it seems Paul and Barnabas do not understand.  To them a great hubbub breaks out, which would be normal under the circumstances.  Meanwhile, this people think that Zeus and Hermes are standing in front of them.

This is not really a shocker.  They are idolaters and have worshipped these gods and have stories of them coming down and looking like men, but being far more powerful.  The gods are also very immoral, but we will let that go by for today.  They are being careful to offer a sacrifice because you do not want the gods to be angry with you.

Once Paul and Barnabas figure out that the people intend to sacrifice to them, they begin talking the people out of such a blasphemous act.  When Paul tells them that God wants them to turn from these "useless things," he is referring to the idols and the gods they represent.  In Hebrew the term for idol basically means worthless, useless. 

These people have been steeped in ignorance and don't know any better.  The apostles assure them that they are only men, just like them.  The Living God wants them to turn away from these idols and towards Him.  This is the God who created the heavens and the earth.  God had turned away from the nations after the tower of Babel.  From then until the moment that day, God had overlooked the sinfulness and wickedness of these nations.  Yet, He was also working to bring the Gospel to them.  There time serving useless idols would be preparatory to them receiving the word of the Gospel.

Let me just say, it is incumbent upon any Christian minister to stop people from treating you like a god.  This is a real temptation.  When you are far from home, and the people are treating you such, you are tempted by your flesh to take advantage of it.

It is not just a temptation for missionaries.  It is a temptation when your ministry leads people to salvation.  They can have a tendency to look up to ministers and leaders as if they are something great.  We see this when large ministries have a huge moral failure, whether sexual, financial, or something else.  There are groups of people who will never believe the obvious truth, and others who are spiritually devastated to the point of walking away from Christ.  The problem is that they had put this person on a pedestal.  It may be good to honor and respect a person who brings you to the Lord and ministers to you.  However, only Jesus should sit on the throne of our heart.  He alone never fails!

Paul and Barnabas are barely able to restrain the crowd from sacrificing to them.

It is not clear when the Jews from Antioch and Iconium show up.  It was probably at least several days.  Yet, it ends up with the apostle Paul being stoned by the people of the city, dragged out of town, and left for dead. 

There are many questions about this we could ask.  Why would God help Paul escape a stoning in one town, only to turn around and let him be stoned in another?  Did Paul actually die, and God brought him back to life?  Or, did God protect him just enough for him to become unconscious, but not die?  Ultimately, it doesn't matter how God does what He does.

Most of us would call this a bad day.  Yet, let me point out some of the things that the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches that he had started.

Romans 8:18, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

2 Corinthians 5-7, "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. ⁶ Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. ⁷ And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation."

Philippians 3:10, "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,..."

Colossians 1:24, "I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, ..."

2 Timothy 1:8, "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God,..."

Lastly, Hebrew 2:10, "For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. "

If Jesus went through suffering to be perfected, will I do anything less?  Will we?

There is a glory that we share with Christ even in the midst of suffering.  However, this time of bonding will burst forth in an even more glorious unveiling when Christ comes back to the earth with his resurrected saints.  May God help us to be faithful to glorify him, and to do the work that he has for us, no matter what we face!

Pressing On audio

It's Me Standing in the Need

2 Samuel 12:1-14.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on the Sunday preceding Dependence on King Jesus Day, July 2, 2023.

The story of David's sin with Bathsheba can be found in 2 Samuel 11.  It is a dark stain upon the otherwise righteous life and impeccable character of David.  I mean a stain so dark that it causes many to balk at how he could have done these things without having been like this all the time before it.  Chapter 11 ends with the statement that is translated in many versions as saying that David was "displeasing to the Lord."  It literally says that "it was evil in the eyes of the Lord."

Temptation is a powerful thing.  It started with David walking on his rooftop in the cool of the evening.  From his vantage point, he happened to see a woman bathing who was a striking beauty.  He should have walked away at that point.  One cannot control that first moment of seeing something that you were not attempting to see.  However, lust took root in David's heart.  He had "beheld" her too long with his eyes.

The Bible speaks of  making provision for the flesh.  In this case, David did not know who this woman was.  He could have left it at that, but his desire pushed him to inquire about the identity of this woman.  It was then that he found out that it was Bathsheba, the wife of one of his elite warriors, Uriah the Hittite.  He should have immediately walked away.  She was the wife of another man, and thus, not a potential prospect for him (even though he had plenty of wives at this point). 

