The Resurrection of the Body (1 Corinthians 15.35-58)

Introduction

Everybody seems to be concerned about their bodies. That’s not a bad thing. Nobody here wants to look bad and there is nothing wrong with spending time in front of the mirror. I hope you all own, and use, a toothbrush and that you take a shower regularly.

The Bible teaches us that our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made and, if we are Christians, they are temples for the Holy Spirit. God thinks our bodies are very good. So it is right that we should get exercise and eat well, make time to rest properly, get enough sleep, and not subject our bodies to abuse or neglect. It is absolutely right to look after your body. But in our culture, body image has become a bit of an obsession and it is possible to get our proportions out of all proportion.

For example, Julia Roberts said in a recent interview, “I don’t want to change my life. Just my butt.” She’s desperate for symmetrical perfection on an already attractive figure but not interested at all in changing her Hello magazine private life.

Or what about Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, now 66, who was talking with George Melly on a TV chat show once and describing the creases on his face as “laugh lines”. George Melly just smiled and said, “Nothing’s that funny”!

Many of us, if we’re not paranoid about fat, we’re in denial about aging. Our culture dictates that wrinkles must be removed, grey hair must be tinted, blemishes must be eradicated. We have become used to talking about lipro-suction, breast enhancements, hair transplants, face lifts and nose jobs. I wouldn’t bet money that any more than 20% of Michael Jackson’s face is actually really him.

I prefer the approach of NBA basketball coach Rick Majerus, who doesn’t take himself too seriously. “Everyone’s worried about the economy this year”, he said; “hey! my hairline’s in recession, my waistline’s in inflation and altogether, I’m in depression.”

The truth is all our bodies are getting older, tireder, greyer, wrinklier and maybe even balder every day. Or maybe not. Even if we are all getting older on the outside, the Bible says that those who are recipients of the grace of God are all getting younger on the inside. “We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

We are, by faith, a new creation; new men, new women. So the truth is, in Christ, you're all getting younger every day. Isn't that good news? And if you value your inner life more than your so-called vital statistics, I’ve got good news this morning. So let’s take a look at what God’s word has to say about our bodies.

A Bit of Background

Paul devoted the entire 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians to this matter of what’s in store for our bodies, because thinking clearly about this has a direct impact on the state of our spiritual health. Let’s quickly recap on what the chapter says so far.

You may remember that Paul starts out by saying in v3 that all this is of “first importance”, it’s top priority”. He explains that Jesus himself was very dead once and that he was placed in a tomb, just as the Old Testament had predicted. He was then physically raised from death and was seen alive by about 600 different people on a number of separate occasions. He even says that most of those witnesses were still alive at the time of writing, so you could go and check it out with them if you weren’t convinced. We saw all this a fortnight ago.

Then Paul says that Christ’s resurrection is totally pivotal for the Christian faith. Paul says, in v14-17, that if Christ is not raised, there is nothing left to preach about. There is, in that case, no point in being a Christian, all faith is useless and we’re better off having a wild old time instead of sitting here looking miserable in church. Ladies and gentlemen, if Christ is not raised, then death ends it all and living for the moment is all that matters.

But v20 insists emphatically that Christ has been raised. Christians really are on the right track. It’s all true. And Christ’s victory over the tomb guarantees that death will not have the last word over us either. Jesus was raised from the dead (v1-11). That means we will also be raised (v12-34). Now then, what’s the rest of the chapter about? It’s all about the kind of body we will be given after these ones have decomposed and returned to the pool of elemental matter.

1) What Will Happen to My Body After I Die?

Paul explains that we will all be given new resurrection bodies after we die. The people Paul was writing to imagined that our personalities and feelings, our mind and all our emotions, our “self” (in other words, the soul) would float around in a kind of happy heavenly atmosphere. For them, the body was bad, dirty, something to discard. It would just waste away in the grave, and, frankly they thought, “good riddance”, and that was the end of it.

But the soul, they thought, would never die; on the contrary, it would just get liberated from the body when it stops breathing, like a bird flying free at last out of a rusty old cage. So all talk of bodies after death just gave them the creeps. They couldn’t see beyond the decay, but Paul was imagining a supernatural, indestructible, glorious body.

These days, most people have only a sketchy idea of what the Bible says about life after death. Ask a work colleague what they think and you’ll probably get one of three answers. Some will say, like these Corinthian believers, that our disembodied souls will kind of float around in a conscious state. That’s Greek philosophy. It’s Plato – and has nothing to do with the Bible.

Secondly, some will talk about reincarnation; that we reappear in a different form at some future point on this earth. That’s Hindu or New-Age thinking and has nothing to do with the Bible either. Thirdly, atheists believe that there is absolutely nothing at all after death. They say, “Why write, “Rest in peace” on gravestones? Dead people do not rest, they decompose. That is all.”

So someone in Corinth says in v35, “Hang on: Everyone knows that corpses decay and disappear. So if we’re not talking about the actual physical skin and bones, flesh and blood, old body making a reappearance – what are we talking about?”

Paul replies, in v36, “How foolish”! meaning, “Category error.” And he goes on to give quite a long explanation with numerous illustrations. He makes comparisons with seeds and birds and flesh and fish and stars. And dust and heaven and falling asleep exhausted and waking up renewed and changed. You know what it’s like trying to spell something out to somebody with a mental block don’t you?

Most of us understand the basic principles of golf. Well, suppose you had to explain golf to someone who had never seen it before. They might find it strange. “Why are they trying to punish that ball by hitting it with that stick?” So you explain, “They’re not. They are trying to drive it. They want to put the little white ball in the hole way over there.” “Oh. Well, let’s just walk over and drop the ball in by hand. It would be easier.” “Well,” you say, “nobody wants to do it the easy way. In fact, we pay an expert lots of money to make sure the ground around the hole is especially tricky. See the woods over there, and the rough grass and the pond and those sand bunkers? These are all places where the little white ball can get stuck or lost.”

“Oh, now I see!” says our friend. “If it takes a long time to put the ball in the hole, everyone is happy.” So you shake your head. “No, no, no; if it takes a long time to put the ball in the hole, someone usually gets angry. See that man over there, throwing his clubs around and cursing? He’s upset because he just hit his ball into the pond for the third time!” So our friend asks, “Well, why does he bother to play golf at all, if it only makes him annoyed?” To which you reply, “He comes here twice a week to play so he can relax!”

This is the sort of category misunderstanding Paul is trying to address. So, from v37 to v52 he attempts to explain the unexplainable so that the unimaginative can imagine it. Human beings have no categories in their minds to fully grasp all this.

All these images (seeds, birds, flesh, fish, stars, dust, falling asleep and waking up) are examples of a different quality of existence. Just as an oak tree is totally unrecognisable from the acorn it grows from, which may be hundreds of times smaller, and completely different in shape, so we will be transformed beyond anything we could imagine. And yet, the genetic make-up of a seed, its DNA, is identical to the plant it becomes. It’s totally the same thing only completely different.

Jesus, after he was raised, was the same Jesus - but different. People knew it was him and yet, curiously, there was something about him, so that people hesitated to go near him and, in fact, didn’t always recognise him at first.

Let me show you a photo of one of someone you might know. Who’s this? It’s today’s service leader, John Belmont! Or rather it’s not! Since our body cells are dying and being replaced all the time, every seven years or so, our bodies complete a process of total transformation. That picture was taken about 15-20 years ago. Every atom of John Belmont has completely changed twice or three times since that time. Yet it’s still John. You can see it is.

Here’s another picture. You’ll probably have more trouble with this one because the picture quality isn’t great. It’s Terry Doyle. If you can’t see the resemblance, it was over 100 years ago! Once I knew it was Terry, I could just about pick out one or two features.

What about this one? That’s Kathie Lambert, 26 years ago. You can tell it’s her I think, though she’s changed a lot – and is, I hasten to add, even lovelier now than she was then.

And here’s the last one. That’s this morning’s preacher when he was three years old. What a difference 25 years makes… Note the unconventional dog collar… Didn’t comb his hair then and doesn’t need to now...

So, that’s a little detour to say that we will be different, but it will still be us. I believe the Bible indicates that we will be more or less recognisable. There are things we don’t fully understand about the resurrection body. How old will we look? Will those who have died in childhood be childlike or mature? Jesus still had holes in his hands and feet. Will our scars show? Will we care? We don’t know, we can only guess. What we do know is spelled out for us in v42-44.

We die with perishable bodies; they go downhill, die, then decay. We will rise with imperishable - indestructible ones. All the indignities of our present bodies will be history; the dishonour of our aged, tired and wrinkly frames will be replaced, says v43, with glory. The handicaps, the limitations, the weaknesses the sickness and the vulnerability will also be a thing of the past when we rise on the day of judgement with powerful, glorious and spiritual, supernatural bodies.

2) Why Will I Need a New Body?

That’s what this passage teaches us. Our earthly bodies are only a dull, limited prototype of what they will be like in eternity. Why will we need new bodies? So we can feast and enjoy God’s brilliant presence for ever without that pleasure and glory and happiness and delight ever fading through ill health or weariness. That’s what it says in v50. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”.

In other words, it’s no good if a magnificent, indestructible, unshakable kingdom has subjects going round moaning about ingrown toenails and being allergic to milk and honey! And what’s the point in having a great banquet in heaven if half the guests decline to eat because they’re worried about getting flabby hips or a double chin!

