The Afflicted One

Matthew 27:45-54.  Psalm 22.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 20, 2024.

We are going to take a break from the book of Acts this week and look at Jesus, the Afflicted One.

Isaiah 53:4 says, “We esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.”

Also, Psalm 22:24 says, “He [God] has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted [one].”  It is worth noting that “afflicted” is singular.  It could be referring to all who are afflicted as a singular group.  However, in light of the rest of the psalm, it is more likely that it is speaking of the particular afflicted one that David presented earlier in the psalm. 

Before we go to Psalm 22 though, let’s start in Matthew 27.

The cry of Jesus and the silence of God (Mt. 27:45-54)

Our passage picks up with Jesus having been on the cross for three hours. Verse 45 uses Roman time terminology.  The hours of the day are counted from 6 AM forward.  Thus, the sixth hour until ninth hour would equal noon to 3 PM.  To remind ourselves, Jesus is first put on the cross at 9 AM.

There is an interesting change that happens at noon.  For the first three hours that Jesus was on the cross, everything seemed natural.  A man is dying.  It is day time, and the world is going on like normal.  However, at noon, a darkness comes over the land.  This cannot be a solar eclipse because Passover is during the full moon.  This would put the moon on the opposite side of earth from the sun.  There are conjectures on the mechanism that God used to “turn off the lights” for three hours.  A common one is to link it to a large volcanic explosion.  Regardless of how it was done, this ominous situation continues until the death of Jesus.  In fact, after the death of Jesus, a large earthquake hits Jerusalem.  The darkness followed by an earthquake coinciding with the execution of Jesus would leave the average person watching freaked out.  Anyone watching this would think that something really bad had just happened.  For the first three hours, a guy like Caiaphas, the high priest, would feel justified.  But from noon to 3 PM, it would leave one with a strange sensation.

We see this with the Roman soldier mentioned in verse 54.  He has seen a lot of men crucified.  He is shocked and states, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

The death of Jesus is accompanied by a sense of God’s apparent silence.    How could God let this happen?

This is where we should remind ourselves of the hopes of the populace of Israel.  Jesus had healed people and taught them in a way that amazed the multitudes.  They had come to believe that he must be Messiah.  However, the leaders of Israel figured out very quickly that Jesus was calling them to repent too.  This provoked them to despise him and to work to kill him.

The populace hoped that Jesus, who must be messiah, would begin removing the yoke of the Romans, and  yet now, he has been publicly executed.  Think of it.  If you have put all your hopes in a man, and then, he is killed, it shocks you to your core.  On top of this, they heard Jesus crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  It could appear to some that Jesus himself expected God to stop his execution and is now in the throes of disillusionment.

This idea is quite common today.  The average person who doesn’t believe in Jesus will point to some bad thing that happened, or simply that there is evil in the world, and ask, “How could God let that happen?”  If God exists and really is all-good, then surely He would stop all the evil that is happening on this planet.

Jesus at the cross fundamentally challenges this contention.  We think we understand, and we think that God should stop evil.  Our tendency is to talk about these things as if we really understand all the repercussions.  However, these things really are greater than we understand.  This is probably why God designed humans to become parents.  This way, we too can learn what it is like to bend over backwards for the good of a young person who will give you flak for your choices, at some point.  I think parenting is God inviting us to know Him just a little more than we did before we became parents and can have every one of our decisions second-guessed.  There is a certain wisdom to the circle of life.  We generally do not understand these things until we grow old.

The reality on the ground at the crucifixion of Jesus says, there is no way that this man can be Messiah.  Otherwise, God would have stopped it.  So, what about this question that Jesus cried out about God forsaking him?

I mentioned earlier that the first thought of skeptics is the cynical angle.  Jesus realizes that he is going to die, and somehow he thought God would deliver him.  He is no messiah, and he was wrong.

There are good reasons to completely reject this idea.  First, throughout the Gospels, Jesus warned his disciples over and over again that he was going to Jerusalem and he would be killed there.  Of course, the cynic will believe that the disciples made this up after the fact.

Before we look at the next reason to reject this idea, I do want to say this.  I believe that a part of the reason that Jesus cries out this question from the cross is to let us know that he gets it.  For every time we have felt that God has abandoned us while something evil, something bad, does its thing, here is God in the flesh telling us that He gets it.  It is hard, and our flesh doesn’t like it.  The weight of God’s silence in the face of such injustice can be crushing.

We can place ultimatums on God, challenging Him to do such and such by this time, or we are going to cast our faith aside (whether in a rejection of His existence, or of His goodness).  Of course, Jesus knows better than that.  Still, he lets us hear these words from his mouth.

I believe that there is a spiritually immature part of all of us that wants God “to fix” our problems and the bad things in our life.  We typically pray for God to take away anything bad.  We want Him to bail us out of any nightmares that come our way.  Of course, wise parents know that it is often better to help kids through their problems and through their consequences, rather than taking them away.  A wise parent will come alongside their kids and help them through the problem, rather than completely removing it for them.

I think that God is doing this in the Garden of Eden.  He is not judging Adam and Eve because He is hurt and wants to make them pay.  He definitely doesn’t give the decree and make their sin and its consequences just go away.  Rather, He chooses to walk with them down this tough road they have chosen, and He gives them aid against an enemy that is far to strong for them.

