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A City on a Hill Cannot Be Hidden

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Topical Scripture: Matthew 5:14-16

As surely everyone in America knows, the midterm elections are this Tuesday. Early voting is so high that one political scientist says, “We could be looking at a turnout rate that virtually no one has ever experienced.”

Vitriol is high as well. When I voted last Wednesday, it was the twenty-fourth time I have voted in a presidential or midterm election. I have never seen such animosity in our political environment. Protests, anger, and name-calling are dominating the news. These are challenging times for our democracy.

In a day like this, what does the Lord want to say to his people? How can we be part of the answer and not the problem? How can we speak, act, and live in ways that glorify him and serve the common good? As I began asking the Father these questions this week, a familiar text came immediately to mind.

Here’s some background.

After some thirty trips to Israel, it’s unusual for me to see something new. But that’s what happened when I led my most recent study tour to the Holy Land. We visited Safed (known in Hebrew as Tsfat), a city in far-north Israel. It is a fascinating and beautiful artistic community filled with shops and galleries.

But it is especially important to us because of its role in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Our Lord delivered the most famous sermon in history from a location just south of Safed. Then and today, the city towers over the area where he preached to the crowds. When he spoke of “a city on a hill that cannot be hidden,” he was likely pointing to Safed.

His words about them are God’s word to us today.

Reflect the light of Christ

Our text begins: “You are the light of the world.” “You” is plural, including everyone who follows Jesus. “You are”—present tense, right now. Not you will be, but you are today. No matter your past, your present, or your future.

This is a spectacular compliment. Not because of who we are, but whose we are. You see, Jesus is the true light of the world.

He said so: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). And later, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:5).

Now that he is no longer in the world, he has called us to reflect his light, as the moon reflects the sun.

The Bible says, “There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light” (John 1:6–8).

This is true of each of us: “You are all sons of the light” (1 Thessalonians 5:5). We exist to show our Father’s light. To be his mirror. To reflect his light to our dark world. To be the moon to his sun. This is Jesus’ high and holy calling for each of us.

Know that the world needs your light

But why is this calling so significant? Why is being the “light of the world” so important? For this simple reason: you have the only answer to the greatest need in all of humanity.

Would your life be significant and satisfying if you cured cancer or AIDS? If you found the solution to all war, abuse, neglect? If you discovered a way to end all hunger and poverty? Would you then consider your life fulfilling? We could do all this and more, but the world would still suffer in spiritual darkness. And this darkness would be its greatest problem, its worst disease, its most horrific malady.

The Bible says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12, emphasis added).

God describes humanity this way: “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more” (Ephesians 4:18–19).

This darkness is Satanic: “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

What is the answer to his deception and darkness? You are “the” light of the world. Not just “a” light—the only light.

The Bible is very clear on this subject. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Because you share his faith and bear his light, you are “the” light of the world. Its only light. Your faith is our world’s only hope of eternal life through a personal relationship with our Creator and Lord.

Choose to shine for God

Here’s the catch: your light must be visible. Otherwise it does nobody any good, including yourself. Consider these facts.

One: You are already a witness.

Jesus said, “A city on a hill cannot be hid.” “Hill” is literally “mountain.” Houses in Israel were whitewashed. With their lights on at night, a city on a mountain cannot be hidden.

Neither can your life. People see you. They know whether or not you live what you believe, whether you will say what you believe. You are a witness. Is your witness good or bad?

Two: Your light is intended for others.

“Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl” (v. 15a). Their lamps were small clay bowls filled with olive oil, with a floating wick. They were very hard to light. So once they were lit, at night they were covered with a basket which allowed them air while shielding their light. Jesus’ point is clear: no one lights a lamp so they can hide its light.

“Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house” (v. 15b). People in Jesus’ day lived in one-room homes, with one small window. So they built a clay or stone ledge into one wall, and there they placed their lamps. For this was their purpose.

“In the same way, let your light shine before men” (v. 16a). “Men,” wherever they are. You are the light of the world, not of the church. Wherever you go, whatever you do. With whomever you meet. Your light was given to you, to be given to them.

Three: Your life is your light.

“Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (v. 16).

How?

Be godly.

“The night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Romans 13:12–14). Do others see godliness in you? There you are the light of the world.

Care about hurting people.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday” (Isaiah 58:9–10). Whose need are you meeting? There you are the light of the world.

Love your brother.

“Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him” (1 John 2:9–11). Are you wrong with someone today? Where you love your brother, you are the light of the world.

Share your faith.

“Become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life” (Philippians 2:15–16). Who has heard of Jesus through you? There you are the light of the world.

With this result: “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:12). When we live as the light of the world, God uses us for his glory. It’s that simple.

Conclusion

As you discuss the politics of our day, will your words glorify God? As you speak of those with whom you disagree, will your words reflect the light of Christ? As you engage in the cultural issues of our day, will your life bring honor to your Lord?

It’s not enough for people to “see your good deeds.” They must also “glorify your Father in heaven” as a result. Your good must be for his glory. People must be drawn to him through you.

This is the most significant way you can live today and for eternity. This is a life God can bless. This is the light our dark world so desperately needs.

This week, I spoke with a couple I have not seen in nearly forty years. The husband was our wedding photographer in 1980 and a significant leader in my home church in Houston. But he is especially important to me because of what he did in 1973 to let his light shine for God’s glory.

His church had just called a new pastor. This pastor suggested that they consider a “bus ministry”—they would purchase an old school bus, put the name of the church on the side, then go out into the community to knock on doors and invite people to ride the bus to church.

This man was an insurance executive. He didn’t teach Sunday school, sing in the choir, or preach sermons, but he could organize a strategy. He plotted the entire community on a map, divided it into regions, organized church members into teams, and led the bus ministry into the city.

In August of 1973, he knocked on my apartment door, inviting my brother and me to church. That is how we heard the gospel. I will forever be grateful to him for his light in my life.

Who will say the same of you?