To the human eye, caterpillars are just hairy worms. But at just the right time in its life the caterpillar goes grey and hangs upside down on a branch and weaves a cocoon. It looks like it is dying and creating its own coffin. But inside the cocoon, the caterpillar is undergoing transformation. It uses the same atoms as it had as a caterpillar, rearranges them, recycles them, in order to emerge, rise, if you like, as a majestic butterfly, no longer crawling but flying! Its environment is not longer limited to the earth. It can now travel in the heavens. The same is true of us when we die. Our bodies will be transformed, using the same stuff, into a body equipped to exist on a different level. Just exactly what we will be, look like and how we will be composed has not yet been fully revealed.

That’s a bit like what Paul is saying in v51-52. Our present bodies are fitted only for the time we have here. We’re going to need to be kitted out for eternity.

Everyone will need a new body, whether they are believers or not, in order to live in heaven... or in hell, which the Bible describes as everlasting loss, suffering, torment and regret. In April 1860, Charles Spurgeon spoke on this passage saying, “The eyes that are full of lust will one day be full of horror; the ear with which you listen to lascivious conversation must listen to sullen moans and hollow groans... of tortured ghosts... (You will have) the power to agonize, power to suffer, power to die and yet to live uncrushed by the stern foot of death”.

I take no delight in quoting that, but it would be a neglect of duty if I did not say that Christ will surely come again to judge the living and the dead, the righteous and the unrighteous. And as Jesus himself said, talking about the last judgment, “Some will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life”.

So our new bodies will be able to overflow with unspeakable joy, never again limited by aches and pains. But the awful flip side is that they will also be able to suffer the agony of regret, eternally away from God, and never to be put out of their misery.

3) How Should These Truths Shape My Life Now?

To finish, I want to ask the following question; how should these truths about the bodies we’re going to have tomorrow shape our lives today?

Given what I have just said about heaven and hell, my answer will be obvious. If you have never been a Christian, or if you have fallen away, you are at a fork in the road. You must decide whether to continue on the path you are on, which, Jesus said, leads ultimately to destruction, or to take the alternative road, which leads to heaven. Oh, what a reckless gamble ignore Christ’s words and end your days on the wrong path, from where there is no way back.

But if you reject sin, abandon unbelief and turn to Christ, you will already be on the new path. And Jesus has promised to never let go of anybody who comes to him. So I am inviting you to do that today if you need to. I do not pretend it will always be an easy route. But I am sure you will never regret your decision to take that path.

How should this teaching affect those of us who are already Christians? Is it just information? Did Paul write these things so we can say to ourselves, “Oh right, that’s what it’s going to be like when we die?” Is it just an interesting curiosity? The answer is that glimpse into the resurrection doesn’t just inform us about the future, it empowers us in the present.

That’s why Paul finishes the passage with v58. Notice he doesn’t say, “Therefore, remember all this because it’s rather fascinating”. He says, “Therefore, stand firm. Keep going. What you’re doing for the Lord is not a waste of time”.

Ending

If the resurrection is a big fairy story, our faith is futile, says v14. But no. Big issues of how we spend our time, and where we spend our eternity, hang on all this. So press on. Don’t go back now. Always stand firm. Your work in the Lord’s service, your praying, your encouragement of fellow believers, your stand against evil, your love for others, the tears you shed, the faith you share, the temptations you resist, are not in vain.

For as surely as you use your body to serve the Lord in the time available you have, he is preparing for you a body able to enjoy him forever in the eternity to come.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 26th April 2009

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15.1-11, Mark 16.1-8)

Introduction

Happy Easter to you all. Jesus is alive! Alleluia!

Of all the characters in the New Testament, Joseph of Arimathea is surely one of the most mysterious. He was a secret, “under the radar” disciple. He had followed Jesus from a distance presumably because he was afraid of the consequences of being identified as a sympathiser. It was dangerous for a member of the Jewish Ruling Council to be seen to approve of Jesus of Nazareth and his radical, provocative message.

Everyone knew that the authorities were hatching a plan to do away with Jesus. So Joseph kept a low profile. But when Jesus died, it was Joseph of Arimathea who went to Pilate (Mark 15.43 says “he went boldly to him”) to ask for the body. It was this Joseph who supplied the tomb; a rich man’s sepulchre, cut into a hillside, prepared for his own death when the time came.

There’s a rumour going round, you know, that Joseph’s request that day provoked some dismay in his circle of friends. “Why did you give up your own superb stone crafted tomb, to that troublemaker, that no-good rabble-rouser and common criminal, Jesus of Nazareth? And they say that Joseph replied, “Well, he only needed it for the weekend!”

Mark’s Strange Ending

A few years ago, Kathie and I went to see a film by David Lynch purely on the strength of the critical acclaim. “A cinematic masterpiece,” “Magnificent,” “An astounding achievement…” So we were very keen to see the film and not at all surprised that there was a long queue outside the cinema. Oh, but the film was a complete disappointment! It was the most absurd, disconnected, pretentious film we had ever seen.

It was obscure to the point of being unfathomable. The plot was incoherent and disconnected. The dialogue was ambiguous. The roles were confusing and interchangeable. But I remember saying to Kathie when the titles came up “Do you think that’s the end?” because it would not have been entirely surprising if the titles had come in the middle. The ending, such as it was, was bizarrely unclear. Apart from that, it was a good film…

Have you seen films like that, or read books, that sort of finish suspended in mid air? There’s one in the Bible and it’s the Gospel of Mark. The old ending of this Gospel says literally in v8; “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid of…”

Our translations tidy the grammar up a bit and make the sentence coherent by removing the word “of” but no one knows why this Gospel ends so abruptly in mid sentence. Certainly v9-20 in our Bibles were added later by another author in an effort to tidy up the very unsatisfactory ending.

I mean, in a document designed to announce to the world the good news of the risen Christ you really want to end on a more positive note than; “Nobody said a word to a soul because they were scared.” By the way, the meaning is; “They said nothing to anyone as they hurried back to the city.” We know from Matthew and Luke that they did tell Peter and the other disciples what they had seen once they arrived.

But why this ending that is more confusion than conclusion? Why do the oldest manuscripts we have finish in mid-sentence? Was Mark about to finish writing up his Gospel when the authorities burst in and arrested him? Was the edge of the papyrus burned in the great fire of Rome? Mark’s Gospel was almost certainly written there, probably based on shorthand notes from Peter’s preaching.

Did the original ending offend Peter, who tore it off? We can speculate, as we love to do, but the reality is that will never know. When I meet him in heaven I shall remember to ask; “Now tell me Mark, what on earth happened to the end of your Gospel?”

What we do know is that the earliest Christians tried several times to add a postscript to round things off and make the ending more coherent and appropriate. And, I believe, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they concluded the story with what they knew from the other Gospels and the Acts, backed up by their own experiences and observations.

When you think about it, v9-20 are the best evidence possible that signs and wonders were a normal and recurring accompaniment to the preaching of the gospel in the first and second centuries. It would be a bit embarrassing if people added a new ending to Mark’s Gospel two centuries later claiming that amazing signs would occur whenever the gospel is preached if everybody knew perfectly well that they did not.

1) Foretold by Prophets

We’ll come back to Mark in a moment. But we’re going to look now at 1 Corinthians 15, (page 1091) which is the earliest explanation of the resurrection we have. We don’t always realise this, given the order that things appear in our New Testament, but the letters were mostly written before the Gospels.

The Apostle Paul had to write this letter because the church in Corinth was going badly wrong. In v12 he asks them a blunt question; “How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” So one of the main causes of the moral scandal, spiritual immaturity and relational disarray there was that they had already lost their grip on how central and foundational the resurrection is. “Jesus rising again? Oh, it’s not that important what you think about it really…”

Yes it is! In v3 Paul describes it as being of first importance. It’s at the very top of the list of absolutely essential things. Paul has to get very serious here. In v2 he spells out what is at stake. “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”

In other words, if you let the resurrection go, you’ve lost everything. So he says in v1 and 3, “Look, I just need to tell you again, I need to remind you of what I said to you before. You received it, you took a stand on it, remember?”… And this is totally non-negotiable. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried and raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” He’s saying, “Look. It’s like I told you before. It’s just as the Bible says.”

Now, as I just said, when Paul wrote this letter, the Gospels hadn’t yet been written. So what Scriptures is Paul talking about here? He’s talking about the Old Testament. So where does it mention in the Old Testament about Jesus dying and rising again? Everywhere.

In the very first book of the Old Testament, there’s a story about a lamb, with its head in thorns, on a hillside outside Jerusalem, which God has provided as a sacrifice. In the very last book of the Old Testament there’s a prophecy about the sun of righteousness, risen with healing in his wings. From Genesis to Malachi, the death and resurrection of Christ casts its majestic, royal shadow.

And supremely so in Isaiah 53, written 700 years before Christ and yet describing his virgin birth, his innocence, his silence at his trial, his humiliations, his bleeding wounds, his violent death on behalf of others, his burial in a borrowed grave, his resurrection and his great reward.

So Christ died, was buried and was raised. The Scriptures had said it would happen exactly as it did - but who could have seen it at the time? Now, with hindsight, you can see that Isaiah was scarily accurate. That’s where Paul starts off in 1 Corinthians 15.1-4. “Look,” he is saying, “I didn’t invent this, I received it unembellished as it is and handed it on to you without changing it at any point.”