The cross causes us to shout, “Take it away, God!”  “Remove the wicked people, and remove all injustice!”  However, Jesus tells us, “Pick up your cross and follow me!”

This leads us to the second reason why this cry in verse 46 is not a cry of disillusionment.  This was a time when books were not divided into chapters and verses.  Though the Psalms are small units within a collection, they were not known by a number.  Jews would not say, “Let’s read Psalm 22.”  Instead, they would use the first line, the first sentence, to refer to it.  Thus, Jesus is not just telling us that he knows our pain of feeling forsaken by God.  He is actually telling us to read Psalm 22 and pay attention to it.  He is connecting that Psalm to his current situation.  Of course, there were some people who couldn’t quite hear what he was saying.  Jesus was also in agonizing pain, making it harder to enunciate his words.  The Aramaic word “Eli” means my God.  However, some thought he might be calling out for Elijah (it was prophesied that Elijah would show up to help Messiah).  However, some would have wondered why Jesus was quoting from this psalm (what we call Psalm 22).

The prophecy of David in Psalm 22

David wrote this psalm roughly 1,000 years before Jesus.  David wrote many psalms.  However, he was more than a musician.  David was also a prophet.  In 2 Samuel 23:2, David says, “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue.”  He goes on to tell what God had told him.  God had told him that the one who rules men should be just.  He should be like the rising of the sun and the coming of the dew in the morning.  These are beautiful images of something that is a blessing.  Yet, David also says that his family was not so.  He had fallen short, and his family would fall short too.  Remember, that David had two sons try to take the kingdom from him while he was alive.  Yet, God also told David that He would still cause the promise of an Anointed King to “shoot forth,” or “branch out.”  Isaiah (chapter 4) and Zechariah (chapters 3 and 6) both picked up this verb and turned it into a title for Messiah, The Branch, or The Shoot.

What I am getting at is this.  David is not just writing a psalm about something bad that happened to him.  This is a prophetic psalm that looked forward to something that God showed David.

Jesus and his apostles also quoted and spoke of David’s psalms as prophecy.  So, why did Jesus point out this psalm?

Psalm 22 is a strange psalm.  It has two different types of psalms stitched together.  It starts off as a lament psalm.  A lament psalm basically cries out to God about a suffering situation.  Often, wicked people are involved, causing the pain.  Or, they at least pile on with condemnation.  Lament psalms typically plead to God for help and will end with a statement of faith in God’s character.  Verses 1 through 21a of Psalm 22 are exactly this.

Yet, in the second half of verse 21, something happens that changes the whole character of the psalm.  Verses 21b through the end of the psalm (verse 31) switch to a psalm of Thanksgiving.  This is somewhat odd.  It would be like a song that starts out singing the blues, and then turns into Pharrell Williams singing, Happy.  More than this, it is not quite clear what exactly happened to change a scene where someone is being put to death by wicked men, into a scene that is praising God and calling everyone to join him.

God showed David something about Messiah through his own affliction.  King Saul and Israel had rejected God’s anointing of David.  Yet, Messiah would also be rejected and afflicted by his own people.

Who is this afflicted one in the first part of Psalm 22?  It cannot be David.  David’s descriptions of the afflicted on do not fit him.  Yes, some of the things fit him.  David was afflicted.  Look at verses 7-8.  This description could fit David.  He had become a hunted man by King Saul under a false charge of treason.  This had him always on the run.  It was common for people to despise and ridicule David at this point in his life. 

How about verses 12 to 13.  The bulls and the lions here are symbolic of people who had power within Israel’s society.  King Saul had power and position.  David often felt like he had no where to turn to and was being encircled like a prey hiding in a thicket from predators.

Still, there are too many other descriptions that cannot be about David.  Verse 14 pictures the afflicted one of being poured out like water and having all of his bones out of joint.  Verse 16 speaks of dogs (more animal imagery for people) piercing the afflicted one’s feet and hands.  Verse 17 has the afflicted one being so emaciated that he can count his bones and people are staring at him.  Lastly, verse 18 has his garments being divvied up while he looks on.

This does not describe David.  It describes someone who is being put to death, someone who is not going to need his clothes anymore because he is headed to the grave.

I imagine that David wrestled with God over why He seemed so silent during David’s affliction.  Yet, God showed David that what he went through would be nothing compared to what King Messiah would go through.  David is the little-“a” afflicted one, but Messiah would be the capital-“A” Afflicted One. 

This Afflicted One would come to remove all injustice.  However, God is also a God of grace who doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed.  In the Affliction of the Afflicted One, God is giving space and giving time for us to repent by putting our faith in Jesus.  We could respond to the horrible truth that is displayed at the cross of Jesus: this is what even the best of us do to God.  If it wasn’t for His grace, we would have been destroyed along time ago.

It is easy to miss this message from David.  Yes, they were excited about Messiah removing injustice because that is clearly the Gentiles.  However, they missed the rejected aspect of the Messiah (well, he will be rejected by Messiah, but not us!).

All along this part of Psalm 22 is the idea that God is silent.  God doesn’t do anything about this horrible affliction from the wicked.  At least, up until we reach verse 21.