A Counselor for Chaotic Times

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A Counselor for Chaotic Times

Isaiah 9:2-7

Dr. Jim Denison

Today I have a secret to reveal: my middle name is Clarence. James Clarence Denison. Here’s the story. The oldest Denison male in every family was given the middle name of Irvin, without exception. My father hated that middle name. But he knew the only way my grandfather would allow him to break the tradition was if my grandfather’s first name became my middle name. And the rest is history, with apologies to the two resident members out of our 9,400 members who are similarly named.

Things could always be worse. The full name of Prince Charles of England is Charles Philip Arthur George of the House of Windsor. His titles are: His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales; Knight of the Garter; Knight, Order of the Thistle; Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester; Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay; Earl of Carrick and Baron Renfrew; Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland; Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Queen; and Great Master of the Order of the Bath. And of the rest of the house, I’m sure.

Titles and names can be trivial pursuits. Or they can reveal the inner character and permanent identity of their bearer. The latter is so with the Christ of Christmas. Isaiah named him Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. Never have we needed such a God more than today.

Newsweek‘s latest cover: “The Hunt for Bin Laden.” Time‘s cover: “Inside the Manhunt.” And they were published Thanksgiving week. The bearded figure most Americans are thinking about this season isn’t Santa Claus. We need peace for a world in pieces.

This morning we’ll begin with the first title of the Christ child, the first promise to us: a counselor for chaotic times. Who needs one today?

Who needs a wise counselor?

As our text opens, seven centuries before Christmas, the world is at war, as ours is today. Assyria will destroy Israel and threaten Judah; then Babylon will overthrow Assyria and enslave Judah for seventy years. War clouds are brewing, and there is no blue sky in sight.

In such chaotic times, the people are seeking counsel from everyone but God. They are turning to “mediums and spiritists,” consulting “the dead on behalf of the living” (8:19). They are ignorant of the “law and testimony,” the revealed word of God (8:20). And so they “see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom” (8:22).

Our text describes their confusion and chaos further. The people are “walking in darkness” and “living in the land of the shadow of death” (9:2). They feel the “yoke that burdens them,” the “bar across their shoulders,” the “rod of their oppressor” (v. 4). They have known the “warrior’s boot used in battle” and the “garment rolled in blood” (v. 5). Their nation is in chaos, distress, spiritual confusion. They need a Wonderful Counselor.

Do we?

Are you more afraid than you were on September 10? Afraid of airplanes, tall buildings, and mail? Worried about the future, and your future?

The most recent New England Journal of Medicine reported that ninety percent of Americans admit to symptoms of stress following the September 11 attacks. Post-traumatic stress levels in our country are increasing five fold.

Even before September 11, doctors estimated that 70% of our illnesses are the result of mental stress and worry. And heart specialists listed such stress as the number one cause of heart disease.

Marvin Harris is an anthropologist and the author of America Now. He documents the fact that America’s increase in cults, drug addiction, and suicide is a direct result of a lack of direction and spiritual purpose for our lives.

Boris Becker, the youngest man ever to win the Wimbledon tennis tournament, nearly took his own life a few years ago. Here’s why: “I had won Wimbledon twice before. I was rich, I had all the material possessions I needed—money, cars, women, everything. I know that this is a cliché—it’s the old song of the movie and pop stars who commit suicide. They have everything and yet they are so unhappy. I had no inner peace. I was a puppet on a string.”

Jack Higgins, the author of The Eagle Has Landed and other bestsellers, was asked, “What would you have liked to have known at the age of 16, which you now know to be true?” His answer: “I would have liked somebody to have told me that when you get to the top, there’s nothing there.”

How do you feel about your future, your life direction, your purpose? The ladder you’re climbing today? The world you inhabit? Would you like a Wonderful Counselor?

Who is a wise counselor?

“Wonderful” in the Hebrew means “so full of wonder as to be miraculous.” “Counselor” points to a man of such wisdom that he can advise kings, the wisest man in the land.

The words together can be translated, “He who plans wonderful things.” He is a Counselor in his office waiting for your questions and problems. And he is also a Counselor in your office, the God who steps into your history, your world, your life, the proactive Creator who has a plan for your life every day.

One of my favorite promises in God’s word is Jeremiah 29:11: “I know the plans I have for you—plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” The maker of all creation has a plan for your life, and it is wonderful. The Christ of Christmas is ready to counsel you, to guide you with the wisdom of God himself.

This was Isaiah’s first name for the baby of Bethlehem. Was he right?

When he was only twelve, he had his first audience with the religious scholars. The result? “Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:47).

When he taught the people, “they were amazed. ‘Where did this man get this wisdom?'” they asked (Matthew 13:54).

Colossians 2:3 says that “in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Not just some, but “all.” If he has all the treasures of wisdom, how much do we have? To whom should we go for counsel in chaos?

The Christ of Christmas walked this sinful, chaotic planet for fifteen million minutes of life, without a single sin or mistake. Not one wrong thought, action, or purpose. I heard the great black preacher Frederick Sampson say of Christmas, “God relocated.” He is a Wonderful Counselor, indeed.

His wisdom designed you in every part. An engineer once determined that if you were a machine, you would be a self-balancing, 28-jointed biped with the following: millions of warning signals, railroad and conveyer systems; 23-jointed self-surfacing and lubricating cranes; a universally distributed telephone system; an electrochemical reduction plant, integral with segregated stowages of special energy extracts in storage batteries, for subsequent actuation of thousands of hydraulic and pneumatic pumps; and 62,000 miles of blood capillaries.

The controlling turret contains telescopic and microscopic self-registering and recording range finders, a spectroscope, an air conditioning intake and exhaust, and a main fuel intake. The turret houses an analytical laboratory large enough to contain minute records of every event across every day of your life, and to extend by computation and abstract fabrication this experience into all corners of the observed universe.

The baby of Bethlehem made that. He made you. He is a Wonderful Counselor.

How do we find his wisdom?

So, how do we consult him today? First, believe that you should. Believe by faith that you can trust his wisdom for your problems and your life.

We want a counselor who has been where we are. Cancer patients seek out cancer survivors; those who are bereaved are the best comforters for others who are bereaved. Wisdom is no help to us unless it comes from someone who’s been where we are, someone we can trust.

