The Thick Darkness Where God Is (Exodus 20.21)

Introduction

A friend of mine, who is retired now, once told me about an experience he had when he was a newly consecrated bishop. He was visiting a saintly old lady in hospital and towards the end of his visit she turned to him and said, “Now look here, if you’re going to be worth having as a Bishop, never forget Exodus 20.21. You do know that verse don’t you?” (It just so happened that Bishop John Taylor is an expert in Hebrew and has written commentaries on the Old Testament but for the life of him he couldn’t remember anything about that verse. “Well?” she said, “Do you know the verse or don’t you?”

A little embarrassed, he started to confess that that particular verse had momentarily escaped his memory, but she cut him in mid sentence. “Never forget,” she said, “the thick darkness where God is.”

When he got home he looked it up. Sure enough, Exodus 20.21 says, “Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.” Psalm 97 mentions this same heavy, dense blackness as well: “Clouds and thick darkness surround him.” Isn’t this a bit of a surprise? Wouldn’t you expect the Bible to say instead that God is surrounded by radiant light?

I mean to say that already this evening we have sung the words, “God of God, light of light,” “All is calm, all is bright,” “In your dark streets shines the everlasting light,” and “Radiant beams your holy face.” Who may dare intrude into God’s awesomely holy presence without due humility and reverence?

In Psalm 139 it says, “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” You could travel to the bleakest place on (or under) the earth – and God would still be there.

In Darkness We See More

450 miles north of Santiago in Chile, high up in the Andes at an altitude of nearly 8,000 feet, is the La Silla Paranal Observatory. It’s one of the best places for stargazing in the world. About 7,000 stars can be seen there. In any town you can only ever make out a few hundred. From La Silla Paranal you can see the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy and amazing meteor showers with the naked eye.

It’s so remote that there is no light pollution from nearby cities. There are hardly any blinking lights from passing airliners because it’s so near the mountains. The night sky there is as inky black as anything you will ever see. But that is why it’s possible to see and admire the visible universe so distinctly there.

It’s why diamonds are always shown on a black velvet cloth. Their beauty and brilliance is that much more striking that way.

It’s why the eternally glorious Son of God entered the earth in a shabby stable, surrounded by beasts of burden and farm odours. His grandeur and splendour are so much more stunning that way.

No room at the inn. What did it feel like? Everyone shakes their head and closes their front door in front of you. Every hotel, every B and B, every guesthouse, every hostel in town has the “No Vacancies” sign up… everywhere is full.

Or is it? I mean, how full were these places really?
Think about it a minute. You turn up at a hotel one night and ask for a room.
The receptionist says, “Sorry sir, we are full.”
So you reply, “I don’t think you understand. There must be some mistake. I am the Queen’s Private Secretary and she will be here in an hour.”

If it was the Queen, she would say, “I’ll just speak to the manager, sir.” While she’s away speaking to him you set your mobile phone to go off in 12 minutes. 10 minutes later the manager appears with the surprising news that there must have been some understanding and there is a room free after all.

You thank the man and start to make the necessary arrangements, when suddenly your mobile phone rings. You switch off the alarm and say into the phone, “Good evening Ma’am… Yes, ma’am. I see ma’am… Certainly ma’am. Goodbye ma’am.” Turning to the hotel manager you say, “Her Majesty is not able to come tonight after all. Tell you what, as you’ve gone to so much trouble, I’ll take her room!”

But Joseph and Mary are lost in a strange town, exhausted from the long journey, stressed by the increasingly frequent contractions and feeling deflated by all the “No Vacancies” signs. They’re in no state to argue and so they settle for the one offer they get; a cheerless and dingy outhouse where the donkeys and cattle bed down for the night. It’s the darkness where God is…

Two Examples

About 2½ million people in sub-Saharan Africa die from AIDS every year. It leaves widows with no income and orphans with nowhere to live and no one to love them. It leaves desperately sick people with no healthcare in some of the world’s poorest countries. Every death is a grim tragedy for someone.

I have a friend called Chris Brooks, who is a medical doctor. Shortly before he was due to retire, he gave up everything he had and moved to Malawi, one of the poorest countries on earth, and where life expectancy is just 48 years old. He set up two clinics giving free healthcare to penniless nobodies. Last year, his clinics treated 120,000 people with dignity and care and attention.