“Save me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen!  You have answered me!”  No matter how you translate this verse, two things stick out that cannot change.  The first verb “save me” is a form of the verb that makes it clear that the person is still praying.  There is no question about this.  However the last verb “answered me” is not in this form.  It is a form that says the action of the verb has been completed.  Somehow the afflicted one goes from crying out for salvation to declaring that God has heard him, answered him.  This is the hinge point of the psalm.  God has answered His Afflicted One, but it will not be explained just exactly what God did.  Yet, it must be something really big to change the scene from a righteous man being put to death, to him praising God.

Even if you were being killed, pierced, emaciated, and your bones were out of joint, and God answered you, you would not be in a condition to be praising God.  You would be in a hospital for a very long time asking why God didn’t intervene sooner.

There is not only a switch of genre in this psalm (lament to thanksgiving), but there is a switch in who is narrating the scene.  All throughout the lament, it is first-person narration of what is happening to him.  Even the praise in verse 21 begins by the afflicted one.  “You have answered me!”  Verses 22 and 23 continue the praise, but in verse 24 we see that the narrator has either began to speak of himself in the third-person, or David has taken over and is prophetically calling Israel to pay attention to this amazing thing that God is going to do.  All of Israel are called to praise the Lord because the Lord delivered (will deliver) this Afflicted One.  David will go on to recount how this amazing deliverance will even cause the Gentiles to praise God (verse 27).  What could happen that would cause the ends of the earth and the nations to give praise and worship to God, remembering what God did for His Afflicted One and “turning to the LORD”?  What could cause “all the families of the nations” to worship before him?  Then, verse 28 clearly ties into the Messianic prophecies that picture the Anointed King that God sends to rule over all the nations.  “The Kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations!”  This Afflicted One is that King!  Nothing in David’s life, or Israel’s history, even comes close to something like this, except for one person.  It is Jesus.

However, there is more.  In verse 29, the David employs language of “all those who go down to the dust.”  They will bow before the Afflicted One.  This language of going into the dust is language that speaks of people who have died (can’t keep themselves alive).  They are mortals who go into the grave.  It appears to say that even those who have gone into the grave will bow before him.  How can that be?  Of course, the New Testament testimony of what the Apostles came to know about Jesus shows us that the death of the Afflicted One was overturned by Resurrection.

Jesus is pointing us to this passage.  He is not saying that he has been forsaken by God.  He is saying exactly the opposite.  He is making the declaration of truth in the face of all the devils of hell and what they are unleashing upon him.  It may look like He is, but the Father will not abandon me!

Where are we today?  The Gospel of who Jesus is has gone to the ends of the earth, and many people of every tribe, language, and nation, have bowed before Jesus and worshipped him.  Yet, the powers of the world are not choosing Jesus as Lord of lords and King of kings.

The challenge for us is to believe what Scriptures says, what the Spirit says, about Messiah, even when it appears that it will never happen.  He will be afflicted to death, but God will answer him, has answered him!

Perhaps you are in the middle of affliction right now.  Perhaps you feel that God doesn’t care about you and has forsaken you.  His testimony is that He does love you and won’t abandon you.  You just need to put your faith in Him and trust Jesus. 

Why would Jesus go through all that affliction?  He was paying the price for your sins and for mine.  He was making a way for us to repent of our sins and believe in him so that we can be forgiven by God the Father.

Fatherly wisdom in the Scriptures tells us that God has come down and gone through the fire with us.  He has helped us and will bring us to the other side of this difficult affliction.  We will come out the other side more like Him.

Friend, our weak mortal state is not the final word.  God has promised something beyond this.  Let’s choose to identify with the Afflicted One who chose to identify with us!

Afflicted One 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 59

Subtitle: The Jerusalem Council II

Acts 15:13-21.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 15, 2023.

We continue to look at the gathering in which the First-Century Church settled the question on what Gentiles had to do in order to be saved.

Let’s make it clear that the Church and its leaders do not have the authority to promote anything but what God is saying and doing.  The Church is not a business that Jesus started and current leaders can choose to do something different.  Salvation is not a product that we can tweak in order to be more profitable, or any other human aspiration.

In reality, the leaders in this gathering were seeking to discern and come to agreement upon what the Lord Jesus wanted them to do and to teach.

This is an important distinction because, when you look at the history of the Church, you will find that over time leaders began to look more to human reasoning to lead them than to the Word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Like ambassadors of a great king, we are to rightly represent Him to the world.  This is important in general, but it is especially important to those who are responding to the Gospel of Jesus.  We do not want to be guilty of misleading those whom God plans to save.

Last week, we looked at Peter’s testimony, and then we looked at the testimony of Barnabas and Paul.  Now we are going to look at the testimony of James, the brother of the Lord.

Let’s look at our passage.

They gather to make a decision: James’s testimony (v. 13 -21)

Luke only gives the name of James without any other description.  This is not the apostle James, the brother of John, sons of Zebedee.  James was put to death by Herod Agrippa I in Acts 12:2.  He was the first of the apostles to die, and his brother was apparently the last (separated by around 45 years or so).

This could make us question God.  Why?

There is a certain amount of testing that we all need, and yet there are also a variety of the kinds of witness and testimony that we can be.  Sometimes God simply lets certain things happen and play out as people intend, and yet other times He has something more specific that He wants to happen, so He intervenes.