The good news is that Jesus knows your problems, your temptations, your fears, because he has faced them all. He is the only God in all of world religion and human history to walk on our planet, in our skin. To set aside his heavenly glory for a feed trough, his unspeakable power to become a fetus. He has lived with us, breathed our air, felt our pain. All because of Christmas.

Second, seek his help. Admit that you cannot face the chaos of these days alone, that you need the wisdom only God can give, the guidance only the One who lives in tomorrow can give you for today. Seek his help, for he’s waiting to give it.

Jesus has the divine ability to hear millions of prayers in thousands of languages, right now. And to answer every one of them at the same time, in real time.

I read this week that 4 trillion e-mails were sent in 2000, and that 656 million instant messages are sent every day on AOL. Imagine reading and answering every one of them. Jesus can.

With him there’s no waiting to get online, no appointments with his administrative assistant, no voice mail menu to navigate. You may not be able to get the mayor or the governor or the president on the phone, but you can speak to the God of the universe right now.

You can seek him, because he’s already sought you. He climbed down the ladder you could never climb up, and scaled the eternal distance between heaven and earth, and entered your world and your heart. Because of Christmas, you have a Wonderful Counselor who is waiting to be your counselor in chaotic times, right now.

Conclusion

Meet this Christ of Christmas personally, today. Establish an intimate friendship with him. And if you have, ask him to be your counselor. What decision, problem, worry, fear most plagues your mind? What would you most like to ask God? Ask him. Then listen for his answer in Scripture, in prayer, in worship, in sermons and Bible studies, in his creation, by his Spirit in your spirit. He wants you to know his will more than you want to know it. He wants to be far more than a Sunday religion for you. He wants to guide, advise, and fulfill your life every day. Make him your permanent Counselor today.

A man’s wife died, and the first night after the funeral was hard for him and his son. The boy got in bed with his father. They lay in the dark, but the boy could not go to sleep. Finally the boy said, “Dad, is your face toward me? I think I can go to sleep, if I know your face is turned toward me.” “Yes,” the father answered, “I’m looking right at you.” Soon the boy drifted off to sleep.

Late that night the father got out of bed, walked over to the window, and looked up into the heavens. “God,” he asked, “is your face turned toward me?”

Because of Christmas, no matter how chaotic the night, it is. Is yours turned toward him?

A Culture Facing Judgment

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A Culture Facing Judgment

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 1:8-9

So far we have learned to recognize God’s holiness (v. 5), to pray with humility (v. 6a), and to confess our sin with honesty (vs. 6b-7). Now we discover the urgency of such prayer commitment: The future of the nation is in jeopardy. If God does not forgive the sins of the people, their intermarriage and immorality, they will be no more. We’ll see how Nehemiah’s prayer relates to our culture, and what God wants us to do in response.

Admit your need of grace (v. 8)

Nehemiah’s prayer continues: “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations'” (v. 8).

“Remember” does not mean that Nehemiah was reminded God of something the Lord might have forgotten. The Hebrew word in this context means to act in accordance with something previously determined and communicated. We say “Remember the Alamo” not in the sense of holding information in our memories but as a motivation to action.

Nehemiah begins his recitation of God’s previous revelation with the negative: “The instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations.'”

Nehemiah was well versed in the Hebrew Bible. Here he referenced Leviticus 26:27-28, 33: “If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. . . . I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.”

And again in Deuteronomy: “After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell” (Deuteronomy 4:25-28).

The people had been unfaithful to God. They had worshipped the Baals and sacrificed their children to Molech, so the Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom and Babylon enslaved the Southern Kingdom. Now the people had intermarried and committed all sorts of pagan immorality. Their plight was their own fault.

How do we know when we are facing the judgment and punishment of God? We know that God punishes sin, as Hebrew history illustrates. Did he cause 9-11 to punish America or the Holocaust to punish the Jewish people? Two facts may be helpful.

First, not all suffering is due to sin: the man born blind, ( John 9); Jesus’ innocent suffering (Hebrews 4:15). Paul suffered in the Mamertime dungeon for preaching the gospel, in response to his faithfulness to the call of God.

Second, when God punishes, first he warns: Noah (100 years), Moses before Pharaoh, the prophets before Assyria and Babylon, Jesus before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Any good parent warns before punishing.

If you wonder whether your suffering is your fault, you may ask God. Write on a piece of paper anything which is hindering the Spirit in your life. If you’re not sure, ask him and he’ll show you. Confess these sins specifically to God, and claim his cleansing. Cleanse your spirit and you will know the power of the Spirit.

Claim the grace of God (v. 9)

We’ve seen the bad news. Here is the good: “…but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name” (v. 9).

As with their punishment, so Nehemiah cited Scripture to claim their hope: “But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath” (Deuteronomy 4:29-31).

“When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers” (Deuteronomy 30:1-5).

God had centuries earlier designated Jerusalem as “the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name”: “I have chosen Jerusalem for my Name to be there, and I have chosen David to rule my people Israel” (2 Chronicles 6:6). Now Nehemiah claimed this promise as God’s grace to his people.

All that God does, he does by grace. We cite his promises to strengthen our prayers and make them more specific, not to obligate God. Know that he is a Father who always wants the very best for his children. Are you his child?

Intercede for the nation

Is our culture in peril? Three “isms” dominate our culture and reject everything we’ve seen so far. The first is relativism, the idea that all truth is relative and subjective. Our culture believes that language is only a convention of human power; words do not describe reality, but only our version of it. There can be no objective truth claims, only subjective experiences. It’s fine if Jesus is your way to God, but don’t insist that he must be mine.

The second word for our society is pluralism: different religions are roads up the same mountain. They’re all worshipping the same God, just by different names. A recent poll revealed that 64% of Americans believe all religions pray to the same God. It’s fine if Jesus is your road to God, but don’t make the rest of us travel it.

And pluralism typically leads to universalism, the idea that everyone is going to heaven, no matter what they believe. Only two percent of Americans are afraid that they might go to hell. Sixty two percent say it doesn’t matter which God we believe in, so long as we’re sincere. We’re all on the road to God, whatever we might believe about him.