I once asked him how he keeps going in such a wretched place with so much misery and do you know what he said? He said that the presence of the Lord is never stronger, never more real, and never more tangible than when serving the poorest of the poor because it’s so close to the heart of God. 60% of HIV/AIDS programmes in Africa are funded and run by churches. They’re in the thick darkness where God is.

If I asked you to name the three most dangerous, most violent, most volatile countries in the world, I think most of you would still put Iraq in there somewhere.

It’s still a perilous place. The vicar of Baghdad, Andrew White, gave an interview at the height of the troubles there about two years ago and he said this:

“Sometimes the news is so bad that all I can do is sit on my bed and cry. A few years ago 10 people in my church were killed in a single week. You can’t help yourself asking ‘Lord, why?’ Every member of my Alpha team was killed once when their minibus was ambushed on their way to a conference in Jordan.”

“Eleven members of my staff were shot dead in 2007. I’ve seen people come to our church at the risk of their lives. It takes them 3 hours to complete the one mile journey because of all the security. I’ve made pastoral visits having to wear a bulletproof helmet in a helicopter that came under fire from bandits.”

“We have five Alpha courses now, in three languages. People are coming to Christ dozens at a time. The previous owner of the place where I work left a fantastic baptistery for us. It’s Saddam Hussein’s old swimming pool and we have baptized hundreds in it, always at 6 in the morning, sometimes to the sound of distant explosions.”

Wherever you find suffering and affliction and gloom on earth – you’ll find God at work. Whatever your darkness is; family worries, bereavement, illness, joblessness, depression, financial problems, loneliness… The thick darkness is where God is.

Ending

It was in Bethlehem’s dark streets in a backstreet cow shed that Jesus came to earth - because it’s in the darkness that God is most at work.

There was barely daylight at noon the day Jesus died - because it’s in the darkness that God is most at work.

It was pitch dark in the cold, stone sealed tomb on Easter Sunday morning - and you know what happened there.


Sermon preached at the Carol Service at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 20th December 2010

He Will Come to Reign (Revelation 21.1-8)

Introduction

If I told you that, of the 260 chapters in the New Testament, there are 318 references to one particular and specific theme, that’s 1 in every 30 verses, and that only 4 of the 27 New Testament books never mention it, I think you’d have to agree with me that it must be an event of considerable, if not central, importance. The theme is the second coming of Jesus Christ.

It’s an event that should deeply interest every Christian – unfortunately it only seems to attract cranks, oddballs and eccentrics.

For example, after 14 years of intense and serious Bible study a Baptist preacher from Pennsylvania called William Miller published some convoluted charts which showed, he said, that Christ would return on October 22nd 1844. He was a very persuasive speaker and he gathered a large number of followers. On the allotted day, some waited in graveyards, planning to ascend hand in hand with their departed loved ones. Others went to the mountaintops, hoping for a head start to heaven. There was even a group Philadelphia society ladies who met up outside town to avoid any possibility of being seen entering God's kingdom with the riffraff! Thousands of followers, some of whom had given away all of their possessions, waited expectantly – but, obviously, Jesus did not appear as had been hoped. As a result, October 22nd 1844 became known as the Great Disappointment.

I’ll tell you what, when Jesus comes again there will be no disappointment for those who eagerly await his return. There will be no sense of let-down or unhappiness. The mood will be one of joyous relief. Because he will come at the end of a period of history called that the Bible calls the great tribulation. It will be a short time of unprecedented discrimination against and persecution of, Christians. And Jesus will come to put an end to it all by judging the living and the dead. He will redress all travesties of justice. He will avenge all cruel spilling of innocent blood. He will right every wrong.

Then what? What will Jesus do when the books are all closed and the eternal destinies of all are decided and sealed? Then, his kingdom, or his rule, will have no end. To the fanfare of trumpets and the acclaim of millions, he is coming back with a crown of glory, robes of royalty and a sceptre of government – he is coming to reign.

Kevin Keegan’s underwhelming second coming lasted 230 days. Jesus’ second coming will be overwhelming and will last forever.

Be honest with me now. Do you find all this a bit obscure? A bit inaccessible? Do you switch off a bit? Is this just Pie in the sky when you die? Is it easier to look back to Jesus’ first coming in frailty than look forward to his second coming in glory?