We must be careful of thinking God will always part the Red Sea if a person really knows Him, or if He is really involved in a matter.  Of course, God can do a dramatic miracle any time He pleases.  Yet, we can take a clue from the New Testament story of the resurrection of Lazarus.  Four days after he died and was buried, Jesus showed up and miraculously raised him from the dead.  Yet, even Lazarus came to death’s door a second time and Jesus didn’t come down from heaven to raise him up.  There were probably a few people keeping watch for at least 4 days, just in case. 

Yet, Jesus didn’t show up.  Why not?  Our inheritance is not living in a mortal body forever.  Lazarus had lived a full life and it was time for him to rest from his Gospel labor, and enter into the joys of the Lord.

My main point is that we can over promote the miraculous, or the providence  of how long we live.  Israel’s problem was never that they didn’t have enough miracles.  Their problem was walking in faith with God after the miracle.  In fact, that is not just Israel’s problem, but a human problem.  In fact, we often have trouble trusting God even as He is doing the miraculous in our lives. 

God does miracles from time to time, but the longer period is walking in trusting faith in between.  The tension of having an impossible mission is punctuated by God showing up from time to time in amazing ways.  Yet, we need to walk in faith regardless.

Tradition has always held that this is the half-brother of Jesus, though there are some groups that try to make out that Mary did not have any other kids after Jesus.  The record shows that Joseph was not a biological father to Jesus (the Holy Spirit created a child within Mary).  Yet, he and Mary did have children later:  James, Jude, Joses, and others.  None of the brothers of Jesus believed in him until after the resurrection.  Once they believed, they quickly became pillars in the Jerusalem church.

The only place in the Bible where it mentions that James was a brother of Jesus is in Galatians 1:19.  James, who wrote the book of James, never calls himself the brother of the Lord.  He calls himself, “James, a bondservant [slave] of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ…”

For some people that was big doings.  But, Paul makes the point in Galatians 1 through 2 that such is not important before God.  James is not taking the place of Jesus, as if he were in a line of succession.  No man will ever succeed the Lord Jesus who reigns forever and ever.

James starts out by referencing the testimony of Peter.  It is clear that James agrees with Peter’s conclusions and that his purpose is to give supporting evidence and then offer a solution.  He mentions in verse 14 that Peter had described how God had visited the Gentiles in order to take out of them a people for His name.  This helps us to see what James is focusing on, Gentiles belonging to Yahweh like Israel did.

It is interesting that Peter’s testimony focuses upon the power and work of the Holy Spirit in teaching him, and powerfully working among the Gentiles through him.  He gives testimony to the supernatural move of God, and is very practical, focused on activity of the Spirit of God.

The testimony of James is more theological, and looks to Scripture.  Most likely, James did not have any visions himself.  We are not told whether Jesus appeared to him during the 40 days following the resurrection.  Regardless, James knows the Scriptures, and he sees a connection between Scripture and what Peter is saying.

First James points out that the words of the prophets (plural) agree with this idea of the Gentiles becoming a people belonging to God.  James is going to quote one of those prophets, but the verse he is going to quote is merely representative of a large number of other places he could have gone to and quoted.  He could have mentioned God’s promise to Abram that through him the nations would be blessed.  He could have quoted Moses telling Israel that God would make them jealous through a foolish nation.  He could have quoted Isaiah saying that the death of God’s servant would be to precious to only redeem Israel, but that he would also become a light to the Gentiles.

However, James thinks of Amos 9:11-12.  This passage clearly pictures the Gentiles being called by the name of the LORD.

By the way, in general, quotes of the Old Testament that are given in the New Testament are clearly from a Greek translation called the Septuagint that was made in the 200’s BC. (also designated as LXX for the 70 scholars who worked on the project),  Long story short, there are sometimes where the LXX differs from the Old Testament texts in Hebrew that the Pharisees maintained from the first century down to now.  The reality is that not everyone read and wrote in Hebrew.  The Bibles of the early Church were the LXX and Greek copies of the Gospels and Letters of the Apostles.  These were later translated into Syriac and Latin, among other languages.  Even though there may be some differences in word choice between the LXX and the oldest Hebrew manuscript that we have, those differences do not change anything that is essential.

I bring this up because Amos 9:11-12 has a few differences from the LXX.  We will deal with them as we come to them.

Amos first talks about the fallen tabernacle of David.  God will raise it back up and repair its damage.  What is this tabernacle of David?  Moses had built a tabernacle, a tent, to house the ark of the covenant.  This was used by Israel in the desert and brought into the promised land.  The tabernacle was set up in a few different places, but Shiloh becomes the main place from the time of Joshua to Samuel.  Eli’s sons try to use the ark of the covenant as a talisman against the Philistines, and it is captured in a defeat.  At the same time, Eli falls and dies.   This appears to taint the place of Shiloh, so the tabernacle is moved to Gibeon, but the ark never returns to it. 

David wanted to build a temple, but God would not let him.  His son would do it.  Thus, David put up a temporary tent in Jerusalem in order to house the ark until the temple was finished.  This would be the closest thing to a literal tabernacle of David.  However, the temple replaced this tent.  It is quite clear that this is not about raising up a literal tent that had belonged to David.