God redeems all he allows, and forgives all we confess: 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

What does God do with our sins? Micah 7:19: “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” How deep is the ocean? The Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean is 11 miles deep. I may need all of that. Then we need to do what Corrie ten Boom suggests, post a sign which says “No fishing.”

What happens then? Jeremiah 31:34: “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Why do we struggle to claim his grace? Most world religions are based on works righteousness, and their foundations also affect our views.

Buddhists hope to experience enlightenment or “nirvana” and become one with reality by practicing the disciplines of the Eightfold Noble Path: right understanding, thoughts, speech, action, livelihood, effort, meditation, and concentration.

Hindus expect to experience many reincarnations as they proceed toward enlightenment. The law of “karma” states that we are punished or rewarded for our deeds in this life. The caste system recognizes this law at work. Those who are being punished for deeds in the previous life are now living in a lower caste. Those who are being rewarded for their previous life are now living in a higher caste. Hindus believe that they will eventually cease to exist individually and become one with Brahman.

Muslims observe the “five pillars of Islam”:

“The witness”: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” Every Muslim must declare this statement of faith.

Prayer: made five times a day, facing toward Mecca, the Muslim holy city in Arabia.

Alms: 2.5% of one’s income given to the poor.

Fasting: during the month of Ramadan.

Pilgrimage to Mecca: at least once in a person’s life.

How do we experience the grace God offers?

Confess specifically with repentance.

Take every remembrance back to your confession.

Be patient.

Pray urgently, daily, for spiritual and moral renewal in America. Claim God’s forgiving grace for your own need.

A Culture in “Great Trouble”

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A Culture in “Great Trouble”

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 1:3

The “gates” of Israel

The year is 444 B.C. Nehemiah is “cupbearer” to the Persian king Artaxerxes, his close personal advisor. A group has come to Susa, the winter palace of the king, with this report: “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire” (Nehemiah 1:3).

The Babylonians had destroyed the city and walls of Jerusalem 142 years earlier, in 586 B.C. After the Persians liberated the Jews in 538, a group had returned to rebuild the city and nation. They had attempted to rebuild the walls earlier in the reign of Artaxerxes, but the king had ordered them to stop the project.

Enemies of the Jews had written to the king, protesting the rebuilding project and claiming that the Jews would only rebel against Persia once their city was reestablished.

The king sent them this reply:

“The letter you sent us has been read and translated in my presence. I issued an order and a search was made, and it was found that this city has a long history of revolt against kings and has been a place of rebellion and sedition. Jerusalem has had powerful kings ruling over the whole of Trans-Euphrates, and taxes, tribute and duty were paid to them. Now issue an order to these men to stop work, so that this city will not be rebuilt until I so order. Be careful not to neglect this matter. Why let this threat grow, to the detriment of the royal interests?” (Ezra 4:18-22).

With the result that the project was halted and the people left defenseless (vs. 23):

“As soon as the copy of the letter of King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum and Shimshal the secretary and their associates, they went immediately to the Jews in Jerusalem and compelled them by force to stop.”

Now Nehemiah finds himself working for the man who would not allow his people to rebuild their nation. His first act must be to win royal permission to begin the project again; his second must be to rebuild the walls. Only then will the people be safe.

Why were walls and gates so critical in the ancient world? Cities were established wherever they could find water and defenses. Thus the ancient Jebusites had built their capital city at the top of Mt. Moriah, near the Gihon spring. David captured their citadel and made it his own, establishing “Jerusalem” as the capital of his empire. The name means “legacy of peace,” from salem or shalom.

Solomon built the first Temple and royal palace atop Mt. Moriah, at the very spot where Abraham had offered Isaac a thousand years earlier. This was the center of the Jewish world until Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it in 586 B.C.

Nehemiah would rebuild the walls; the people would eventually rebuild their temple as well. It would be further modified until Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.) set out to recreate it as the most magnificent building in the world. He created the Temple of Jesus’ day, a structure destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. Jesus had predicted the very catastrophe: “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2).

The walls made the Temple possible and safe. The “Old City” of Jerusalem stands approximately where the city was rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah. Its walls today, built by Sulieman the Magnificent in AD 1538, stand at the same places as the walls of Nehemiah. There are 11 gates today; 7 are in operation. The gates are essential for allowing the commerce and people into the city, and for keeping enemies out. A tour of the walls and gates is a tour of the history of Israel.

If the “gates are burned with fire,” the nation is defenseless. So it was in the time of Nehemiah. So it may be in our day as well.

The “gates” of America

When I planned to study Nehemiah with you, I had no idea that I would also be surveying the crises facing America on Wednesday nights. Last night we looked at the moral crisis. Today that discussion is vital to our understanding of our “culture in crisis” and our “burned gates,” so I’ll summarize what we discussed together.

Beginning and ending of life

More than 48 million abortions have been performed in America since 1973. Every year, approximately 40,000 people die on American highways. Every ten days, that many abortions are performed in America. Doctors conduct 1.5 million abortions every year in the United States, more than the total of all America’s war dead across our history. Depending on the year, an abortion occurs for every three or four live births in our country. If you believe that the Bible teaches that life begins at conception, as I do, then you must be troubled by America’s position on abortion.

Genetic engineering can be used to determine gender, eye color, and capabilities of children, and to clone humans as well. Euthanasia is supported by 72% of Americans. It is now legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, Mexico, Oregon and Washington.

Sexuality

Sixty-five percent of Americans see nothing wrong with sex outside of marriage. According to a recent survey by the age of 20, 75% of respondents had had premarital sex; by age 44, 81% had had premarital sex.

42% of Internet users have viewed online pornography. A person is first exposed to pornography in America at the age of 11. 90% of 8-16 year olds have viewed porn online, most while doing their homework.

Same-sex marriage is becoming more accepted than ever before in America. In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to recognize same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriages were then recognized in Belgium (2003), Spain and Canada (2005), Massachusetts (2004), South Africa (2006), and Norway (2008). California recognized them in 2008, before Proposition 8 repealed this position.