Now that he knew her identity, David's lust pushed him further.  He sends for Bathsheba to come to the palace.  It is not clear how she is talked into coming to the palace, but it appears she was as willing as he to commit adultery. 

It is not clear if David intended to continue meeting with her, but she later sends back word to David that she was pregnant.  During this story, her husband Uriah has been with the army of Israel across the Jordan.  They were battling against the Ammonite city, Rabbah (the modern city of Amman).  We don't know how long they had been away, but Uriah's absence made it easier to commit the adultery.

David had a problem.  Uriah would know that the baby could not be his.  David had no doubt made some promises to Bathsheba.  To solve his problem, David calls for Uriah to come back to Jerusalem under the guise of quizzing him about how the war was going.  After this debriefing, David tells him to go home, even sending food to his house as a reward for all his faithful service.  Of course, David believes that a man who has been away to war for months would immediately jump on a chance to be intimate with his wife.  Thus, Uriah would never know that the child was not really his.

However, Uriah did not comply.  He was too noble to sleep with his wife while his brothers in arms were still at war and perhaps dying on the field.  They couldn't sleep with their wives, and neither would he take advantage of his trip home. 

David finds out the next day that Uriah did not go home, but slept in the servants quarters of the palace.  He tried one more trick by having Uriah eat with him and attempting to make him drunk so that he would lose his inhibitions and go home.  Still, Uriah exercised restraint (unlike David) and again slept in the servants quarters of the palace.

David had to send him back, and so he sends him back to the battle with a letter for Joab the General.  It basically told Joab to put Uriah in the front of the battle and then have the men pull back so that Uriah would die.  Joab complied, and Uriah died at the hands of the Ammonites.

How could David have done such a horrible thing to anyone, much less a man who had been faithful to him during the many years of running from Saul?  David had chosen to act like the very man he had replaced, abusing his power, and unrighteously seeking the life of a just man.  He did all of this to satisfy his lust.

This brings us to our passage today.

Nathans story (v. 1-6)

One has to believe that the Spirit of God had been convicting David all along the sordid path of his sin.  At the moment of seeing her, it would have been there.  "Walk away!"  But, David didn't listen and pressed on.  "Don't ask who she is!"  However, David did it anyway.  "Don't send that servant to fetch her!"  Yet, he did.  "Don't take her into your bedroom!"  "Don't call for Uriah!"  "Don't send him home."  "Don't get him drunk."  "Don't write that letter!"  "Don't give it to him!"  All along the way, David trampled the warnings of his conscience and of the Spirit of God, letting his lusts drag him away.

Sin often creates problems and we see David scrambling to cover up his sin.  However, he reached a point where he was no longer scrambling and it appeared that he had gotten away with it.  Yet, when we refuse to listen to God, He has ways of getting our attention.

Let's recognize that David did not just commit two sins, adultery and murder.  He was daily sinning against the Lord who had loved him, protected him, and raised him up to be king of Israel.  He was sinning against God every day he hardened his heart.  David was trapped in his sin.

However, God cared about Uriah's family.  He cared about Israel, and about what David would become if he was allowed to get away with this sin.  God cared how David's actions would affect the strategic position that he had within God's plan of redemption for Israel and the nations.

In 2 Samuel, God had promised David that the Messiah would come through his line, and that he would sit upon the throne of David forever.  This sin was an obstacle to the work of God through David and so God steps in by sending Nathan the prophet to David.

Speaking truth to power can be a dicey prospect even when God sends you.  God can protect you, but He can also be testing the authority to see if they will abuse his servant.  Think about it.  What happened to most of the prophets?  They were killed by the powers to whom they spoke the truth. 

Today, in America, people are slobbering at becoming a prophet.  They are going to schools, and studying the lives of "prophets," so that they can learn to be one.  However, becoming a true prophet of God is akin to receiving a death sentence in this world.  It is heartaches and humiliations galore, not a giddy event.

Telling David a story allows Nathan to slip the truth in before David spits it out.  You remember the song.  "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down..."  There is a lot of medicine that we need, but we don't want to swallow it.  We don't want to hear it.  We are sick and tired of hearing it.  We put our fingers in our ears and then angrily go away so that we won't have to hear it.  Of course, in doing so, we have just testified against ourselves.  On the day that we stand before God, He will ask us why we didn't listen.  We may then reply that we couldn't have known.  Yet, God will play that moment back to us, and we will be silenced.