In every age up to this present one, people have not failed to keep passing on this gospel of grace to the next generation. A friend of mine, who is a retired minister now, once told me about an old parishioner of his who was lamenting all the changes and innovations being introduced in church, “I don’t know,” he said, “if Jesus could see all this, he’d turn in his grave!” But he’s not in his grave!

That’s where Paul is coming from here in v1 and v3. Jesus really is alive. I received it. I passed it on to you as my top priority; “first importance” is the phrase he uses.

2) Authenticated by Eye Witnesses

Apart from saying that it was prophesied that all this would happen, what else does Paul say? He runs off a list of people who saw Jesus after he was raised.

In v5-8 he says that Jesus appeared to Peter, then the twelve, then five hundred others, then to James, then everyone else, then me.

But wait a minute! Hey! What about the women then? All four gospels agree that Jesus appeared, first of all, not to Peter, nor to any other man for that matter, but to a number of women, (Mark specifically names three of them) who had got up before dawn to anoint the body, while all the men were still snoring away in their beds, it must be noted. Why did Paul not mention them as well? Didn’t the ladies count? Is the Bible really that sexist?

The answer is that in that culture, in the great and noble Roman Empire, no woman was admitted as a legal witness. Their testimony in court was not considered reliable enough to be valid. It’s the world that was chauvinist. It was into this male-dominated culture that Paul wrote, in about AD 50, “Men and women are one in Christ.” Nobody had ever written anything like that before.

It’s still radical today. Did you know, for example, that even in enlightened France, the secular torchbearer of liberty, equality and fraternity; women were denied the vote until 1945! In Islamic Pakistan it was 1956 and most of the Gulf States have only just got round to it in this 21st Century! I want to contest what you sometimes hear about Christianity being the origin and guardian of global misogyny. It is, in fact, the exact opposite.

So Paul, from v5 onwards, is simply running off the official list of legally authorised witnesses for his Corinthian readers, who had only heard about the resurrection second hand. And it’s quite a list, starting with Peter and then the twelve. Nitpickers might say that technically it was eleven, Judas having already committed suicide. In fact, the disciples were always called “the twelve” even when that description was not numerically exact.

Back to Mark’s Gospel (page 967 if you want to look at it yourself): v2-3 give some incidental details that bear the hallmarks of eye-witness testimony. Whenever the police interview people about an event they may have witnessed they always seem to want to know what time it was when such and such occurred. Here, it was “just after sunrise.”

In the numbness that is characteristic after an unexpected death, and there being no time to prepare the body for burial before the holiday, it occurs to the women only now that there will be a hefty stone blocking the tomb entrance. “Ah! Who’s going to roll this thing away from the entrance to the tomb?” “Oh dear! You’re right, I hadn’t even thought about that.”

Someone might say, “But so what?” Three women and eleven men might have invented it. Well, what would be the point of making the story up? It certainly wasn’t to get their hands on the Life Insurance was it?! However, for the sake of fairness, let’s say that they may have made the story up. But history shows that ten of the men were harried, tried and executed for spreading the story of Christ’s resurrection.

Would they accept beheading and crucifixion if they knew their message was bogus? Wouldn’t at least one of them cave in when the heat was on and say, “Actually, we made the story up. We actually buried the body 300 yards away.” Or whatever… in fact, they would never have got past the guards to steal the body.

Perhaps they were just deluded? What if they just made a big mistake and there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this apparent extraordinary miracle? What if, for example, the authorities moved the body and didn’t tell anyone. (Incidentally, that couldn’t have happened because the authorities were desperate to put an end to the disciples preaching about the resurrection and could have easily done so by producing a body – but they never did).

And anyway, in v6 Paul makes it quite clear that human error on the part of the disciples cannot be possible. “After that, Jesus appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still alive today.”

If I said to you that my Uncle Reg really existed, you might or might not believe me. Right. I could show you a photograph of him, but you might say it could be a picture of anyone. OK. If I said to you that I know a handful of people who knew him, you could say that they might have been set up by me to deceive you.

But if I told you that I could call about five hundred people who knew him, who spoke with him, who ate and drank with him, who worked with him on his farm and that you could meet them for yourself if you want, you would have to conclude that what I was saying was true.

That’s what Paul is saying here in verse 6. “Shortly after his death and burial, Jesus appeared alive to over 500 people at once. If you don’t believe me and you don’t trust the apostles,” the implication here is: “Go and check it out with someone else who saw it with their own eyes. Any one of five hundred plus people. Take your pick. They’ll tell you that this is no hoax, it really happened.”

So Paul begins this long chapter on the resurrection by patiently laying its vital foundation once more. The ancient writings predicted Jesus would die and rise again. He was seen alive by many witnesses. Lives were changed and nearly two millennia later, lives are still being changed; men and women, rich and poor, young and old, highly educated or illiterate, on every continent, in every culture. The reality of Christ’s resurrection is being discovered and experienced every day, all over the Earth.

Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday

I’ll finish with this thought: Everybody knows where Jesus was at the moment of his arrest - in the Garden of Gethsemane, several hundred metres from Jerusalem’s city walls. Everybody knows where he was at the moment of his resurrection three days later - in another garden; this time in a burial garden close to Golgotha. For Friday and Sunday it all seems clear enough. But where was he on Saturday?

This is the question the Bishop of Sheffield asked a class of sixth formers a couple of years ago. “Where do you think Jesus was between Good Friday and Easter Sunday?” Dead silence… And then a sixteen year-old girl raised her hand and gave a breathtaking reply. “I don’t know where he was exactly, but I wonder if he was in deepest hell, looking for Judas his lost friend?”

I don’t know how theologically precise that is; the Bible doesn’t exactly put it that way. In fact, as I explained a few weeks ago, the First Letter of Peter says he was actually in the place of the dead preaching to imprisoned spirits, victims of Noah’s flood who, unlike every generation since, never experienced God’s mercy.

But I do think that young person’s reply shows a remarkable understanding of the scope of the love of Jesus. This is the Good Shepherd who goes looking for one lost sheep. This is the Jesus who forgives and restores the most wicked, the most fallen, the most evil. This is the Jesus who saves every sinner who humbly turns to him, who heals the sick, who restores the strength of the weary, who renews hope of the desperate, who binds up those with a broken heart.

Open your heart to Jesus and experience his grave-busting power for yourself. Jesus is alive today. He brings real forgiveness today, true freedom, deep healing today, new life, fresh hope and a bright future today to all who come to him in faith.

Christ is risen!


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 12th April 2009 

In the Ark (Genesis 7.17-8.22)

Introduction

In 1989 the successful businessman Robert Fulghum wrote a book about management called “All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” It was a global phenomenon. In fact, it was at the top of the New York Times Bestseller List for 21 months, becoming the second longest number one bestseller in 23 years. The most important things anyone needs to know in life are relatively simple to understand.

One day somebody is going to make a lot of money writing a book called: “All I Need to Know I Learned from Noah.” Here are the top ten lessons from the ark.

1. Stay alert; when God is doing a new thing, don’t miss the boat.
2. Plan ahead; it hadn’t rained a drop when Noah started building the ark.
3. Keep fit; when you get to 600, God may ask you to build an ocean liner.
4. Always travel in pairs; it could save your life.
5. Slow down; the snails got on the boat eventually, as well as the cheetahs.
6. Learn to laugh; if you ever spend 40 weeks with your extended family in a crowded boat, you’ll need a sense of humour.
7. Watch your heart. A couple of woodpeckers inside can be just as bad as a rainstorm outside.
8. Do it yourself; the ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic was built by professionals.
9. Remember, when catastrophe strikes, we’re all in the same boat.
10. Cheer up. With God, there’s always a rainbow after every storm.

Is It True?

In 1929 the archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley excavated a layer of silt, about five metres thick, under a site he was working on near the shores of the Persian Gulf. He announced that he had uncovered indisputable evidence of the Biblical flood. Interestingly, the layers below and above this flood deposit both showed signs of human occupation, while the layer itself showed no evidence of human life other than a few burials that intruded into it from later times. Later research has shown that the silt was indeed dumped by a huge mass of water, about 3,500 years before Christ.

But later digs have shown that this particular flood, though vast and devastating, was not universal because in more distant sites, that are known to have been inhabited at the same time, no silt layer was found. Later still, archaeologists uncovered other flood sediments that date back to different times. So there is certainly some geological evidence of an ancient flood - or floods. But it is sketchy and inconclusive at the present time.

I think it is an open question whether this disaster literally covered the face of the whole earth or whether it was limited to the surface of the then-known world. When you first read Genesis it looks like it means the whole planet, the complete animal kingdom (except two from each species) and the entire human race (bar 8 people). But many Bible scholars have suggested it can mean the entire world described in the Bible up to that point, in other words what we call Mesopotamia. Not all Christians agree here but I think a vast, if not global, flood probably fits best with the scientific data we have. And I think that view is consistent with the belief that the Bible is God’s inspired word.

The Big Picture

Anyway, the Bible’s message in Genesis 6-8 is not so much material as moral, so our interest in this story should focus primarily on God’s agenda; God is reminding us here about the seriousness of sin, the certainty of judgement and the opportunity of salvation.