This is where we must recognize that God used a word play in 2 Samuel 7 when he told David that he could not build the temple.  Instead of David building a house (temple) for the Lord, God would build a house (dynasty) for David.  In fact, one of the offspring of David would be a son to God and God would be a father to him.  This son would inherit a forever kingdom and restore Israel.  The prophets all picked up on this theme of a Messianic Son of David who would raise up Israel and subdue the Gentiles.  However, God continued to add more to these prophecies.  The main point is that the “tabernacle of David” had fallen a long time ago.  The last Davidic king was taken out by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC.  No Son of David sat on a throne over Israel for the last 600 years.  This is what is meant by a broken down and ruined tabernacle.  Who could raise up such a thing?  Only Messiah.

James clearly sees the raising up of Jesus as a fulfillment of this raising up of the tent of David.  Though Jesus was not ruling in Jerusalem, he is at the right hand of the Father awaiting the day in which it is time to make his enemies his footstool (Psalm 110).  The line of David had been restored, and the glorified Jesus can never die again.  He is both the restarting, and the true end of the Line of David.

This leads to the second part of the prophecy in Amos.  The broken tent is raised up in order to “possess the remnant…all the Gentiles who are called by My [the LORD’s] name.”  There is a question on whether it is the remnant of Edom or the remnant of Adam (i.e., humanity).  Hebrew originally had no vowels and they have the same consonants.  However, because there is a parallelism here, the next phrase that is not in question settles it, “the Gentiles” are intended.  Since we end up in the same place (the Gentiles), I am not too worried about whether Amos 9:12 should read “the remnant of Edom,” or “the remnant of mankind.”  Both ultimately say the same thing.

The next issue is to notice that in Amos the tabernacle of David is raised up to possess the remnant, and the quote from James says that the tabernacle is raised up “so that the rest of mankind may seek the LORD.”  This may seem to be contradictory at first, but give me a second and I will show you that they are two sides of the same coin.

Notice that the Messiah coming forth would both raise up the line of David, but also have an impact on the Gentiles.  Let’s start with the verb possess.  The Messiah would possess, or take possession of, the remnant of the Gentiles.  A remnant is always a small faithful group in the midst of a larger group that is not.  It can also mean a small group that survive a judgment of God, and thus are the blessed of the LORD.  We should also notice that the second part of Amos 9:12 is that the remnant are “called by My name.”  Who is the ruling Messiah of Israel?  It is Jesus who even now is possessing the remnant of the Gentiles and will possess the remnant of those who miraculously survive the Great Tribulation.

The point is that “possess” does not essentially mean to stomp on, destroy, dominate, or tyrannize.    It essentially means to inherit.  It is not a negative thing for the Gentiles here, it is a positive thing.  How does the Bible describe Gentiles (and Jews) as a possession of God?  We are called a “Treasured Possession,” also “Jewels.”  The flip side to Jesus inheriting the remnant of the Gentiles concerns what it takes to be part of the remnant.  Those who are seeking salvation and believe on Jesus become his possession.  Thus, to possess and to seek are merely two sides of the same revelation.  There is both seeking and possessing going on. 

Basically James is saying that the Bible prophesies what Peter is describing.

Then, James says, “Known to God from eternity are all His works.”  In a sense, this is not a new thing to God.  It may seem shocking and surprising to them, but God had been planning and leading up to this moment long before He even laid the foundations of the earth.

Again, James cannot be clearer that he agrees with Peter that they are seeing the prophesied move of God to take a people for Himself from among the Gentiles.  It is also good to see the Church working together paying attention to what the Spirit of God is doing now, and also what the Scriptures say, i.e., the sure and proven work of the Holy Spirit in the past.  We can become off-base when we emphasize one over the other.  We need both working together because the same Holy Spirit is behind both.

At this point, James puts forward a solution, or resolution in verse 19.  He says, “I judge…”  Some people read far more than they should into this.  James is not giving a decision for the whole group.  This could just as easily be interpreted as “I opine (it is my opinion)…”  James has made up his mind and is completely convinced by the evidence.  There are two main aspects to the resolution that James puts forth.

He determines that Jewish believers should not trouble the Gentile believers who are turning to God.  Essentially, he is referring to requiring them to obey the Law of Moses.  Troubling those who are turning to God, or have already turned to God, is something that we would associate with the wicked, and not God’s righteous people.  Though the terminology of James is not as dire as Peter’s (“why do you test God putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples…”), he still uses a disparaging term, “trouble.”

Troubling people who are coming to faith in Jesus can be a problem for the Church today.  We can try to stipulate things that God never commanded.  However, some groups seem to believe it is troubling people to put the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles before them.  We should say no more and no less than what the New Testament puts before us.

The wicked do not realize the danger they are in when they trouble God’s people.  In truth, they bring trouble upon themselves and will perish in the way if they do not repent.

The second part of James’ resolution is to write to the Gentiles that they abstain from three things.  It lists four, but two of them are two aspects of the same issue.  He believes that Gentiles should only be told to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from eating things strangled, and from ingesting blood.

Why these three things and where is James getting this?  Some see a connection to Leviticus 17 and 18.  In this section, God recognizes that there will be people who are not Israelites living among them.  He does not require them to follow all the Law of Moses if they are going to live among His people, but He does place some prohibitions upon them.  Leviticus 17 brings up the issue of idolatry.  If they want to do a sacrifice, it can only be at the tabernacle, and it can only be a sacrifice to Yahweh.    All of Leviticus 18 deals with the sexual immorality that was rampant among the Canaanites.  No foreigner who lived in Israel was to be involved in any sexual immorality.  Lastly, Leviticus 17 talks about blood issues.  The pagans often drank blood and used blood in their rituals as a way of gaining power and life.  For Israel, the blood of the animals was closely associated to the offerings before Yahweh.  He commanded them not to eat meat with the blood still in it, which would also prohibit straight out drinking blood.  Strangulation does not allow an animal to bleed out, which causes the blood to coagulate in the vessels and tissue of the animal.  No foreigner was to eat meat that had not been properly drained of its blood.