Nathan's story is a classic rich man versus poor man plot.  David would quickly empathize with the powerless poor man, having been the youngest of a lot of brothers.  Also, he had been falsely accused by Saul who was the previous king.  Saul had hunted him like a deer throughout Israel, seeking to put him to death unjustly.

The story is very straight forward.  A rich man who has plenty of lambs to slaughter, and plenty of money with which to buy a lamb if he needed, is contrasted with a poor man who had nothing but a ewe lamb that he had purchased.  It was a family pet, much like we would keep a pet dog.  Like any pet, this lamb had become very dear to the poor man and his children.

One day a traveler came and stayed with the rich man.  Instead of feeding him from his own flock, or buying a lamb from the market, he takes the lamb of the poor man and feeds it to his visitor.  Though nothing is mentioned, the poor man would have never agreed to this.  So, we are left to imagine what the rich man did to take the lamb, no doubt a group of his hired hands roughed the poor man up.  Of course, such details are irrelevant.  How does a person come to a point of such gross sin?

Of course, this is an analogy.  The traveler represents the temptation and the lust of David being stirred up.  Like a traveler from afar, lust shows up and asks for lodging for the night.  He should have told it to go lodge somewhere else.  However, David wished to entertain this traveler.

Though Nathan did not ask for a decision, David explodes with great anger.  He is quite passionate in declaring judgment against the rich man.  He calls upon the Lord as a witness, "As the Lord lives!"  He then declares that the man will die.

Now theft was not a capital crime in Israel, just as it isn't in our Republic.  His statement that the lamb will be paid back four times shows that David is quite aware of Exodus 22:1 and its prescription.  However, because the rich man did this thing "without pity," David wants him to die.

Mitigating factors are things that lessen the gravity of a crime.  Perhaps a man was an orphan, very poor, and had no food.  Such a person who steals a lamb in order to keep from starving is not going to be judged so harshly.  However, the rich man has aggravating factors.  David thinks that his riches and insensibility requires death.

It is an interesting dynamic that people who are overly harsh in their judgments are often hiding sin of their own.  They refuse to repent, and thereby punish themselves, so they take it out on others.  David himself is guilty of several capital crimes.  You might think he would be adverse to capital punishment.  Instead, he insulates himself by becoming overly righteous.  Sometimes people can become so bad that they lie to themselves.  "I'm okay, and it is everyone else who is wrong!"

Jesus alludes to this in Matthew 7:5 when he talks about judging.  "Hypocrite!  First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."  When you have fought against sin in your own heart and mind, you tend to be more compassionate without excusing the sin.  You know that fighting sin is hard, so you work hard to help your brother come clean before God without crushing him with harsh words.

Every son is disciplined by their fathers.  As earthly fathers, none of us are perfect in our discipline.  If you have any kind of heart for them at all, you try to do your best.  Of course, no kid likes the discipline they receive at the time.  However, discipline doesn't have to be perfect to do a good work in us.  By its very nature, being disciplined to do anything in life builds strength and tempers a person.  It can be directed in better paths latter, but the foundational skill is there.

This is why many in our society enter the work force and cannot keep a job.  They were never disciplined, and taught how to discipline themselves at home.  Parents know that life is tough, and if a person is not disciplined, it is even tougher.

The same thing is true spiritually.  Let's get real.  The effects of sin are devastating, and harsh.  If you are not disciplined, get ready for a lot of lumps.  Of course, there isn't a one of us who hasn't received their fair share of lumps from sin.  However, God is gracious to keep reaching out to us.

Nathan waits until David's response is made, and then, he masterfully reveals that the story was a picture of his actions with Bathsheba.

The meaning of Nathan's story (v. 7-14)

"You are the man!"  With this simple sentence, David quickly sees that Nathan knows everything, and that God is not going to let him get away with it.  You are the man in this story David.  And, this time, you are not the poor, persecuted man.  You are the abusive, rich man.

Nathan quickly moves to the judgment that God has given.  Notice that God is not as harsh in His judgment as David was in his.  You could say that God didn't keep the Law of Moses.  I remember a Jewish man asking me a gotcha question.  "Is there grace in the Law of Moses?"  I told him that there was grace all through the Law of Moses.  He was surprised that this would be my answer as a Christian.