I think most of us do. But, actually, God puts much more emphasis on Christ’s return than he does on his arrival in Bethlehem. Consider this statistic; for every prophecy in the Bible concerning Christ’s first advent, there are 8 which announce his second. So we have to take this seriously because God does.

So let’s look at Revelation 21. The Bible is a library; and like any library you’ve got biographies, history books, philosophy, legal documents, collections of letters, tomes of poetry and so on. Revelation is in the section of picture books. It’s a series of visions where we get to glimpse behind the curtain of life as we know it.

And we find that in a world of famine, disaster, earthquake, environmental catastrophe and war – there are satanic forces at work, there are angels and demons and we find that God’s throne is above them all. And, most of all, we can flip to the end and see that the perpetrators of evil will get what they fully deserve, and those who resist in faith will triumph and be vindicated. Because we see who wins the war – it’s Jesus.

But it’s when we get to chapter 21 that everything changes. Something new is happening.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”

1) What Is This “New Heavens and New Earth”?

What is this “new heavens and new earth”? Could it be that this is just symbolic about something? Or does it actually mean that the earth and space that we know are going to be scrapped and rebuilt?

The fact is that this isn't just a weird vision from an unfamiliar corner of the strangest book in the Bible. God first mentioned this over 700 years before Christ when the prophet Isaiah announced, “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. The new heavens and the new earth that I will make will endure forever before me.”

What's wrong with the old earth? Why is it going to be replaced with a new one? The Bible says that the world that God created has become fragile and brittle and unstable because of sin. Because of sin the planet we live on is under a curse which is why we have flooding, mudslides, earthquakes, tornados, volcanic eruptions, desertisation, drought and famines.

Romans 8.18-22 puts it this way: “The creation waits in eager expectation... The creation was subjected to frustration... The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay... The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

In other words this whole created order; heavens, earth, everything is decaying, crumbling, falling apart at the seams. It's unravelling before our eyes.

The writer to the Hebrews says that God is going to shake the earth and the heavens so hard that only the kingdom of God will be left.

Peter adds more detail. 2 Peter 3.7-13 says this: “The present heavens and earth are reserved for fire… The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare...”

So Revelation 21 is not a prophecy we can dismiss as obscure and symbolic because God has given us clear, unambiguous Scriptures which say the same thing.

The New Jerusalem, God's chosen city, is the focal point of the New Heavens and New Earth. It's where the action is. It is where God most abundantly pours out his blessings and reveals his glory in the renewed creation.

The New Jerusalem comes down from heaven perfectly proportioned, never to be destroyed. God is telling us here that the fullness of his awesome presence, the place where his majesty shines brightest, is coming to be with us for an eternity so blissful and pleasurable it is hardly describable.

There’s an important point that we miss here if we don’t read Revelation through. In chapters 17 and 18 you have a vivid description of another city; Babylon. Babylon stands for everything and everyone that opposes God and his people. Babylon is a tarty, gaudy, drunken harlot. Jerusalem here (in v2) is a beautiful pure bride in a radiant wedding dress, prepared for marriage.

I was saying on Thursday at Alpha that one of the things that I have the privilege of doing here is taking weddings. I love it. But there’s one part of the wedding service that I love most. It’s the moment right at the beginning. All the friends and relatives have gathered in the church. The bride has spent all morning preparing. She’s arrived at the back of the church usually a couple of minutes late! She wants to keep him waiting but not too long. Everyone in the church is dressed up for the occasion, and then the moment comes when it all goes quiet. The music starts and everyone looks round. And the bride comes in down the aisle, the husband-to-be who is waiting here at the front, turns round and he looks at his bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.

If I’m in the congregation I always get emotional at that moment! If I am marrying the couple, I try to keep my composure. That’s how we will be one day.

There are only two cities. Babylon, the harlot and Jerusalem, the bride. The point is you can only live in one or the other. There is no third city. If you’re not in the New Jerusalem you’re in the Old Babylon. Jesus said, “Anyone who is not for me is against me.”

Babylon, this anti-Christian order that harasses, picks on, attacks and persecutes God's people, is going to fall under God's judgement never to be rebuilt. Jerusalem, the community of persevering believers who delight themselves in the Lord, no matter what the cost, will endure forever.

2) What Will Eternity Be Like?