Coming back to James, he ties these prohibitions in verse 21 to the fact that Moses has been preached in many cities throughout many generations.  Though some differ as to how this is a “because” to the prohibitions, I believe that it has to do with Gentiles coming to the Lord being around Jewish people.  The Church is going to grow and expand into cities where there are Jews who need Jesus too.  Perhaps, James sees this as wisely removing some barriers to Jews and Gentiles coming into the Church together.  The Gentiles would not be trying to keep the Law, and the Jews could see God’s word instructing the minimum that they need to do.

Regardless of whether this is all how James thought about it, there is more than one way to support abstaining from anything associated with idols, sexual immorality and eating/drinking blood.  Simply following the “Law of Love” will teach you that sexual immorality is a selfish way of life that brings great sorrow into relationships, families, and societies.  The moral issues of the Old Testament were all reiterated by God’s apostles in the New Testament and are binding upon the believer today.  I don’t have to go to the Law of Moses to know and believe that God does not want me to murder, and if I do, I will not be right before Him.

We will finish this next week, but let me end with this.  We have the same Word of God, and the same Holy  Spirit today.  Yes, many denominations and leaders in the Church have made ungodly decisions throughout history.  However, we must not let that sidetrack us from looking to God and seeking His leading.  We can throw up our hands saying that “it doesn’t work anymore!”  Or, “God doesn’t care.”  Yet, we would be wrong.  God cares deeply and is always ready at every moment to lead us by His Spirit.  It is we who become hurt, apathetic, and uncaring about seeking Him.  May God help us to be a people of the Word who are also seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit.  If we will do this, then He will lead us forward and help us to reach others.

Council II audio

The Acts of the Apostles 48

Subtitle: The Benevolence of the Antioch Church

Acts 11:27-30. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on July 23, 2023.

We are going to look at the issue of benevolence among God's people.  Galatians 6:10 instructs us in such giving.  It says, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith."  Though he gives a command of general good, the context is specifically talking about helping with material needs, whether by giving goods or by simply giving money.

The church at Antioch was filled with new believers that had not grown up hearing the word of God.  It is a mixture of Jewish and non-Jewish people.  Thus, it was ethnically very different from the Jerusalem church, which was comprised of Jewish believers.

Perhaps you did not grow up in a strong family.  It is becoming rarer and rarer for people to have experienced family that helps one another.  Those people will need someone to come alongside of them and help them learn to be a brother, and a sister to other believers because that is what we are.  On the day you were saved, you joined a large family with a long history.

Not all of that history is good.  In fact, you may have had some run-ins with cranky, older siblings in the Church.  This is where we need a strong relationship with Jesus and our heavenly Father.  No matter what another believer may say or do, they cannot change God's love for you.  You are just as much a part of His family as they are.  If you ask, the Father will help you through it.  By keeping our eyes upon Him and hearing Him tell us that we are His own, we can learn to love and bless all of our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

The modern world uses the phrase "intangible religious benefits."  It simply means that any benefits are not clearly connected, or directly connected.  Let us be clear that we should not be benevolent in order to obtain benefits from God directly.  Of course, we know that He will bless us if we serve Him.  But we are not to do good things thinking that God owes us.  He died on the cross for you and gave you His all.  He doesn't owe us anything, but He does love to bless those who put their faith in Him.  In truth, our benevolence should flow directly from a heart of gratitude to God for His blessings to us.  He has blessed me so much.  How could I not give all that I can?

Let's look at our passage.

A prophetic word is given (v. 27-28)

In our passage, we have a word of prophecy that is given to the Christians in Antioch, which will prompt them to send aid to the church in Jerusalem.  However, we should deal with this aspect of prophets in general before we look at this specific prophecy.

We are told that some prophets from Jerusalem come to Antioch.  If you step back and look at Luke's narrative, we see that he describes several waves of God's grace in the form of people arriving in Antioch who came from Jerusalem.

The first wave was Jewish Christians who had made their way to Antioch due to Saul's persecution of the believers in Jerusalem.  Their arrival begins the presence of any "Christians" in that town.  On top of this, they freely spoke with Gentiles about Jesus.  This caused a rapid growth of the church in Antioch.

The second wave was led by Barnabas.  The Jerusalem church wanted to help and strengthen these scattered believers.  Barnabas was full of the Holy Spirit and gifted by God.  Thus, the church in Antioch saw even more believers coming in.  On top of this, Barnabas retrieves Saul from his nearby hometown of Tarsus.  Both of these men are powerful ministers of God's Spirit and Word and generally from Jerusalem.

The third wave of God's grace is in the form of some prophets who arrive in our passage today.  Let us just stop and recognize that God is blessing the cities and regions around Jerusalem, but Luke focuses in on Antioch because of the role it will play in taking the Gospel to the Gentiles.  God was really blessing this city.

There is no reason given why Antioch should be so blessed.  Yet, we should suspect that God's purpose was not to favor Antioch, but rather, to help extend His favor to cities farther away.