Billy Graham used to say that there are three things that happen to everybody. Firstly, everybody has to be born. Nobody just arrives on the earth out of nowhere. Secondly, everybody has to die. Unless Jesus comes back beforehand you and I will all one day pass away. The comedian George Burns once said, “If you live to be one hundred, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.” Never mind the devastating logic, enjoy the irony; George Burns lived to be a hundred, and then died! Everybody has to be born. Everybody dies in the end. And thirdly, everybody will have to stand before God to face the music.

Every now and then we lift our eyes up from the furious detail of existence to think about the ultimate meaning of it all: Why was I born? What is my destiny? Where is my life going? When, and if, I have to give an account to God for my life what will I have to say? If you’re famous enough you’ll get a brief obituary in the paper and a short report on the news. For most of us, not even that. Whoever we are, people will say a few lines about us at our funerals, mostly emphasising the good bits – this sermon is designed to depress everybody! - but the reality is that the final verdict on your life will be God’s and he will assess all of it; achievements as well as failures.

Saved!

Last week were thinking about life before the flood. But our reading this morning from Genesis tells the story of what happened during and after it. 7.17 talks about five and a half weeks of constant, heavy rain. Rivers burst their banks, valleys and then hills were slowly submerged. There was massive loss of life and untold environmental damage. If you add up the days in chapter 8, you realise that those who were safe in the ark spent a total time of 280 days - about 40 weeks - at sea before it was safe to disembark on dry land.

Are you are grumbler? I wonder if there was anyone in the ark who liked a good moan. After all, life inside the ark must have been beyond belief - conditions must have been very cramped. There was the overpowering stink of all the animals, and the attendant task of constantly mucking them out. The boat must have swayed to and fro on the seas, leading to seasickness, (to say nothing of the monotony; ten months with the same boring old view). “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with… w.” “Water?”

John Ortberg in his latest book called When The Game Is Over It All Goes Back In The Box talks about a client he had in his graduate days in psychology. “She complained frequently about how her husband’s drinking made her unhappy. ‘But you could take action,’ I suggested. ‘You could go to Alcoholics Anonymous. You could pursue an intervention. You could tell him he must pursue sobriety or you will separate. You can begin to pursue your true life without waiting for him to sober up. You could stop providing excuses for his boss or for his friends, and the painful consequences might provoke some change.’ She batted away each of these suggestions with ease... The truth is she preferred the status of victimhood that goes with complaining… She obligated her friends to give her sympathy rather than the hard truth.”

Are you are complainer? Do you enjoy having a good gripe? For the manifold inconveniences of life in the ark, read the day to day hassles of being me or you. O.K., being cooped up in a boat for ten months is no fun. Granted, the view isn’t great. Certainly, it’s cramped. Sure, 40 weeks of nausea is not a barrel of laughs. And yes, it stinks on board. But count your blessings! Thank God, for example, you weren’t outside when the ark door slammed shut and it started raining! When you think of the riches of God’s grace towards you; his love, his provision, his forgiveness, his gifts, his many answers to prayer, his fantastic blessings; count them - Christians ought to be the least grumpy people on earth. Thank God he showed mercy to me when I just didn’t deserve it. I still marvel at that. Thank God for the incomparable kindness of being in his will and not out of it; of being inside the ark, and not outside of it. 7.23 talks about the scale of the disaster, a vast extermination of life, and then says; “Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.” This is a story about salvation.

In October 2007, 54 men in Western Australia got trapped underground because of a flood in the mine where they were working. Thankfully, all were rescued several days later.

I want you to imagine for a minute that you are one of those guys. You are working 80 metres below ground. Suddenly the wall of an abandoned mine shaft collapses. A surge of water rushes towards you with great power. You run for safety with half a dozen fellow workers, but you see immediately that there’s no way you will make it to the mine entrance. You desperately scramble over rocks, searching for an air pocket as the water rises around you. After what seems to be hours, you find a small space with a little bit of air. You huddle together with your colleagues. It is cold and dark. As the water continues to rise, you wonder how long you can survive. It begins to dawn on you that there might not be enough air for all of you. Slowly the reality sinks in. You are 80 metres underground. There is no way out. You can do nothing to rescue yourself. You cannot swim to safety. You cannot dig your way to the surface. You are trapped in the gloom. If someone above does not come to your aid in time you will die where you are.

You don’t know it at all, but far above you rescue workers are drilling a hole to send in hot air to keep you warm and push back the rising water. Unknown to you, hundreds of people are working together without rest to dig rescue shafts. Millions are praying for you. Finally, the rescue team breaks through, a capsule is lowered, and they lift you to safety. When you were trapped, someone came for you. When you could do nothing to help yourself, someone rescued you. When your life was nearly gone, someone dug through and found you. Someone far above cared about you and you were saved.

That is what God’s mercy is like. Just when you were hopelessly trapped in the darkness of sin, someone far above came down from heaven to rescue you. He left the splendour of heaven to dig through layers of sin and guilt to set you free. Christ knew where you were. He reached out to you in your darkness and he released you from it and brought you into his marvellous light.

As for Noah, mercifully saved by God from terrifying judgment, so it is for all those who trust in Christ.

Judgment

Noah tells us that God saves. But Noah also tells us that he is a God of justice who will call all wrongdoing to account. There are two popular notions about God’s judgment in our culture, neither of which finds its origins in the Bible. The first is that God will weigh our good deeds against our bad deeds and decide our eternal destiny on the basis of which way the scales tip. If we have been rather more virtuous than wicked - all well and good. If not, oh dear. You go round any shopping centre in Britain today and ask people about the last judgement and you will hear a version of this time and time again. But there is nothing true about it at all. The reason is that entry into heaven has nothing whatsoever to do with our good deeds. Nothing. Isaiah called the sum total of our righteous acts “filthy rags” - that’s just the things we feel good about!

There was a man who reached the gates of heaven and he saw Jesus standing there. He suddenly felt deeply ashamed of all the bad things he had done in his life. He said, “You can’t let me in here. I’ve lied, I’ve hurt others, I haven't loved people around me, I’ve been so selfish...” And Jesus looked at him and said, “Oh yeah, I know. I know everything you’ve done. And you know what? You're a lot worse than you think you are! But you asked me to be your Saviour and Lord, remember? And when they open up your dossier and take a look at the record of your life, to see whether you can come in here, all they’ll find is the record of my life. They’ll just see my faultless, perfect, textbook righteous. So come on in, my friend, there’s nothing to fear.”

You and I are more sinful than we could ever measure and we are more loved than we could ever hope for. The only way to find favour with God and have the gate of eternal life opened before us is to turn from all that we know is wrong and come to Christ, just as we are, with no bargaining chips except simple, childlike faith.

There’s a second popular idea about God’s judgment in our culture and here’s an example of it... (video)

Some people think that God will give us another chance to put everything right, post mortem. If we’re not quite ready for heaven when we die, no matter. They think God will say, “Ah, there’s a bit a problem; you’re just a tiny bit light on the old righteousness here, but - ha, ha, ha - nothing to worry about, there’s plenty of time to top up your account, would you like to go through the Purgatory door..?”

But this second idea doesn’t have any more biblical foundation than the first. God has spelt out very clearly, in Hebrews 9.27, that his timetable doesn’t leave any room for any kind of second chance. “People are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” it says.

That means everyone has to be absolutely clear about their response to God in this life. It is urgent to think this through and make a clear commitment to Christ before it is too late. The opportunity for salvation ends permanently at death. Our eternal destiny will be determined by the spiritual choices we make in this life.

There is though, I believe, one - and only one - exception to this in Scripture; that is the unique, never-to-be-repeated opportunity given to the people who died in Noah’s flood. If you’ve ever read 1 Peter 3 you’ll have been puzzled, I’m sure by what it says there. This is what v18-20 actually say;

“Christ… was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. In that state he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits - to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built…”

Then a few verses later it says, “The gospel was preached even to those who are now dead.”

That’s weird! What’s that about? Unsurprisingly, many suggestions have been offered. I once heard there are over 200 different interpretations for those verses. But the plain meaning of the passage is that Jesus, between his death and his bodily resurrection, descended to the place of the dead and preached the gospel to the spirits of all those that perished in Noah’s flood. Not to anyone else, just to them. Why would Jesus single them out? Why not anyone else?

I believe the answer lies in what God says in Genesis 8.21. “Never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” Jesus gave a unique second chance to those who perished in the flood, because that generation alone was denied God’s promise of mercy that every generation, including ours, has enjoyed before and since. Now nobody can dispute God’s perfect impartiality from hell, shouting, “God wiped us out and promised never to do it again. He treated everyone afterwards better than he treated us. We have been denied justice! God is not fair!”

Ending

No, God is scrupulously fair. And for us, the picture is perfectly clear. God will never again send a flood like the one in Noah’s day. He has said so and he always keeps his word. He is full of mercy - meaning he doesn’t give us what we deserve. And he is full of grace - meaning he does give us what we don’t deserve.

Robert Fulghum was right. The most important lessons in life are simple. All I need to know I learned from Noah’s ark. The thing is, are those eternal questions settled in your mind? For most of us, I guess, the answer is “yes.” But we all know people for whom the answer is “No,” or “I’m not sure.” Well, we live in urgent times. Let’s pray with tears and persistence. Let’s give more of our lives to the end that more people in our generation come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. Let’s open our hearts and our mouths and commend the Gospel with great patience and all sincerity. Let’s live wholesome, joyful lives that attract others to the light of Christ. Let’s make the most of every opportunity. It is a privilege to suffer for righteousness’ sake, so let’s gladly accept the dishonour and insults that come with the proclamation of the Gospel until Christ comes again.