What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

Genesis 19: sin of Sodom

Leviticus 18:22: “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”

Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

Romans 1:26-27: “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

1 Corinthians 6.9-10: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

1Timothy 1:8-10: “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”

Lisa Miller, writing the cover story for Newsweek, December 15, 2008, calls the Levitical prohibitions “throwaway lines in a peculiar text given over to codes for living in the ancient Jewish world” (30). She claims that “the Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it’s impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours (30). Her conclusion: “to deny access to any sacrament based on sexuality is exactly the same thing as denying it based on skin color—and no serious (or even semiserious) person would argue that” (31).

Class relationships

Racism continues to plague American culture. Sex discrimination is still a problem in America’s workplace (women make 77% as much as men for the same jobs).

Creation and the environment

We are now in the third climate change period of the last 2,000 years, and by far the most significant. Beyond dispute, the Earth’s temperature is climbing. The eight warmest years on record since 1850 have all occurred since 1998; the warmest was 2005. Temperatures at many individual locations were higher in the last 25 years than at any period of comparable length since AD 900.

Time reported recently that global warming will lead to enormous food shortages in the future, with less rain and greater heat.

What will happen to nature?

The Pine Bark Beetle, once controlled by cold winter temperatures, is killing entire Christmas tree forests in British Columbia.

Rising water temperatures could cause rainbow trout to disappear from the Appalachian mountains over the next century.

Indonesia estimates that 2,000 of its tropical islands could disappear by 2030 due to rising sea levels.

Giant squids are invading the hotter waters off California and even Alaska.

In Antarctica, an ice shelf larger than Rhode Island collapsed into the sea in 2002. An ice chunk the size of Manhattan broke off a Canadian ice shelf in 2005.

Since 1850, the number of glaciers in Glacier National Park dropped has dropped from 150 to 26. Within the next 25 to 30 years, it is likely that none will be left.

The Mediterranean Sea is becoming much more salty and stagnant, due to faster evaporation and rising temperatures. Many of the sea’s plant and animal species are in jeopardy, as is the fishing industry in this part of the world.

The Great Barrier Reef will disappear within decades as warmer, more acidic seas bleach coral.

Sea levels will rise. There are 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow. If all glaciers melted today, the seas would rise 230 feet.

Global warming will increase significantly if the ice caps melt. They reflect sunlight into space, further cooling the earth. If they are gone, the Earth will absorb more heat and warm more quickly.

Over the past century, the number of hurricanes which strike each year has more than doubled.

What will happen to our health?

The World Health Organization estimates that 150,000 people are killed every year by climate-change-related issues.

Canadian doctors say smog-related deaths could rise by 80% over the next 20 years.

Heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems are expected to rise, as atherosclerosis develops much more quickly in a warmer environment.

A Harvard study in 2004 showed that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will lead to higher rates of asthma attacks, especially in children.

The World Health Organization has identified more than 30 new or resurgent diseases in the last decades, fueled by global climate change. As northern countries warm, disease carrying insects migrate north, bringing disease and plague. Known as the “deadly dozen,” these diseases include yellow fever, Lyme disease, plague, avian influenza (bird flue), babesia, cholera, Ebola, intestinal and external parasites, red tides, Rift Valley fever, sleeping sickness, and tuberculosis.

What does God think about the moral health of our nation? The answer lies in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” The solution is to pray for awakening.

A Culture in History

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A Culture in History

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 1:1-2

Israel in history

“Israel” means “one who wrestles with God.” It was the name given to Jacob by God in Genesis 32. But the history of the nation begins with Abraham (ca. 2000 B.C.) and God’s promise: “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1-2).

Abraham traveled from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan, Egypt, and back to Canaan. 25 years after God’s promise, Isaac was born. From Isaac came Esau and Jacob; from Jacob came the “12 tribes of Israel.”

After 400 years in Egyptian slavery, the people were led by Moses through the Exodus to the Promised Land. Joshua led them across the flooded Jordan River to the conquest of the land. After a period of judges, Saul became their first king. David and Solomon followed.

Under Solomon, the land came to its highest point of economic and military significance. The king’s net worth was 100,000 talents of gold (3.75 tons) and a million talents of silver; together they would be worth $58 billion today.

After Solomon’s death, the nation divided under Rehoboam (922 B.C.) The ten northern tribes were called “Israel,” while the two southern tribes were called “Judah.” In 722, the Assyrians (modern-day Syria) destroyed the Northern Kingdom. In 587 B.C., the Babylonians (modern-day Iraq) destroyed and captured the Southern Kingdom.

In 538 B.C., the Persians (modern-day Iran) overthrew the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to return to their homeland, setting the stage for our study.

Israel and Nehemiah

It is December of the year 444 B.C., and disaster is upon the nation Judah. Nebuchadnezzar, general and leader of the hated Babylonians, had leveled their Temple and city 140 years earlier, in 587 B.C. Thousands died, and multiplied other thousands of people were enslaved. This was their 9-11, only al Qaeda has not only destroyed their nation—it has taken most of them back to Afghanistan as captives. Psalm 137 captures their lament and crisis.

But Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, has liberated them. In 538 B.C., having conquered the hated Babylonians, he sent the Jews home. But to what home? The walls of their city were destroyed, the city itself in rubble, the Temple in ruins. For 14 years they labored, but to little avail. They laid the foundation of their Temple, but nothing else. And the walls were still in ruins.

Why did the walls matter? Because to an ancient people, they were their most important physical and psychological possession. Physically, walls were their only defense against their enemies. There were no national armies or navies to rescue them in attack. Without their walls, they could not be a people.

Psychologically, their walls were the symbol of their land and people. If the walls were down, their pride was in ruins as well. Much like our own Statue of Liberty, every land has a symbol. When the symbol is in shambles, we feel that we are as well.

Enter Nehemiah.

“The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah.” “Nehemiah” means “Yahweh has comforted.” (It was sometimes shortened to Nahum; cf. the minor prophet by this name.) We know that he was “cupbearer to the king” (v. 11), a high office with regular access to the king. Some think he may have been second in command in the nation. We’ll say more about this matter in coming weeks.