If someone asked you “What do you think eternity will be like?” how do you think you’d answer? Do you know where is this New Earth going to be? I don't. Billy Graham once said, “It doesn't matter where it is. It will be where Jesus is.” Is it a real place? What did Jesus say? He said, “I am going to prepare a place for you.” And we will have physical resurrection bodies in which to explore it and enjoy it.

In 1 Corinthians 2 it says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” The Bible speaks of streets, rivers, trees, eating and drinking, music... There have been many people who have had near death experiences who claim to have caught just a glimpse of it. I don’t think this is proof of anything but I do think it’s interesting that they say things like, “It was stunning beyond description,” “There was beautiful music unlike any other I have heard.”

C.S. Lewis said: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Nothing could be more pleasurable and delightful than the future God has prepared for us. Nothing compares.

In 21.1 it says there will be no more sea. The sea symbolises mystery and turmoil and evil in the Bible. People used to be terrified of the great monsters the sea was thought to hold. People felt uneasy about the surf pounding relentlessly, day and night, never at rest - and so it came to represent inner anguish and unrest.

And the sea is about separation. It divides countries, peoples and continents. Having lived in Continental Europe for 18 years I can say without hesitation that the mentality there is quite different from the one we have here in Great Britain. It's mostly because of the channel which started to detach Britain from mainland Europe about 7,000 years ago.

As God gave John the vision of the New Jerusalem it was revealed that there would be no more sea. The things that separate us from each other and from God will be gone. The things that cause us anguish and turmoil will be gone. The things that mystify and terrorize us will be gone because Jesus walks on water, he is master over the sea, and he is coming back to reign.

In 21.4 it says there will be no more tears. You know what it feels like to feel unloved and lost and unfairly treated. Who has not shed lonely tears of a crushed spirit? You really loved someone but it didn't work out. Broken toys. Broken homes and families. Broken promises. Broken marriages. Broken dreams. Broken hearts.

C.S. Lewis once said: “Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

Oh, yes! In the New Jerusalem everything will always be new and nothing will get broken. No one will even remember what brokenness used to feel like because Jesus makes all things new and he is coming back to reign.

In 21.4 it says there will be no death. Our oldest and most persistent enemy will have gone. The longer you live the more death becomes a part of life. Friends die, family die, spouses and even children die, which is why someone said, “I don't think getting old is so bad when you consider the alternative.”

Someone I knew who died of cancer about ten years ago never allowed herself to mention the word “death.” She knew she was dying but she would only talk cheerfully about doing things she knew she never would. She was in denial. Finally, the day before she died she gave in. Knowing the end was very close she said, “Is there any way they can speed this up?”

Some dread death, some defy it and others deride it. Groucho Marx's tombstone reads “I told you I was sick!” And Woody Allen famously said, “I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens.”

But if you’re a Christian today you don’t need to fear death or pretend it’s not there or make light of it. You can look at it in a totally different way. In the place God is preparing, there will no longer be any death at all. It will be a world with no funeral wreaths, no black armbands, no minute's silence, no undertaker's offices, no cemeteries or memorials.

Someone once read through the announcements column of the Times and said, “Isn't it strange how people always die in alphabetical order!” In the New Jerusalem there’ll be no obituary columns either, because Jesus has conquered death by rising again and he is coming back to reign.

In 21.4 it says there will be no more pain. No arthritic hands, no broken bones, no cancer-ridden bodies, no mental illness. No more pain, nothing will hurt because Jesus has nailed pain to the cross he is coming back to reign.

In 22.5 there’s more. No more night either; how do you feel when you hear a strange noise walking home in the dead of night with no moon and poor street lighting?

My dad used to tell me bedtime stories about the ghost of an old pirate with a wooden leg who would walk around the corridors of houses at night. Bump, scrape... bump, scrape... It's a wonder I ever slept at all! Actually, it was my fault. “Go on dad, tell me a scary story.”

But the night is the haunt of our fears. Fear of illness, storms, crime and darkness. But in heaven there will be no night. It will never be dark and there will be nothing frightening there because Jesus says “Do not fear” and he is coming back to reign.

3) Why Has God Told Us This?

Why has God told us this? What effect should it have on the way I live and the choices I make?