“The coming of the Son of Man” said Jesus, “will be just like in the days of Noah… Until the day that Noah entered the ark, they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.”


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 29th March 2009

Before the Flood (Genesis 6.1-7.16)

And the Lord said unto Noah, “Where is my ark, then?”

And Noah said, “Verily, I have been doing my best. But ye Council saith that my garden meeteth not the criteria necessary for an ark of this scale and it refuseth me planning permission. They see not how I shall get thine ark out of the garden and believe me not when I say unto them that I expect it to float away. Also, the Heritage Office came forth and spake unto me. It seemeth that thine ark hath a detrimental impact upon the character of the neighbourhood.

And lo, it came to pass that Weights and Measures did say unto me that, in any case, I am allowed in no wise to build anything in cubits – it all hath to be centimetres these days. So, I paid a hundred sheckels, yea even a thousand, for an architect to redo the plans. But then, ye Fire Brigade did weep and gnash its teeth, saying unto me I must install a sprinkler system. A sprinkler system during a flood! Verily, how daft is that?

And lo, I have problems gathering enough cypress wood, for there is a new ban on smiting cypress trees. I explain with exceeding tongue unto them that I need it, but alas, I talk as unto a brick wall.

And it also came to pass that ye Equal Opportunities people spake unto me saying that I must employ Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites. And, woe is me, for Immigration hath seized my passport for what if I depart with animals that have not been micro-chipped, even a hundredfold? So, in short, I have not started thy construction. Thou knowest how it is, Lord…”

The sky cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow appeared. Noah looked up and smiled. “Thou meanest thou art not going to destroy the world after all?” And God said, “Let’s find another way to judge the earth without all the bureaucracy!”

Over the next two weeks, we’re going to be thinking about the real story of Noah. If we were brought up in a Christian environment of any sort at all, it’s likely we know the story quite well – or at least a version of it. There’s a Noah’s Ark duvet cover with matching sheet and pillowcase that all four of our children slept under, no doubt dreaming contentedly about running around in some kind of floating zoo. Of course, Christian parents will do anything to get their kids interested in the Bible and I plead guilty. Animals are a pretty good bet for the under 8’s.

But I think it’s time that someone wrote a book called “Noah for Grown-ups,” because Genesis 6-9 is really not really a children’s story at all. Kids love hearing about the big boat, the animals going in two-by-two, the pitter-patter, splish-splash and the rainbow at the end. But wait! This story is about a scary slide into violence and corruption and vice. It’s about God getting badly upset over things much more serious than red tape. It’s a harrowing account of awful and sweeping divine judgment. It’s about a cataclysmic environmental catastrophe on a massive scale. It’s the ultimate disaster movie. It’s enough to give most kids nightmares.

We’ll come to the deluge itself next week. This morning we’re asking, “Why did this happen?” We’ll be looking at life before the flood to try and gather some clues. The Bible, in fact, gives us a very mixed picture of what it was like in the time immediately preceding the deluge. On the one hand, Noah and his family were godly and decent people; Noah in particular, according to Hebrews 11, was one of the great heroes of faith, not just of his day, but of all time. He was a total legend.

But on the other hand, it seems there was unprecedented spiritual darkness. Chapter 6.5 says, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil all the time.” That’s a triply damning verdict on the spiritual state of affairs at that time. “Every inclination, only evil, all the time.” God is telling us here about a degree of depravity perhaps never equalled before or since.

But even though the moral atmosphere of that generation was toxic, we know too that people just went about their business very much as normal. Jesus talked about this time saying (in Luke 17.26-27) “People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark.” In other words, the world kept going round as if nothing was up. The people of Noah’s generation were like villagers living on the edge of a sleeping volcano; indifferent to the danger and oblivious to the disaster that was about to visit them.

In v6, it says that God regretted ever making human beings. “He was grieved,” it says. “He was sorry he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart” as the Message version has it. One of the saddest, most distressing and most painful things you can hear is when parents say, ‘We wish we had never had children.’ When human relationships break down to that extent you know that something has gone disastrously wrong. It’s surprisingly common actually. Kathie is a hospice nurse and she tells me quite often about families of dying people who don’t talk, and won’t visit from one generation to the next. ‘We wish we had never been born into this family’ or ‘we wish we had never had children.’ For a loving, compassionate, merciful and gracious God to say those words means things must have become unspeakably and irreparably bad.

So what was it? What had broken down so completely at that time? The verses right at the beginning of chapter 6 hint at what it was and at why God decided to take such radical action. “Every inclination, only evil, all the time.” But the verses before that give us some clues about how this situation came to be. They talk, obscurely, about angelic beings (sons of God) intermarrying with human women and producing a kind of hybrid being called Nephilim. This whole development seems to have created conflict and friction between men, women and God. “My Spirit will not contend with human beings forever,” says God in v3, and it seems that it was at this time that the human lifespan became noticeably shorter; I think to limit the damage one person could do in his or her lifetime. This is the language of conflict, of struggle and of sanction. But that’s all it says about the matter here.

We have to turn to another text, written between the Old and New Testaments, called the book of Enoch, to get more information on this weird episode. The book of Enoch is not part of the Word of God, but it is quoted by both Peter and Jude in the New Testament, so I think we can regard it as a useful source of information, even if it clearly isn’t on the level of inspired Scripture. In chapter 7 of Enoch there is an expanded version of the story we have at the beginning of Genesis 6.

It says there that 200 angels left heaven, intermarried with women and had offspring who grew into giants with unusual strength. It also says that this was responsible for the origins of occultism. The angels taught the women sorcery, incantations, and divination, which then spread. And then it describes how people quickly descended into destroying the environment, gratuitous vandalism, fornication and even cannibalism. Society became anarchic. I believe that this was the world Noah knew, and this is the reason why God regretted ever having created life, and why he decided to wipe the slate clean and start again.

But you’ve got to dig around a bit in obscure literature and the back pages of Scripture to find this out. It’s as if God doesn’t like to talk about it much; there’s something that upsets him deeply about what happened in Noah’s day. It upset him so much that he decided to take radical action against the creation he called “good” and the human race he called “very good”.

When the rain finally did come, it was no surprise. It had been warned of and preached about, not for days or months or even years, but for four generations. Talk about a weather forecast! When Noah’s great grandfather Enoch was 65 years old, he began to walk with God, and at that time he was given a prophecy that a great judgment would come. You don’t find this in Genesis; it’s in the New Testament letter of Jude. Enoch had a son at that time, whom he called Methuselah, and all the evidence suggests that he named him after this prophecy. It means, “When he dies it shall be sent forth.”

As long as Methuselah lived, the flood would be delayed; but the day he died, the great judgment would be visited on the earth. All the time Methuselah was alive, Noah warned his generation that God was going to send this torrential rain. Peter called Noah a preacher of righteousness. He was calling people back from the brink, urging them to repent, begging them to change their ways. And nobody listened. Methuselah grew older. Noah kept urging his generation to turn back. No one listened. And Methuselah grew even older. Noah kept on preaching and still nobody paid any attention.

The day Methuselah died, it began to rain. According to Genesis 5.27 he was 969, the oldest recorded lifespan in the whole Bible. You know why? It’s because God is incredibly patient. “Every inclination, only evil, all the time.” And still God waited and waitd. “God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built” it says in 1 Peter 3.20. God has a long, long fuse. He doesn’t lose it easily. He is slow to anger and abounding in love.

God is patient with you too. Thank heavens he’s patient with me. And I’m not just saying that to show how humble I can be. I mean it. But even though God is almost absurdly longsuffering, and even though he always immediately forgives sinners who are truly sorry for what they have done, he doesn’t tolerate evil forever.

God’s amazing grace doesn’t mean he is relaxed about unconfessed sin. And we should always militate against becoming casual about it. Rick Warren once said, “God doesn’t expect you to be perfect, but he does insist on complete honesty.” Being transparent with God and with each other is one of the keys to healthy living. “The truth is,” says Warren, “whatever you can’t talk about is already out of control in your life.” He’s right; the secrets we keep about the darkness inside us are the biggest enemy to our spiritual growth.

There was little darkness to hide in Noah’s life though. Spiritually, he was an open book. That’s what it means to walk with God and it says here that that is what Noah did; he was honest with the Lord and lived a life of integrity. Noah was not only a godly individual; he was clearly very industrious as well. How does one man preach consistently for a period of 120 years, warning about God’s coming judgment, build an ocean liner and find time to eat?  The ark, given the dimensions here, was a colossal vessel. It was the length of one and a half football pitches and as high as a four-story building. It was also exactly six times longer than it was wide, which is, incidentally I’m told, the same ratio modern shipbuilders use to build the most efficient and stable ships that sail the seas.

I imagine Noah wondering if the scale and scope of this project weren’t rather too much for him. Do you worry that God is calling you to attempt something that is beyond your talents and gifting? Well, God doesn’t call the equipped; he equips the called. God commissioned Noah to start building this gigantic craft and because, as it says in v9, “Noah walked with God” there is no trace of negotiation, and certainly no protest. In fact v22 simply says that Noah did all that the Lord commanded him. Obedience is a very simple concept, it’s about saying “yes” and saying “no.” It’s about doing the right thing - and doing the right thing can be quite an adventure.