It is “the month of Kislev in the twentieth year.” This was the ninth month of the Jewish calendar, November/December to us. Artaxerxes, Persia’s sixth king, began his reign in 464 B.C.; the “twentieth year” of his reign would have been 444 B.C.

Nehemiah was “in the citadel of Susa.” “Citadel” refers to the “fortress,” one of the royal palaces and fortified cities. “Susa” was the winter residence of the king; Ectabana was the summer palace. So we know that Nehemiah was with the king in his winter palace.

Then “Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men” (v. 2a). Hanani is a shortened version of Hananiah, “the Lord has been gracious.” These are Jews, as “one of my brothers” indicates. Nehemiah would later appoint his brother Hanani to a high position in the new government in Israel (7:2).

This is all we know about them. They may have been Persians who visited Judah and returned, or people living in Judah who came to Persia.

Nehemiah “questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.” This refers to the Jews who had survived captivity in Babylon and returned to Judah beginning in 538 B.C., and their capital city of Jerusalem. The Hebrew may also indicate some who escaped from Babylon, as the ESV translates.

So our study opens with many of God’s people back in the Holy Land, but facing a nation in tatters, a country whose future was clouded at best. If enemies were to besiege them, they would have no means of defense. A drought or locust infestation could wipe them out. Their very survival as a nation was in doubt.

The Church in America

In the year 2000, approximately two billion people worldwide claimed to be Christians. Of that number, over 15%, more than 300 million, were found in North America. 500 years earlier, there had been virtually no Christians in this part of the world. The growth of Christianity here is both complex and fascinating.

The first Christians in North America were Catholic missionaries and their converts in Mexico and the southern part of present-day America. They were doing their work in the early 16th century, even as the Protestant Reformation was just beginning in Europe. Jesuits and other missionaries worked among French settlers and at Indian missions in Canada as well.

Other groups came to America in the early 17th century. The Protestant Church of England (Episcopal today) was established as the official religion of Virginia. Anglicans spread to the Carolinas as well. Calvinists founded five colonies in Massachusetts and Connecticut; these were the “Puritans.”

Maryland was settled as a refuge for English Catholics after the English Reformation. But all were churches with state sponsorship.

Non-established churches came to America as well. Quakers established a powerful presence in Pennsylvania. Dutch Reformed churches were begun in New York.

Baptists came with Roger Williams to Providence, Rhode Island in 1636. The First Baptist Church in the country was built there; Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta and the new chapel at DBU are copies. Methodists preachers arrived in 1769 and soon made their denomination the largest on the frontier.

Within a century of its founding, America would become home to some of the largest, most vibrant Christian movements in history. Why?

Faith in America

Space on the frontier is one factor in the explosion of the church in frontier America. By the end of the 18th century, every Protestant denomination in Europe had been transplanted to North America. The scale of this land is illustrated by the fact that the distance between London and Moscow is less than the distance between Montreal and Denver, or Montreal and Houston. The physical space bounded by Rome, Geneva, and Wittenberg (the centers for Catholicism, Reformed Protestantism, and Lutheranism) would fit easily into Arizona. Churches here had room to spread, grow, and thrive.

Ethnicity and nationality changed remarkably in the New World as a result. African Americans had opportunity to build and grow churches. Pluralism led to competition and the necessity of growth.

Religious freedom and the separation of church and state were critical factors in American Christianity. State-sponsored churches (such as Anglicans) were forced to develop ways of sustaining and growing themselves, while movements which had been persecuted in Europe found themselves able to thrive in America.

One example: Anglicans and Congregationalists were the largest denominations in America in 1776; within 50 years they had been far outstripped by the Methodists and Baptists.

But revivalism is much of the reason. The First Great Awakening came in 1734. The crisis in the colonies was severe. Moral conditions were dire. Not one in 20 people claimed to be a Christian. Samuel Blair, a pastor of the day, said that religion lay as it were dying and ready to expire its last breath of life in the visible church.

But Theodore Frelinghuysen, a Dutch Reformed minister who had come to the colonies from Holland in 1720, would not give up on his adopted homeland. He began praying fervently for revival to come to the colonies, first with himself and his church, and then with his larger community. Others began joining his fledgling prayer movement. The Spirit began to move.

Then Jonathan Edwards, an intellectual recluse who studied 12 hours a day and read his sermons, face buried in the manuscript, experienced the anointing and power of God. His sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” shook his church and then the young nation.

The preaching of George Whitefield gathered and galvanized thousands. Unlike established church pastors, he preached extemporaneous sermons in the open air to anyone who would listen, and cooperated with all kinds of Christians. At one point in 1740, he was preaching to crowds of 8,000 a day when Boston was not much larger than that.

The First Great Awakening was the result. As much as 80% of the colonial population became identified with a Christian church. It started with a group who prayed, trusting God’s providence, asking for his provision and experienced his power.

The Second Great Awakening began in 1792. After the War for Independence, social conditions became even more deplorable than before. Drunkenness became epidemic; out of a population of five million, 300,000 were confirmed alcoholics; 15,000 died of the disease each year. Women were afraid to go out at night for fear of assault. Bank robberies were a daily occurrence.

John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, wrote to James Madison, Bishop of Virginia, that the Church “was too far gone ever to be redeemed.” A poll taken at Harvard University found not a single believer. Two were found at Princeton. Tom Paine claimed that “Christianity will be forgotten in 30 years.”

But he was mistaken. In 1784, a Baptist pastor named Isaac Baccus gathered together a number of ministers. They wrote a circular letter, asking believers to pray for awakening. Prayer groups spread all over New England. In 1972, revival broke out on college campuses, where hundreds were converted. “Camp meetings” spread across the frontier; eventually more than a thousand were meeting annually. Churches doubled and tripled in membership. One Baptist church in Kentucky with a membership of 170 baptized 421 during a single revival meeting.