Some people are not comfortable with the talk of prophets and prophecies, or they are only comfortable if it stays in the Bible.  Ephesians 4:11-12 mentions that prophets are given by God as a spiritual gift to help equip His Church for ministry.  God especially works through prophets to give a timely word about things past, present, and sometimes about things in the future.  Part of our discomfort comes from the many abuses that have happened in this area.  It can be deemed as "safer" simply to shut it down completely.  However, it is our duty to become a mature group of believers who are able to deal with false prophets and false prophecies when they come.

Some people grew up within Christian communities that didn't allow any of this.  They will typically teach that prophets and prophecy were only for the first century.  However, God's Word doesn't say that.

So, what is the answer to uncomfortable things?  First, we should remember that the presence of fakes does not mean that nothing is real.  In fact, it is the fact that there is something that is real that gives fakers power over others. 

Think of it this way.  Do you quit using real money because someone somewhere counterfeits it?  Of course, my apologies go to those who would retort that none of our "money" is real and that the government is the counterfeiter in chief.  Please go with me on this example because it makes an important point.  You don't throw your money away because there are counterfeits "out there."  Instead, your dealing with actual dollar bills helps you to spot and recognize fakes (to some degree).  Often, people instinctively know that something is off about counterfeit bills.

Why would we take the "safe" route when it comes to prophets and prophecy?  We do so because it is easier on us.  However, I warn you that it is not actually the "safe" route.  If you shut every prophet down on principle, then you will eventually shut down a true prophet of God.  You will be found resisting and rebelling against the Spirit of God.  God says that He uses prophets, so it is our job to learn what that looks like.

This is the truly safe route.  Just like we use money, but keep our eye out for fakes, so the Church today should expect that God will give us true prophets, while watching out for fakes.  We won't be perfect, but God will bless us because we are walking in faith and seeking to be led by Him.  Basically, I am describing spiritual maturity.  We don't ask the new baby to be in charge of security for the family.  However, the adults are always vigilant in keeping the home secure, especially for those most vulnerable ones among us.

You cannot speed up spiritual maturity.  However, we can cooperate with God by humbling ourselves before His Word, and praying for His help.  In fact, the more time you spend prayerfully reading the Bible (which was written by mature prophets of God) the better you will get at recognizing the real thing.  Too many of our churches are weak in this area because of one of two mistakes.  They either foolishly accept every prophet that comes along, or they shut it all down completely.  Neither is the way of God's Word.

In our passage, we have a group of guys who are not completely unknown actors walking into the church.  Though they would be unknown to most, they are proven prophets from the Jerusalem Church for whom Barnabas could vouch.

Now getting to the specific prophecy that Luke relates, we see that a particular prophet, named Agabus, prophesies that a great famine was coming.  This is most likely the same Agabus that is mentioned again in Acts 21:10, who prophesied that, if Paul went to Jerusalem, he would be seized, bound, and delivered into the hand of the Gentiles.

Luke does not seem concerned with describing the day to day ministry of these prophets.  Rather, he brings up a specific prophecy that has to do with a great famine that would come on "all the world."  This is most naturally a reference to the Roman world of that part of the world.

Why would God be warning them?  We can think of Joseph and Pharoah's dream.  On one hand, they would be enabled to prepare themselves and stock up so that the times of difficulty would not be as difficult as they could.  We should be careful of consuming everything when we are in good financial times.  God may be supplying for you in advance for hard times to come.

Yet, there is another hand.  Egypt became a blessing and a help to all the lands around them.  In other words, the prophecy was not just for them to save their own hides.  God does not supply for His people in a "equal" measure.  He expects us to care for one another as needed out of wisdom and love.

The Jerusalem church had started out doing well.  In fact, Barnabas himself was one of those men who sold property in order to help the Christian widows in Jerusalem.  However, over time, they became poor as people moved away and persecution sapped their resources.  A famine on top of this would be particularly hard on the Jerusalem Church, and Antioch knew this, or were told this by men like Barnabas at the least.

Luke is writing this after the fact, so he inserts the comment that this happened in the reign of Claudius Caesar.  It is historically recorded that there was a series of difficult famines that happened throughout the Roman world in the early AD 40's.  Jerusalem was hit particularly hard, as well as Alexandria, Greece, and Rome.  It wasn't all at once, but seem to hit in one area and then another over the course of three to four years.  It was particularly devastating upon Jerusalem.

Luke states that Agabus "showed by the Spirit (or by the means of the Spirit)."  It seems that he was not just relating this.  Rather, it was given to him for the church while it was gathered.  This faithful prophet of the Lord has no agenda, but to speak what God gives him to speak.

There is a problem in modern Pentecostal circles.  When you invite a "famous" prophet to come and speak at your church, there is an expectation that they will have a prophecy, and often one for everyone who comes forward for a personal prophecy.  God's prophets are not fortune tellers giving people some secret knowledge about their future.  God does not give prophecy on demand.  What if God doesn't say anything to the prophet?  Think of how the undue pressure to "perform" can mislead even an honest prophet to always "hear something from God."  We can be in danger of operating the spiritual things of God with the natural mind.  Many of us pastors are pastoring out of the natural mind rather than letting the Lord lead us in this work that is just as spiritual as prophesying.

Let me just say this.  I want to hear from the Spirit of God and not the spirit of a man.