John Kenneth Galbraith, who died two years ago, was a renowned economist. He was a trusted advisor to Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. In his autobiography, he talks at one point about the dedication of Emily Wilson, his housekeeper.

“It had been a wearying day, and I asked Emily to hold all telephone calls while I had a nap. Shortly thereafter the phone rang. President Lyndon Johnson was calling from the White House. “Get me Ken Galbraith. This is Lyndon Johnson.” “He is sleeping, Mr. President.” “Well, wake him up. I want to talk to him.” “He is asleep, Mr. President. He said not to disturb him.” “Look, this is the President of the United States of America and I have urgent business to discuss with Kenneth Galbraith.” “Mr. President. I work for J.K. Galbraith, not you. You’ll be calling later. Goodbye.”

Then Galbraith says this; when I called the President back, he could scarcely control his pleasure. “Tell that woman I want her here in the White House,” he said.

Obedience to God means remembering who’s in charge. Simple obedience often comes into direct conflict with the overwhelming urge to go with the flow. It did for Noah and he said, “Lord, you’re in charge.” I know many of you can point to times at work where you have been under pressure to compromise your obedience to God’s word in order to implement some company decision or carry out a request from one of your superiors. It happens in relationships. It happens in business. It happens when you log on to the Internet. It happens at parties. It happens at some level almost every hour of the day. “Lord, you’re in charge.” That’s obedience.

The film Chariots of Fire hinges upon such a moment. You know the story. Eric Liddle, a Christian middle-distance champion refuses to compete on a Sunday, in the 1924 Paris Olympics, as it will clash with a principled decision he has made to set aside that time for rest and for worship. They summons him to stand up before the Olympic Committee, the Ambassador, the Team Coach and the King himself. They try to reason with him but he reasons back. They make him know that he is exasperating His Majesty, the King. He apologises for the inconvenience. They try to intimidate him. He doesn’t buckle. They try to order him. He respectfully refuses to comply. In the end, he missed the race and was disqualified. But he did enter in a different event; a distance that wasn’t his best – and Liddle hit the tape first and won gold.

Choosing to obey God and not to obey men is basically a question of trust. Trusting God can be demanding and stretching and hard. It’s a white knuckle ride. But would you prefer a dull life of predictable monotony? Aren’t you ambitious for more? Don’t you get excited about trusting God that he will deliver, against all odds, and that he will honour the stand you make, come what may? That’s where I want to be.

A man named James Brown wrote a very entertaining book about learning to fly. Here’s an extract of his diary; “My instructor told me to put the plane into a steep and extended dive. I was totally unprepared for what was about to happen. After a brief time the engine stalled, and the plane began to plunge out-of-control. It soon became evident that the instructor was not going to help me at all. After a few seconds, which seemed like eternity, my mind began to function again. I quickly corrected the situation.

I turned to the instructor and began to vent my fearful frustrations on him. He very calmly said to me, ‘There is no position you can get this airplane into that I cannot get you out of. If you want to learn to fly, go up there and do it again.’ At that moment God seemed to be saying to me, ‘Remember this. As you serve me, there is no situation you can get yourself into that I cannot get you out of. If you trust me, you will be all right.’”

So Noah, his wife (who is not named, but I call her Joan - Joan of Ark), their sons and their wives embarked on this huge vessel, with the animals, and God shut the door. God’s patience was up; it took 969 years for it to finally run out, but in the end even God couldn’t wait any longer, Methuselah died at long last, and the rain started to fall.

There won’t ever be a flood as bad as that again, God has promised that. As bad as it seems to get sometimes the truth is that there probably won’t ever be a society as corrupt as that again either. But God is still looking for individuals who will stand out in their generation as those who walk with him, who will trust him to deliver, whatever the odds, who will choose to simply obey him, whatever he says. The question is are you going to be one of them?


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 22nd March 2009

Paradise Lost (Genesis 3.1-24)

Introduction

One of my earliest childhood memories, if not the earliest, is when my brother Richard (who I called ‘Pim’) was just old enough to pull himself up on furniture. He wasn’t yet walking. I would put him at about 9 months, meaning I must have been just over three years old. We used to share a bedroom and one night, probably at about two in the morning, I had the idea of going into the bathroom, filling up a bucket of water and tipping it on my brother while he slept in his cot. To this day, I have no idea what made me do it. Was it a kind of scientific experiment? Was it spite? I don’t know. It just seemed a good idea at the time.

I went into the bathroom, filled up the bucket my mum used to mop the floor, carried it into the bedroom and happily anointed Richard with cold tap water in mid slumber. Unsurprisingly, he woke up immediately and, to my great alarm, started to protest loudly. This was going to alert my mum and dad. Things were therefore not quite going to plan. Guessing that they would identify me as the culprit, I hid under the cot and waited. When they arrived, they found Richard standing up, holding the bars of his cot and blinking water out of his cute little eyes in a state of understandable shock. My dad pulled me out from under the cot, which was in hindsight a pathetic hideaway, and said, “What’s going on?” I can remember my reply as if it was yesterday. I looked at Richard and I looked at my dad and said, “Pim wet himself!”

How I avoided getting the family nickname ‘John the Baptist’, I will never know. But it’s interesting to me that one of my earliest memories has to do with offence and guilt and hiding and blame. Because one of the most primitive collective memories of human existence is a narrative centred on exactly those themes (offence, guilt, hiding and blame) but unlike my childhood prank, this one is deadly serious. It’s the story of the first couple falling from grace and being driven out of Eden. It’s the story of one choice that led to losing everything.

Had they not fallen away from God into sin, Adam and Eve would have remained in their beautiful, innocent state and spiritual death would never have entered the world. It is difficult to imagine what human nature was like then by viewing it as it is now. The 20th Century pastor and theologian David Breese says, “It would require something like trying to reconstruct the original version of an aircraft from its wreckage. If we knew nothing of flying, we would hardly suspect that it had once soared above the earth. The material would be the same; the capability of flight, however, would be lost.”

Genesis 3 is a fascinating autopsy of temptation and sin; it’s like one of those cutaway-working models you see in a science museum, you get to see how it all works. But it is also, if you like, an archetype of all wrongdoing. The essence of all sin is displayed in this first sin. In other words, this is a fatal pattern that repeats itself in our lives every day. That means by understanding what’s going on in Genesis 3 this you can gain wisdom and become better prepared to defeat sin in your life. We’re going to look this morning at two things; firstly the mechanism of sin; what it is and how it operates – and secondly, the consequences of sin; where it leads. If we know where it leads to we can find the way back to our starting point of peace with God.

1) The Mechanism of Sin

a) Doubting God’s word - Did God really say? (v1)

The first thing to understand is how sin starts when we distrust God and what he says. In Genesis 3.1; the devil comes to the woman in the form of a snake and asks, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” He is raising suspicions about God’s word. “Wait a minute. Did God really say that? Positive? Would you bet your life savings on that? I don’t you’re really sure are you?”

“If you were a true Christian, you wouldn’t be so sceptical, would you?” Or, “No way would a real Christian ever do what you’ve just done, would they!” If he can get us to doubt whether we are Christians, then we are much more vulnerable because once he has got us doubting that we’re good enough to belong to God he starts to say, “Well now, since you are probably not a Christian anyway, it doesn’t really matter - go ahead.” It all starts by raising doubts about God’s word.

This is his strategy in Genesis. When you look back into the last chapter of Genesis, you can see how psychologically manipulative the devil is. Verse 16: “The Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.’” Look what it’s saying here: God gives to the man an amazing breadth of freedom and almost unlimited permission. He says, “You are free to eat from anything in the garden.” Ladies and gentlemen: the remarkable and permissive generosity of God. That’s the basic truth. “You are free to eat from anything in the garden.” Almost. There is, in fact, one (and only one) minor prohibition. “But,” says God, (v17) “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Just one tree, that’s all. And then, God gives a clear warning about the major consequences of any defiance. “For if you do eat of it, you will surely die.”

Now watch carefully the way the devil works here. It’s revealing. He comes to the woman saying, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” Hold on! That is a leading question. That is not what God said at all. There is a deliberate misquotation hidden in that question. God grants extensive freedoms. But the devil ignores that. He concentrates instead on God’s single prohibition, which he shamelessly exaggerates. God’s “no” was limited to only one tree, but the devil asks, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” Any tree?

You see how this works? Now, that is exactly the sly way he operates today. The enemy of your soul always ignores God’s ‘yes.’ He never points out the wonderful things God has given us to enjoy. God is an open-handed, loving, fantastic, amazing God. He’s given us the joy of walking in a relationship with him, of being sons and daughters of God. He’s given us all the riches of Christian relationships, a level of friendship that we never experience anywhere else, the blessing of a Christian home, all kinds of marvellous, guilt-free pleasures, food and drink, all creation to behold and enjoy - and Satan calculatingly, cunningly, ignores all of it.

The devil, for example, never says to a new believer in Christ, “Do you realise what fun all those Christians have? They have an amazing time, do you realise how good God is to them?” He overlooks that! With Adam and Eve he ignores God’s ‘yes’ and he exaggerates God’s ‘no.’ That is what he still does. “Do you realise the sad life you’ll live if you become a Christian?” he says. “You won’t be able to take drugs. Or get drunk. Or sleep around. Or cheat on your taxes; you’ll be poor. What a drag. You don’t want a lifetime of cheerless drudgery do you? Decades lamenting all these great things you can’t do...”

b) Disbelieving God’s word - You will not surely die! (v4)

Having sown doubt and suspicion and scepticism about what God’s word, the devil goes one step further; he flatly rubbishes it. “You don’t want to believe the Bible, do you? It’s just myths and old wives’ tales,” he says. “Surely die? Is that what he said?” So he denies that there is any penalty for disobeying God. “Oh, we all go to heaven in the end,” he says, “you don’t want to believe in hell, come on!”