2 Peter 3.11, talking about the new creation, says this: “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.”

It means this: our choosing to live a life of faith which glorifies God and gives life to others will not only determine where we spend eternity when Jesus comes back; it will actually hasten his return.

Most of that sleazy list in v8 applied to me before God, in his mercy, took hold of me. My guess is that most of us would have to say the same. Don’t you want to show God and show the world how grateful you are that he showed grace to you? The way to do that is to cherish and cultivate the very opposite of all that.

I want never to be ashamed of belonging to Christ. I want to hold on to his promises and believe his word. I want to live right and speak cleanly. I want to love life and be a peacemaker, defusing anger and resolving conflict. I want to be faithful to my wife, having eyes for her alone. I want to shun superstitions and demonically inspired secrecy. I want to worship God alone, exalting and magnifying him at all times. And I want to love honesty, be trustworthy and reliable to tell the truth.

Jesus said, “Store up treasure in heaven instead of storing it up on earth.” That column on the right it what he means.

Ending

Finally, this: If you're finding it hard to live for Christ, lift your head. Let this truth lighten your spirit and brighten your mood. Your everlasting elation will far outweigh your temporary trials. Be strong in the Lord and stay true to Jesus. And may this great vision stir every one of us to lay up more treasure in this breathtakingly joyous place we will call home.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 13th December 2009

If Jesus Had Never Been Born

If Jesus had never been born, this would not be 2009 AD because AD means the year of our Lord.

If Jesus had never been born, towns would never have been named St. Albans, St. Petersburg, San Francisco, Christchurch, Corpus Christi or Santa Cruz.

If Jesus had never been born everybody you know called Chris, Christine, Christian, Christie or Christopher would be called something else.

If Jesus had never been born, we would never have had a national anthem which addresses God and asks him to save; we would be a pagan nation worshipping the sun and the moon as fertility symbols.

If Jesus had never been born, we would never have heard of Santa Claus, who is based on a real generous Christian bishop from Turkey who presented impoverished girls with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes.

If Jesus had never been born, we would never have heard a single Christmas carol or Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.

If Jesus had never been born, we would have never heard of Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa. Blacks in America would still be second class citizens and the poor of Calcutta would have no one to love them.

If Jesus had never been born, organizations such as the Samaritans, Christian Aid, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army would never have been founded. Life for the suicidal, the sick, the hungry and the world’s poor would be much, much worse.

If Jesus had never been born the first free hospital would never have been built in the 4th Century – and nor would tens of thousands after it.

If Jesus had never been born, the slave trade would probably still be here, since it was opposed almost single-handedly on Christian principles by a Christian politician - William Wilberforce.

If Jesus had never been born, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris Sorbonne, Princeton, Harvard and Yale Universities would not have been founded.

If Jesus had never been born, we would have no Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, no Dickens’s Christmas Carol, and no The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

If Jesus had never been born, we would have no films such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Ben Hur, Chariots of Fire, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and scores of others.

If Jesus had never been born, we would never have heard “Amazing Grace” or “Joy to the World.”

If Jesus had never been born, everyone here who was married in a beautiful church would have been married in a functional registry office.

If Jesus had never been born, many idioms would never have entered our every day speech such as Good Samaritan, prodigal son, lost sheep, love your neighbour, going the second mile, doing unto others as you would have them do to you, turning the other cheek and salt of the earth; all of which were coined by Jesus.

If Jesus had never been born the net flow of immigration in the world today would not be from non Christian countries to Christian ones – because they’d be no different.

If Jesus had never been born we would never swear on the Bible in court or say that anything is gospel truth.

If Jesus had never been born, the Auca Indians of Ecuador would still be spearing white men to death instead of baptizing their children.

If Jesus had never been born, the Arawakan natives of the Caribbean would still be cannibals.

If Jesus had never been born, descendents of the Maya in Mexico would still sacrifice their children instead of teaching them to praise their Creator.

If Jesus had never been born, hundreds of Old Testament prophecies would have remained unfulfilled. Death would not be conquered. God would be a liar.

If Jesus had never been born, three wise men would have just been three wise guys.

If Jesus had never been born, there would be no mediator between God and man, for the only one able to bring God and man together, Christ Jesus, would have been as fictitious as the tooth fairy. We would still be dead in our sins with no hope of eternal life.

What a difference!

Happy Christmas. And thank God for Jesus!


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 8th December 2009