The believers respond in charity (v. 29-30)

The church at Antioch "determined" to send relief to their brethren in Judea.  Two things stick out here.  One is that they would likely be touched by such a great famine themselves, and yet, they determine to help others.  God's work in our life is not always about what will happen to me.  We need to prayerfully respond to the needs around us.

The second thing that sticks out is that they are concerned specifically with Jerusalem.  Are there not other people?  Of course, there are, but these are the ones who come to their mind.  Again, this calls for being a person of prayer so that our giving can be directed by God and not our natural mind.

Of course, we can be guilty of the old "I will pray for you" problem.  It is easy to say you will do something and then never get around to doing it.  Don't just intend to pray for people, or intend to help them financially, physically, etc.  Ask yourself this.  How will I do it and when?  In fact, there is no time like the present.  If you can't do it right away, then mark it on your calendar, or tell others, or do something that will ensure you follow through.

Antioch is being used of God to set an example for the greater Church among the Gentiles.  If you pay attention throughout the book of Acts, and the epistles of Paul, it becomes clear that Judea becomes a church that is not plump with money, and often in need.  They had been quick to give, but soon they came to a time when they were running out of people in Jerusalem who could meet the increasing needs.

The book of Acts will make it clear that after Antioch's help here, Paul would later stir up the Gentile churches of his missionary journeys to also send offerings of help to Jerusalem.  Paul was able to point to the generous example of the Christians of Antioch.

We should note that it is one thing for Jews to send money back to help their countrymen, but it is quite another for people of very different ethnic groups to help these Jewish believers.  We should not overlook that this was unheard of.  This is part of the world seeing how amazing the love of believers for one another was. 

The typical walls between ethnic groups were being torn down by the message of Jesus.  Yet, was it Utopia?  Of course, not.  They had their fair share of false teachers, false prophets, correction, church discipline, and in short, discipleship issues.  However, God was moving!

We are told that each gave according to their ability, which implies that some may not have been able.  It is good to recognize that there should be no compulsion, or undue pressure, put upon people in this area.  Yet, we all need to learn to become givers.  When you look at your bank account and it only has $100, it is safe to say that you do not have the ability to give $1,000.

Yet, ability is not always about our amount of funds.  Some people who have plenty of money are very stingy with their money.  They do not lack funds, but rather they lack compassion, and most likely faith as well.  Later, Paul would instruct the Corinthian church this way.  "Let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver." 2 Corinthians 9:7.  There is always "necessity" behind the people who are in need.  However, Paul speaks of the person giving.  We should not give under duress.  Our only obligation is the obligation of love.

God wants us to be givers, but He wants us to be a certain kind of giver, i.e., a cheerful giver.  People who are forced to give are pretty much always grumpy about it.  If you always give in response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and as an act of faith in Him, then the need of the person no longer becomes a pressure upon you.  You are free to look at your bank account and determine what you would like to do.  Can we displease God by the amount we give?  I believe that we need to be careful here.  There is no sense of this in Paul's inspired word to the Corinthians.  Giving in faith is not just about God continuing my supply; it is also about knowing that He is pleased that we gave.

This is important for givers and receivers.  If God hasn't supplied through me, then He has someone else.  Receivers cannot look to a person as their supply.  It is God's Spirit moving on that person.  Similarly, givers should not be manipulated into giving to a particular need.

Giving $1,000 dollars is a powerful act of faith, or it could be an ego inducing action of the flesh.  Let us be careful in this area.  Spiritual maturity is the answer.

We are also told that they sent the relief funds promptly.  There seems to be no hesitation in it.  They pulled together funds for the Judean Christians and sent it right away.  This may be a simple act of faith that the famine will come.  It is also possible that there was already trouble with the crops that season.  Jerusalem may have already been hurting, and now they knew it would only get worse.

Regardless, promptness requires a certain amount of faith.  Second guessing, as well as laziness, are two factors that can slow down (even shut down) our giving of benevolence to others.

Lastly, we are told that they sent the money by the hands of trustworthy men who put it into the hands of elders in Jerusalem.  Do you remember my earlier question?  When will I do it and how?  They did it immediately and used Barnabas and Saul to deliver the funds for them because they were trustworthy men.

Am I a trustworthy man or woman?  Can I be trusted to take someone else's money to another person?  Do I expect to be paid for such work?  Saul and Barnabas had many spiritual gifts, but the blessing they were that day was being a "mule" for Jesus.  This is not about station or greatness.  It is simply about being a servant of the Lord and His people.  They were demonstrating to the church at Antioch how to do humble work.  "Load me up; I'll take it to Jerusalem!"

The elders in Jerusalem may be the apostles, and it may be the deacons who had earlier been put in charge of caring for the widows.  Regardless, they were proven men who could be trusted not to embezzle for their own pleasures.  We can be caught up in titles like "elder."  However, the early Church was more focused on function. 

Being an elder is not about a title or position.  It was a function that God had created in certain ones.  An elder is a spiritually mature Christian within the body of Christ.  There is no time parameter per se.  Instead of worrying about becoming an elder, focus on faithfully growing in the Lord and being, becoming, a trustworthy person.  One day you will be looked to as an elder in the Church of Jesus if you have been faithful.  How do we get there?  We do so through a lot of little steps, following Jesus all along the way!

Benevolence of Antioch Church Audio