So the woman says in v3, “No, we may eat from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the one tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” It sounds spot on. She’s standing firm. What a good answer. Right? Wrong! She has already, in fact, begun to fall into the trap. When did God ever say anything about touching the tree in chapter 2? He said, “Don’t eat the fruit.” That’s all. But Eve is convinced she heard it. Or, wait a minute. Did he mention about touching the tree as well? Maybe he didn’t… What did he say now? She’s not sure. Then watch what the devil does: seeing she has started to get confused, he comes across as decisive and assured. “Surely die? No, you won’t...” In other words, the devil says, “Come on, it won’t do you any harm. Go on! Try it.”

c) Disobeying God’s word - They ate… (v6)

The next verse is like a sugar trap for wasps. “The serpent says to the woman, “God knows that when (not if, notice) when you eat it your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” “It’ll be amazing,” he’s saying. Wow, how good does that sound...? “So,” v6, “she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, (and had been listening all the time and just stood there saying nothing) and he ate it.” Game, set and match.

2) The Consequences of Sin

a) Awareness of guilt - They covered and hid themselves (v8)

Now what? Did they get that mind-blowing, eye-opening, amazing experience the snake promised? It’s the ultimate high! You’re going to be like God! Verse 7 says they realised they were naked in public, became embarrassed, and sewed fig leaves together to make coverings for themselves.”

Picture the garden now; Adam sitting down doing nothing and Eve rushing around with a garden rake, saying, “Adam, why don’t you clear up your own underwear!”

If you’ll excuse the play on words, it’s revealing how often people try to conceal the evidence when they make mistakes. Cover ups didn’t begin at Watergate, they started in the Garden of Eden. And the man and woman covered up because they were uncomfortable, they were ashamed. Mark Twain said “Human beings are the only animals that blush, and they’re the only ones that need to.”

Sandra Newman talks about the time they she checked out of a hotel with her family. “As we were leaving the lobby of the hotel” she says, “Our three-year-old son looked down at the doormat with the hotel logo on it. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “That’s on our towels at home!” Don’t you just love kids?

Embarrassment: If you could project on the screen behind me a list of all the things I’ve ever done wrong in my life, all the things that I’ve said, all the things that I’ve thought, I would be deeply embarrassed and humiliated. Even among the upright people of All Saints’ Preston on Tees, I am certain there would be no volunteers for that. We all cover up what we don’t want others to know about us.

Verse 8 tells us, “They hid” - they were cringing, because when God says to them, “Where are you?” the man says, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid.” So the man and the woman were cut off from each other and something has gone wrong in their relationship with God too. Suddenly there’s fear and anxiety in there. Satan’s goal is to cut us off from fellowship with God, and here now the man is frightened - that was never the intention when God created human beings.

Have you noticed how scared people can be about church? It can be an intimidating experience if you’re not used to it because you don’t know what to expect. In old churches you sometimes see people behind the pillars. There’s a sort of feeling that God can’t really see behind the pillars, and it might be safer there. Thing is, we haven’t got any in this church, so it’s petrifying for visitors; there’s nowhere to hide! The man and the woman were afraid and they were cut off from God and that’s so often where we end up after falling into sin, feeling detached, wretched, cheapened by it all. “Where are you?” calls God. Where indeed…

b) Immediate human conflict - The woman that you gave me… (v12-13)

After embarrassment; blame. When people turn away from God, they usually start fighting each other. If you’ve ever witnessed a car crash, you will have been struck by the way the drivers get out of their cars and say, “I am terribly sorry that was just so my fault. Will you forgive me?” Not. In reality, people start making excuses; they blame one another and try to clear themselves of any responsibility.

Here are some statements people have allegedly written on their accident claim forms that they have sent off to their insurance company. One man wrote this: “Going home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree that wasn’t there.” Another wrote: “The other car collided with mine without giving warning of his intention!” A third put this: “The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him!” Or “The pedestrian had no idea which way to go, so I ran him over.” We are seasoned experts at making excuses and we all know that when we’re in the wrong we hate admitting it.

With Adam and Eve it’s exactly the same. Embarrassment leads to excuses. The man says to God, “I was scared because I was naked; so I hid.” And God says, “Oh? Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from that tree that I told you not to?” And what does this strong man do? He blames her. “The woman you put here - she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” And what does the woman do? She blames the snake. “It was the snake.” So the man blamed the woman; the woman blamed the serpent, and the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on…

Why do we, as a race, find it so hard to admit that we are amiss? The words that I find hardest to say are probably, “I was wrong.” Making excuses or blaming someone else are at the heart of pretty well all major international rows, every industrial dispute, most office conflicts and are the daily diet of every divorce proceeding and criminal trial.

c) Separation from God – Cursed and banished from Eden (v14-23)

Well, it all ends in tears. And that was the devil’s plan, right from the very beginning. Satan is a deceiver, a destroyer, a tempter. The Hebrew word for Satan means ‘Accuser’ or ‘Slanderer.’ That’s why people outside of the church often have such a negative view of God. They listen to his smear campaign against God and say, “Why does God want to spoil our lives and end our fun?” That is not true. It’s a false view of God peddled by Satan the slanderer.

As for Adam and Eve, they’ve lost their innocence and it’s gone forever. The choice they made set in motion consequences for them that were irreversible. The toothpaste is out of the tube, and there’s no way to get it back in. Sin is like a rash all over the human race. Some of you are parents. How many of your innocent children have you had to train how to lie or be spiteful? How many of your children, with no input from you, are naturally helpful and obedient? The explanation for this inbuilt downward bias is right here.

Once sin is out, it quickly unravels. God pronounces a curse on the man and the woman. Hard toil, pain and conflict are now the stuff of life, which has become a struggle. Adam’s relationship with Eve is now strained. Death has thrown a dark shadow over the garden. Worse, the man and the woman are banished from Eden and estranged from God. The first time you sinned, the first time I sinned, our relationship with God changed forever. From that day on we became sinners in need of a Saviour.

Ending

What the Bible says in Genesis 3 rings true with our experience. The humanist vision says we have all ascended from dark ignorance to great heights of intelligence. The Bible says, “No we haven’t.” What pride! God does not portray us as risen, but fallen and, without Christ, having no hope.

So, to finish, let us simply look again to the One who has stretched out his mighty arm, plundered hell and saved Adam’s helpless race; Jesus-Christ, the Author of an Eternal Salvation, the Desired of Nations, the Lord of Glory, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Heir of all Things, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Risen One, the Bright Morning Star, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. To him be the praise and the glory for absolutely ever and ever.


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

Living by Faith: Believing (Genesis 15.1-20)

Introduction

When you’re going out with someone there comes a day when you say, “You should meet my parents.” It’s scary, because your mum and dad don’t always share your values. What if they embarrass you with cringe factor stories of when you were little? What if they say with something totally inappropriate? What if the generation gap opens up like the Grand Canyon? The first time I met the man who would eventually become my father in law, he was watching TV in his y-fronts and, without so much as acknowledging I was there, asked Kathie to scratch his back for him and bring him a cup of tea. I just knew from that night on that this was the family I just had to marry into.

Let me tell you a little story about a young woman who introduces her fiancé to her parents. After dinner, her dad takes the young man into his study and says, “OK now, tell me what your plans are.” “Well,” he says, “I’m studying theology and I hope to go into pastoral ministry.” So the father says, “Oh, that’s great. And how do you intend to provide for my daughter and establish a stable home for her?” So the guy says, “Well, I’m going to read the Bible, live by faith and just trust that God will provide.” So the dad says, “I see, but how are you going to raise children on an income as precarious as that?” And the young man replies, “Oh that’s cool. God has told me to live by faith. God will provide.” So dad replies, “And your holidays, your car, those little unforeseen expenses that crop up?” And the guy replies again, “I live by faith. God will provide.” A little later his wife asks how it went. “Well,” he says, “he’s a nice lad but he has no work, few prospects, no money and he thinks I’m God!”

Reassurance - Belief - Righteousness

Just to remind you that we’re looking at living by faith. Over the next five weeks we’re going to continue to follow Abraham as he walks with God in both victory and adversity. Tonight, we’ve pressed the fast forward button from chapter 12 to chapter 15, where, following a difficult episode, God speaks to Abram in a vision. And it’s a reassuring word… “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” In other words, I am for you, I am on your side, I am going to protect you and uphold you, come what may, and I am going to be there for you at the end. So don’t be scared, I have got it all in hand.”

How do you think Abram felt, hearing God speak to him like that? All right, let’s put it another way, hands up if you like being encouraged. Raise your hand please if you prefer encouragement from people to indifference or condemnation.

Encouragement, spiritual support, does you good doesn’t it? So why are Christians often so bad at it? Somebody said to me recently that one of the things this church has struggled with down the years is a spirit of criticism. We tend to speak up readily when something isn’t quite right, and say nothing when something is done really well. Don’t get me wrong. We should place a high value on competence and achievement. Jesus did. He set the bar high for his disciples. I want everything we do here to reach for supreme standards of excellence, because it’s for God and he deserves the very best.