The prophets of Israel understood that the Law could not save them in and of itself.  David himself got it.  In Psalm 51, which he wrote following this event, he writes that if God really wanted the blood of bulls and goats that he would give it.  Instead, what God really wanted was a broken and contrite heart.  Such a man God would not turn away.

Have you noticed that our society seems to be exalting a principle of not having to pay the consequences of sin.  However, mercy is not mercy unless sin is sin.  What I mean is this.  If we detach sin from its natural consequences, then we are no longer being merciful.  We diminish sin to something that isn't your fault, poor you.  We enlist the taxes of the rest of society to mitigate, and even erase as much of the consequences as we can.  This is not mercy; it is insanity.  It creates a society of thankless, entitled brats who have lost connection with reality.  It also creates an elitist class that grifts off of the tax pools that are enlisted to "help these poor people."  Yes, they are poor, and yes they need help.  But, this is the last thing these grifters would ever hope to happen.  Thus, every year the helpless and hopeless pool grows larger, and the pot of money needed to "help them" grows larger, and the amount of money that ends up in the pockets of the elite and their cronies grows exponentially. 

This is why God designed homes to be a protected environment for kids to learn about the consequences of sin.  Parents are not perfect, but they have the greatest interest in this child maturing into a man or woman that is able to discipline themselves for their good, and the good of society.  Believe me, when you leave home and go out into the world, the stakes become much higher, and the consequences of a poor choice can mean your life, and much more, your eternity.

We should see consequences as the grace of God that tell us that we can't ignore and run from sin.  It tells us that it is better to nip it in the bud because the effects of sin grow exponentially the longer we cling to it.

David was running from his sins, and it needed to be nipped in the bud.  God had staked a lot on David, but he doesn't hide his sin.  He makes him face it publicly.  In fact, God knew what David would do when He removed Saul and placed David in his place.

It is important to recognize that the Bible does not present King Saul as all wicked, and King David as all righteous.  They both are raised to power as good men, and they both end up in a place of abusing their power and being rebuked by God.  So, what is the difference between Saul and David?

The difference is this.  When confronted with their sin by the Lord, David repented, but Saul blamed it on everyone but himself (including God).  David turned away from a heart that is hardened against the ways of God with a broken and contrite heart, but Saul hardened his heart and persisted in his ways of wickedness.

This has always been the difference between the righteous and the wicked.  It is not that the righteous have never sinned, or haven't sinned as much as the wicked.  It is that they repent when God sends the message, "You are the man!"  Of course, we need to walk repentance daily.  It is a trap to think that you no longer have to worry about repentance because you did it already.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus identified with His Church knowing what a mess we would make of it.  Jesus is not for our sin as a Church.  He despises what it does to us and to a fallen world.  Don't be deceived.  He will always rebuke and discipline the ones He loves.  He will not walk arm and arm with us and pretend like our sin is no big deal.

However, God is not afraid to be connected to us and our sin.  We are His Church. He is faithful to do the work of purifying His children, and His Church as a whole.  Ultimately, the end times will bring forth a polarization of the external Church into a false church vs. a True Church.  Christ will allow the Beast to destroy one and will stand in defense of the other.

An aggravating factor is that David sinned in the face of great blessing from God.  David had difficult times during the years of King Saul.  Yet, God protected him, and sent men to rally around him.  God gave him victory over Goliath when no one else had the faith to stand against him.  God blessed him as a victorious general in Saul's army.  God blessed him with a family, and ultimately that his dynasty would last forever.  Verse 8 shows us God's heart.  "If that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!"

We should note that it was normal for kings throughout the world to have whatever women they desired under their rule.  In fact, it is even still normal for presidents today to send word to a woman, married or not, that the president is interested.  Power goes to people's heads, and people will protect and feed the lust of an individual simply to stay close to the levers of power.  No one would have batted an eye at what David did if he were in a nation other than Israel.  However, this was Yahweh's land.  The God of Truth, who raised up kings and put them down at His leisure, made this a different story.  The God of Israel would not countenance such a thing without repercussions.

However, I am talking about America today!  We have been so blessed, and we have been gobbling up blessing after blessing, to the left and to the right, just shoving it into our mouths like a bunch of porky pigs.  Still, we just don't have enough.  We have to go out and straddle the planet with our military and global corporations, taking as we please and cloaking it in a deceptive cloak of morality.