In that year, William Carey began the modern missions movement. The American Bible Society, American Tract Society, and a variety of missions organizations began as a result of this Awakening. All because God’s people sought God in prayer, trusted his providence, asked for his provision and experienced his power.

The Third Great Awakening is dated to 1858. The Gold Rush of 1848 had led to a booming economy which crashed in 1857. If it were not for the Great Depression of the 1930s, the collapse of 1857 would have that title. Fear of civil war was increasing. Turmoil was everywhere.

In the midst of such fear and anxiety, a group of laymen began meeting for prayer on Wednesday, September 23, 1857 at the Old North Dutch Church in New York City. They were led by a Presbyterian businessman named Jeremiah Lamphier. The first day, six people came to his prayer meeting. The next week there were 14; then 23; then the group began to meet daily. They outgrew the church and began filling other churches and meeting halls throughout the city. The movement spread across the country.

The result was one of the most significant movements in Christian history. More than a million were saved in one year, out of a national population of only 30 million. 50,000 were coming to Christ every week. The revival continued into the Civil War, where more than 100,000 soldiers were converted. Sailors took the revival to other countries. Thousands of young people volunteered for mission service.

All because God’s people sought God in prayer, trusted his providence, asked for his provision and experienced his power.

The Fourth Great Awakening began in Wales in 1904 in the heart of a coal miner named Evan Roberts. He became convicted of his sins by the Spirit, and turned to God in prayer and repentance. He then began preaching to the young people in his church, calling them to prayer and repentance.

Prayer meetings broke out all over Wales. Social conditions were affected dramatically. Tavern owners went bankrupt; police formed gospel quartets because they had no one to arrest. Coal mines shut down for a time because the miners stopped using profanity and the mules no longer understood them.

The revival spread to America, where ministers in Atlantic City, NJ reported that out of 50,000 people, only 50 adults were left unconverted. In Portland, Oregon, more than 200 stores closed daily from 11 to 2 so people could attend prayer meetings. In 1896, only 2,000 students were engaged in missionary studies; by 1906, 11,000 were enrolled.

Conclusion

Now we find ourselves in circumstances similar to those of Nehemiah’s day. For reasons we’ll explore in coming weeks, our nation is facing a cultural, moral, economic, and spiritual crisis of the first magnitude. An Awakening is the spiritual answer to our nation’s situation.

That Awakening begins with you and with me. Gypsy Smith, a famous evangelist of the 19th century, was asked how to begin a revival. His advice: “Take a piece of chalk and draw a circle. Then get inside that circle and pray until everything inside that circle is right with God. Revival will then come.”

I will do that. Will you join me?

A Culture in Moral Crisis

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A Culture in Moral Crisis

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 1:5-7

The Book of Nehemiah opens and closes with prayer. This is the first of 12 instances of prayer recorded in the Book of Nehemiah, and the most crucial. If God does not answer this prayer, the story of the Hebrew nation ends.

Recognize God’s holiness

Verse 5: Then I said: “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands….”

“Lord” translates YHWH. This is God’s name for himself (Exodus 3.14), a name so holy that no Jew would dare speak it. The scribes who copied Scripture placed the vowels for a different name (Adonai) below the consonants for this name (YHWH), to remind their readers that they were not to pronounce this most sacred of all words.

“God of heaven.” This was a common address by the Persians to their gods, and was used by Cyrus the Great in liberating the Jews. But the Hebrews knew that these heathen gods were idols on the earth; this was the Lord of heaven. This title is found four times in Nehemiah and three times in Daniel.

Jesus taught us to pray the same way: “Our Father in heaven . . .” (Matthew. 6:9).

“The great and awesome God” was a favorite address of Nehemiah, used three times in this book (4:14; 9:32). “Great” points to his omnipotence. “Awesome” points to his holiness—”the God who evokes awe” (cf. Isaiah 6, Luke 5).

If you are facing great affliction, you need to pray to a great God. About twelve years after he graduated from Princeton , Donald Grey Barnhouse was invited to preach in chapel, and when he arrived, he notice his old Hebrew professor Robert Dick Wilson had taken a place near the front to hear him.

 

When the service was over, the professor came up to Barnhouse and said, “If you come back again. I will not come to hear you preach. I only come once. I am glad that you are a big-godder. When my boys come back, I come to see if they are big-godders or little-godders, and then I know what their ministry will be.” Barnhouse asked Wilson to explain.

 

He said, “Well, some men have a little god, and they are always in trouble with him. He can’t do any miracles. He can’t take care of the inspiration of the Scriptures and their preservation and transmission to us. They have a little god, and I call them little-godders.

Then there are those who have a great God. He speaks, and it is done. He commands, and it stands fast. He knows how to show Himself strong on behalf of those who fear Him. You have a great God and he will bless your ministry.”

Verse 5b: “Who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands….”

Covenant—relationship; in this case, to restore the people after their Babylonian captivity (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 27-30). Of “love” (chesed, the equivalent of agape in the New Testament). God’s covenant is composed of love, not legalism. Initiated by God, based on his mercy. There is a bumper sticker which has the “Jesus prayer”: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” It’s a good thing to say to God.

Pray with urgent humility (v. 6a)

“Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open.” Solomon prayed in the same way at the dedication of the Temple (2 Chronicles 6:40). Nehemiah knows that he has done nothing to deserve a hearing before God, and so is asking that he be heard by grace.

“To hear the prayer your servant is praying . . . for your servants, the people of Israel.” He is “cupbearer to the king” of Persia, but servant of the Most High God. The entire nation is at the service of the King of Kings.

Nehemiah made the petitions “before you day and night”—constant, showing their passion and urgency. We need to come to God as though we have nowhere else to go (A. Lincoln).

Confess with honesty (vs. 6b-7)

Admit your own failures: “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you” (v. 6b).

Three times Nehemiah used “we” in confessing the sins of the nation; not once did he say “they.” Even though he was not living in Israel, he was part of the nation and knew that he was a sinner.

This was Daniel’s spirit a century earlier: “I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the land'” (Daniel 9:4-6).