But one of my goals here is to discourage nitpicking and promote a culture of encouragement instead. This is one of the reasons why we make space for prophecy in these services. Because prophecy is designed to build up the body of Christ. It is positive in nature. 1 Corinthians 14.3 says, “those who prophesy speak to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort” and those are things to commend and nurture.

So God’s word to Abram is positive and faith building. But the response (v2-3) to that reassurance, encouragement and consolation from God is less than enthusiastic. “What can you give me Lord…? I remain childless. As things stand, because you, God, have not yet moved in my life on the child issue, my entire estate is going to my servant Eliezer.” Abram is saying, in effect, “Look, where’s the hard evidence, Lord, to back up what I hear you saying to me about future blessing? I need something a bit more substantial than fine words and big promises. To be honest, Lord, this is taking much longer than I had expected and, frankly, I would like to know when you intend to deliver.” I’d describe Abram’s response here as ‘faith in two minds.’ He is still calling God “Sovereign Lord” (in v2 and v8) but he is asking some pretty hard questions.

Now, some of you have been there, in that place, where you’re trying hard to hold on to God but everything around you is saying “what’s the point?” Most of you, I would guess, have been there. Some of you are probably there now. Well, what Abram says here is what we all feel like saying when we’ve been praying for something for ages and nothing moves. God seems to disappear from view. And when God is slow to answer prayer we start to say to ourselves, after a certain point, “Has the time come for me to accept that this is not going to happen? For whatever reason - either I didn’t hear from God right or I have sinned in some way, or God has some higher purpose in this or whatever; I need to readjust to my new reality that God is not going to come through for me on this one.

Be careful! This is a big test for your heart as it was for Abram’s. I don’t think he allowed himself to become cynical and hard-hearted over this but I do think he struggled with the obvious lack of evidence before him. I want to encourage you to do what he did and articulate to God what you really feel. Speak it out. About a third of the Psalms are basically saying, “Lord – you want to know my honest opinion; life sucks! This stinks. And by the way, where are you, Lord? Hello! I need to hear you again. I can’t go on if it’s going to stay like this. I need something more. Refresh me, please. Open my eyes and show me your salvation.” I think this is basically where Abram is at here. “Lord, I just need a bit more, please.”

So many times in prayer ministry, when I have asked for prayer; I’ll say, “Pray for me, I’m struggling with obedience to God on a particular issue.” “Pray for me, I’m low.” “Pray for me, I’m finding it hard to pray at the moment.” Pray for me, I need to forgive someone.” And so often, when I have humbled myself and asked for prayer God has spoken into my life and changed my perspective. It’s what happens for Abram here. At the end of his honest statement of where he is with his faith and his simple request for more (“What can you give me Lord…?”) God gives him a visual aid. He leads him out of his tent and draws his attention to the night sky. “Look at those stars! How many do you think there are? See if you can count them.” If Abram had managed to tot up all the stars visible with the naked eye from the earth he would have counted about 6,000. There are, in fact, about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way alone and there may be as many as 200 billion similar galaxies in the observable universe.

And God says, (v5) “That’s what your family is going to be like.” That’s a lot of kids! For a man facing childlessness, talk about encouragement… and v6 says this; “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” This is the key to the whole passage, indeed this is one of the most important sentences in the whole Old Testament revelation of God. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that no other verse in the entire Old Testament is as directly relevant to you tonight as this one.

In Romans 4 the Apostle Paul says that these words, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness” were written for us. Those are his exact words. This verse is the key to questions like “How can I know God?” and “how can I please God?” This short verse unlocks the mystery of how an infinitely great and holy God accept me and declare me not guilty even if I am the worst of sinners.

Listen carefully now, this is essential truth: Because you hold on to Christ as your only hope, because you believe him and take him at his word, because you trust him to forgive your past, to nourish your present and to guarantee your future, God looks at you and sees through the darkness of your heart, through your fears and failures and sees only the awesome, eternal, unblemished righteousness of Christ.

That’s the key to this passage and if you recall nothing else tonight remember this; that God is for you and, on the basis of Jesus’ death and resurrection, your faith in him fixes his favour and approval upon you forever.

Who Are These Promises For?

On every Alpha course I have been involved in, it seems that someone has asked about religious conflict and someone else has asked why the God of the Old Testament is so vengeful and violent. And it just so happens that Genesis 15 gives some important insights into both questions.

The first objection, “Why is religion so often the cause of war and conflict?” is a major obstacle for some people considering the claims of God’s word. In v18-21 God makes a covenant with Abram (that’s what the cutting up of the animals is all about) and God says he is going to give all this land to Abram’s descendants forever.

There’s a huge problem here, isn’t there? Most Jews say that this promise concerns every Jewish person alive today, who has ever lived before and who will live in the future. They will say this: “We alone are the direct fulfilment of this promise. It’s about Israel and the promise of the land is literal, physical and permanent. It’s ours!” Then most Arabs look at v5 and say, “No! It must refer to the Arab people past, present and future, who descend physically from Abraham, through his eldest son Ishmael. So the land is ours. So get off it now!” And that is the nub of the conflict between Jews and Arabs which is ongoing and shows no signs of abating. “The land is ours, because God promised it to Abraham and his descendents.”

So what do we say, as Christians? We take a different approach entirely. “According to the New Testament, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are a real child of Abraham because he is the father of all who believe. For example, Romans 4.16-17 says, (the Message paraphrase) “Abraham is father of us all… He is our faith father. We call Abraham ‘father’ not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody.”

So when God says to Abram, (in v5) “Look up at the heavens and count the stars, so shall your offspring be,” he’s talking about us.

So what about the land, promised in v18? Who is this promise addressed to; the Jews, the Arabs or to… us? We need to be really clear in our thinking here. How do we read these promises as Christians?

With the coming of Christ everything changed because he is the ‘yes’ to, and the guarantee of, all the promises God made to Israel. He is their long expected Messiah. Jews who reject Jesus as their Messiah and Saviour forfeit the promises God made to them as Jews. It’s all about Jesus. Any Jew who rejects Christ rejects God, but Jews who acknowledge him as true and Lord of their lives are made right with God. Conversely, Gentiles who accept Jesus of Nazareth as their Jewish Messiah and Saviour become heirs of all the promises of the Old Covenant.

For example, read Matthew 8:10-12. Here, a Roman soldier asks Jesus to heal his servant. Moved by this Gentile’s simple faith Jesus says, ‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

That means that Jews tragically lose their inheritance if they reject faith in Jesus as the Messiah. That means that Gentiles become true Jews by faith in the Messiah, Jesus. Any Jew who does not have faith in Jesus will be cast into outer darkness, but any Gentile who does have faith in Jesus will inherit Abraham’s promise in the age to come. Jesus said it.

All that fighting over land; it’s all tragically short sighted. It’s so not the point. It’s like two beggars fighting over a cherry when God says you could have the whole cake. “All things are yours in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3.21). Why fight over a piece of land the size of Wales when “the meek shall inherit the whole earth?” (Matthew 5.5).

It’s tragic; all those wars, all that bloodshed, all that trouble in the Middle-East – all because Jew and Arab alike have refused Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Why All That Smiting?

The second objection, “Why does the God of the Old Testament seem so vengeful and violent?” is also a major obstacle for enquirers to find faith. The conquest of Canaan under Joshua makes sobering reading. It’s wholesale destruction of a nation and people. It’s heavy. And the explanation for it is found here in v13-16.

“The Lord said to (Abram), ‘Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

In other words, what these verses say is this; God waited 400 years, and allowed his own people to be ill-treated in Egypt for that length of time, until the wickedness and evil and vice of the inhabitants of Canaan had got so bad that there was no way back.

What was it about the Amorites that made their obliteration from the face of the earth so justified and necessary? Theirs was a foul and degrading society. Their worship cults were little more than sadistic orgies. We know that child sacrifice was widely practiced. Such was the scale and extent of their perversions that sexually transmitted diseases would have been endemic and any intermarriage would have been catastrophic. They were a barbaric, sick and infectious nation. But God waited patiently for four centuries, giving them time to change. They didn’t. And at the end of that time, when the sin of the Amorites had reached its full measure, God said, “Enough.”

The conquest of Canaan under Joshua is, therefore, as much an expression of God’s extraordinary patience as it is of his fearsome wrath. To allow his own treasured people, the apple of his eye, to remain bound in slavery for all that time - in order to give the Amorites time to repent - gives a whole new perspective on things.

Ending

I think I want to finish on this uncomfortable note - and it’s one you don’t hear very much in churches these days, possibly because of fear that people will take offence.

God’s anger against sin is like a pan of milk on a stove. It simmers for a long time, because he is slow to anger and abounding in love, but there comes a day when his patience runs out and he is resolved to punish evil and it’s not pretty. There is no way back from hell. Those who reject Jesus Christ, who refuse the cross and who say ‘no’ to the gospel will suffer weeping and torment and anguish and regret forever. Since they have rejected the glory of God, which is infinitely valuable, their forfeit of eternal pleasure will be infinitely tragic.

However, when you (like Abram) simply believed God, in his great mercy, in his incredible kindness, he credited it to you as righteousness.

No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from his hand;
Till he returns or calls me home -
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 1st March 2009