We do similar things in our cities and towns.  Family members do it to family members.  In so many ways, we are gobbling up the grace of God, and we are taking it for granted.  You can't do that for very long and survive the wrath of God.

Yet, God in His great grace is faithful to send voices out of the wilderness to tell us a story, to try and get our attention.  I believe that God is greatly displeased with these united States of America.  I think that He is trying to get some Nathan's to rise up and confront the people of this Republic.  Yes, truth must be spoken to our government officials, but the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court are not the highest human authorities in this land.  No.  The highest human authority in this land is We the People who ordained and set in order the highest human law of this Republic, the Constitution of these united States.  The rebuke must first be heard by We the People, and a response of repentance must first be walked out by We the People before God will hold our criminal servants in government accountable.

Ours is not a message of destruction.  God gives grace to David.  He deserved a death sentence, but God actually wanted a repentant heart that would quite the lawlessness.  There is hope in repentance.  God hasn't cast you off yet.  He is not calling for your death!

David  is told that he has despised God's commands (v. 9), and then later that he has despised God Himself (v. 10).  David knew the truth of God, but in this moment he wanted to sin.

It is a great blessing to know the heart and commands of God.  Many people in this world don't know their right hand from their left hand.  It doesn't excuse their sin, but it does mitigate their guilt before God in comparison to ours.  Some might say that no sin can be mitigated, but our sin can be done with aggravating factors that make it even worse.

Yet, over the top of this, David did his sin anyways.  He then continued to sin in order to cover up his previous sin.  Temptation and sin is precisely a trap.  The bait may be delicious, but now Satan has you in his hands.  He will manipulate you into more and more sin, worse and worse sin, in order to defeat the work of God in your life and sphere of influence.  Sin knows no boundaries, and there is no "bottom of the barrel."  There is only a descent into the abyss, into the bottomless pit of degradation and wickedness.

The word "despised" has the sense of lifting your head disdainfully against God and His Word.  Is this not a picture of our Republic today?  Is this not a picture of many Christians who give lip service to God, but despise His Words in their hearts and actions?  Let not a man bound by sin think that he can have freedom.  God will be faithful to send gracious rebukes, but if we do not repent, we will continue in slavery to sin and the powers that He places over us.

Nathan tells David that his actions had given the enemies of the LORD occasion to blaspheme (v. 14).  There were those in Israel who refused to serve Yahweh in their hearts.  There were also some who refused to believe that God had removed Saul and placed David on the throne.  They hated the ways and decisions of Yahweh.  To blaspheme is to declare things as true that are not true of Yahweh and His work. 

This is happening all across our land today.  Some of it is the fault of the Church.  We give ammunition to the enemies of God when we hide sin and refuse to deal with it.  This also gives ammunition to the spiritual powers to keep them from coming to see the truth of God and switching allegiance.

In this case, it is most likely that the blasphemy would not be centered on the idea that there is no Yahweh, or that He is not really about righteousness.  They would speak out against the decisions of Yahweh that were pronounced by prophets like Samuel and Nathan.  They could even reject the idea that a Messiah figure would come from the line of David.  How can a righteous man come from such a line?  One can't in the flesh, but by the Spirit of God, all things are possible!

It is one thing for people to despise God and His ways when Christians do what is righteous.  Jesus said in Matthew 11:6, "Blessed is he who does not stumble because of me."  Jesus had done nothing wrong, but he knew many people would not understand what He was doing.  However, the American Church is not pure.  We have become like David in many ways.  Have we also insulated ourselves so that we don't have to hear the voice of the Nathan's in our land?

Let me end with talking about God's mercy on David.  David would not be executed, and God would not cancel the covenant promise that He had made concerning Messiah.  Furthermore, God would remove David's sin from him. 

This is not favoritism.  This is about God's love for all sinners of the earth, and grace for those who will turn from their sin, repent, and turn towards Him and His righteousness.  Messiah would not come from a perfect family of a perfect tribe of a perfect nation.  God's work within all of us is at its best mercy upon a sinner who deserves death.  Even the people that He uses in our lives are merely sinners saved by the grace of God.

In the midst of God's grace is also chastisement.  The child would die, and David would continually have trouble with "the sword" among his family.  On top of this, God would raise up one who would sleep with David's wives in the full view of all of Jerusalem.  This was done during the rebellion of his son Absolom.  God sends a signal to Israel and to the nations that no man, no matter how much authority God has given him, is above the Word of God and the call to repentance by anyone in society.

America has been sinning for a very long time, but the greatest problem is those who claim to know Jesus who are refusing to repent.  They don't want to give up their authority and will not be held accountable to any religious notions.  Do you remember the phrase, "No king, but King Jesus!"?  Just like God knew Israel would fail from the beginning, so God was quite aware of the faithlessness of this nation that would grow through the centuries.  Yet, He decided in our favor during the War for Independence.

We must quit looking at the nations when God is saying, "You are the people!"  We must quit looking at the sin of others when God is saying "You are the person!"  We must once again become a repenting people, even as we pay a chastising price for past sin.

I believe that God can and will give mercy to this Republic if we will humble ourselves and turn away from our wicked ways.  We have to quit excusing sexual immorality in the Church.  We have to quit excusing the sacrifice of our children for a better life.  We have to quit eating, drinking, and being merry in our own houses while the rest of the Republic goes to hell in a hand basket.

Let me close by reminding us of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Eric Metaxas talks about this in his book, Letter to the American Church.  Adolph Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January of 1933.  November 6, 1932, on Reformation Sunday, Dietrich was preaching from Revelation 2 in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin.  All the bigwigs of society were there with many pastors in attendance.  This prophetic message focused on the message to the Ephesian Church.  "I have this against you, that you have left your first love."  They were celebrating the work of Martin Luther and that they were the spiritual descendants of him, the Lutherans.  Yet, the harsh pill, the medicine, you are not at all like Martin Luther.  He stood against every demon of hell in order to follow the Spirit of God in obedience to Jesus.  Yet, this group would not take a stand against the Nazi Party's racist policies.  The Church of Jesus could never compromise with such ideologies.

Dietrich was pushed off as a young man who was just looking for a fight.  Years of experience would tame him.  This is often true, but Dietrich was not looking for a fight.  He was simply seeing that they were already in a fight that precious few could see, a fight for the soul of Germany.

Metaxas says that there were 18,000 pastors in Germany at the time.  Three thousand were like Dietrich and stood steadfast against the Nazis from the beginning.  Another three thousand were Nazi lovers who had no problem with the invectives and signaled threats against the Jews.  That left twelve thousand (2/3rds) in the middle.  The problem for Germany was not the 3,000 Nazi-loving pastors, but the impotent two-thirds in the middle.  Some of the 12,000 eventually woke up, but after it was far too late to save their society from the great evil that was threatening it and the world.

Metaxas mentions that Hitler took power in January of 1933.  Bonhoeffer was already scheduled to make a speech via radio address in February 1933.  His topic was servant leadership.  As Bonhoeffer described the kind of leadership that Christians must exhibit and require of their leaders, the power to the whole radio station was shut down.  It had become to late to make a difference as Hitler quickly began to flex his power and take control of the media in Germany.

We can point to lost people who are doing lost things as the problem in our society.  They are a problem, but they are not the problem.  The problem is not even those lost pastors, bishops, and denominations that embrace wickedness in the name of love and tolerance.  No. The problem in these united States of America is the two-thirds of pastors, elders, and Christians who are on the fence about how to move forward.  The enemy does not care if you don't embrace wickedness, as long as you are feckless and afraid to take a stand exactly where the Holy Spirit is calling us to take a stand today (like Dietrich against Hitler, and David against Goliath).  God is looking for people in His Church who love truth more than their reputation, or a nice cushy position.  Martin Luther lost his place in the Roman Catholic Church.  He was hunted by the powers that be.

God will be gracious if enough of us wake up, and say yes to the Spirit of God.  Our actions right now actually say that we are just here for the American Dream.  But, have you ever considered what Jesus' Dream for America is?  We can stiff arm the Spirit and try to get back to "normal," having a good Church service with wonderful music, happy family, happy BBQ in the afternoon while watching sports.  It is not that these things are wrong and bad, but that they become all that we are living for while people are dying in a lost state, going to hell, and  we are losing our Republic.

Perhaps you are of the ilk to simply give up.  Yes, that's what happens when people sin.  Que sera, sera.  O, friend, you don't want to go through what can be next, and how bad things can get. God is removing the middle ground because it always belonged to Satan in the first place.  We must choose this day whose side we are on.  And, the only way to stop it is to repent and follow Jesus. 

Pick up your cross and let's follow him!

It's Me audio