Daniel was one of the most godly and courageous men in Scripture, but he knew that all have sinned and come short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23) and that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

See your sin as God does: “We have acted very wickedly toward you” (v. 7a). “Very wickedly”—evil in the worst extreme. The word can mean “offensively.” Toward you—Nehemiah knew their sins were against God (Psalm 51). Do you see your sin this way? Do you see your sin in the light of God’s holiness?

Be specific: “We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses” (v. 7b). Commands, decrees and laws: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. These are different descriptions of the Torah, not divisions within it. We use “Scriptures” or “Bible” for the word of God. Specifically: they had intermarried with those left in the land (Ezra 9, 10).

Confess for America

My parents remembered a time when moral standards were unambiguous and social expectations were clear. But that day is no more. Forty two percent of those who use the Internet view pornography on it. Ninety percent of our children, ages 8-16, have viewed pornography on the Internet, most while doing their homework. Sixty five percent of Americans see nothing wrong with premarital sex. Drunk drivers kill someone every 30 minutes in this country.

Why has the moral climate of America changed so much in recent decades? Here’s the academic answer, in brief. The Reformation shook the foundations of medieval Catholic authority. In response, a mathematician named Rene Descartes (1596-1650), in a desire to argue for objective truth and his Catholic tradition, developed a theory that truth comes through the unaided use of the mind. Philosophers in England countered that truth is known through the senses. A German thinker named Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) combined the two views, arguing that knowledge is produced when our minds interpret our sense data. However, Kant asserted, we cannot know the “thing in itself,” only our experience of it. Knowledge is personal and subjective.

Two centuries later, this approach to truth has become the dominant academic view in our country. Ethics are personal and subjective. You have no right to force “your truth” on anyone else. So long as we are sincere in our beliefs and tolerant of others, we’ll get along. The result is a culture which has lost its moral foundations.

The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world. The Centers for Disease Control say that one-third of girls in America become pregnant before the age of 20; 81% of them are unmarried. Out of wedlock births accounted for four in ten of all U.S. births in 2007.

Pornography makes more money in America than Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, Apple and Netflix—combined. Worldwide, revenues top all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.

The Bible says that stealing is wrong. Property theft in America costs us more than $15 billion. Last year, more than 9.9 million Americans were victims of identity theft, our nation’s fastest growing crime, at a cost of $5 billion. Total dollar loss from Internet crimes is $575 million.

The Bible says that murder is wrong. In 2006 in the United States homicide was the second leading cause of death for infants. Homicide with a firearm was the second leading cause of persons between the ages of 10 and 24, the third leading cause of death for persons between ages 25 and 34.

There are 774,000 gang members and 27,900 gangs reported active in the U.S. in 2008. There are 900,000 gang members overall across the world fostering illegal drug trade in the U.S. The availability of illicit drugs in the U.S. is increasing; 25 million drug users are under 12 years of age. Illegal drugs cost our country $215 billion annually.

The Bible says that lying is wrong. In a recent survey, 83% of students confessed they “lied to a parent about something significant.” Sixty-four percent cheated on a test during the past year—47% of students attending non-religious schools cheated; 63% of students from religious schools admitted they cheated.

Few Christians would claim that America’s moral climate is pleasing to God. But note that God’s criteria for spiritual awakening in 2 Chronicles 7:14 focuses on “my people, called by my name.” We must begin with ourselves when we pray for America. Not Radical Muslim terrorists, or serial killers, or drug dealers. God is pointing to the things you and I do each and every day, the ways we live. God says that our ways are “wicked,” evil in the extreme.

America, like Israel in Nehemiah’s day, is a culture in moral crisis. It is critical that America experience a moral rebirth. Such a rebirth begins with us—with you and me. Where are you tempted morally today?

In 1831, the French scholar Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to study our nation. Here is his report: “I searched for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. I searched for the greatness and genius of America in her fertile fields and boundless forest, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her public system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

A Culture in Need Of Intercessors

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A Culture in Need of Intercessors

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 1:4

The crisis: The walls to Jerusalem are down, the city is indefensible, and the king is at fault (Ezra 4:18-22). When the walls around us are tumbling down, what is our response? Let’s learn from Nehemiah.

Nehemiah’s prayer

Nehemiah’s first response was to turn to God, not man: “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4).

Here’s the breakdown of what Nehemiah did:

Sat down and wept: Though he was 700 miles away, this became his personal concern and passion. He “sat down” for an extended time of weeping. Ezra wept for the state of the nation (Ezra 10:1); Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41); Paul wept over the Jews (Acts 20:19). What makes you weep? Ask God to break your heart with what breaks his heart.

Mourned: as for a death; typically done while sitting. Jews often tore their clothes when they were in mourning.

Fasted: required only on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29), often evidenced a person’s distraught condition. David fasted when his child with Bathsheba was ill (2 Samuel 12:16).

“Prayed before the God of heaven”: Before going to the “god of the earth,” the king of Persia, he went first to the true God of all the universe. Nine prayers of Nehemiah are recorded in this book. Jesus prayed before performing miracles, before beginning his Galilean ministry, and all night before choosing his Twelve. If we went to God first, we would find his power first.

“For some days”: Nehemiah 2:1 states that he finally went to the king “in the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes.” This is March/April of 443 B.C., four months after receiving the news. God’s will and God’s timing are both crucial.

Why he did it.

He knew that he must have God’s help before he needed man’s help.

He knew that only God could transform the king and thus save the nation.

He knew the risk he was taking—if rejected by the king, his position would never be the same. Since he was asking the king to reverse himself, he might even be seen as criticizing the throne and a threat to its future.

Our prayer

Jesus gave an example to his followers of how we should petition the Father. Luke 11:5-8 is one of the most fascinating and misused stories Jesus ever told. The problem is not the setting of the parable itself, for it was one of the most common of his time.

The first man in our story has a problem, much more of a crisis in Jesus’ day than in ours. A traveler has come to his home at midnight—not at all uncommon, since most people traveled at night to avoid the day’s heat. This man should have baked enough bread for anyone who might come to his home that night, as hospitality was and is a sacred responsibility in the Middle East.

To have someone come to your home and have nothing to feed them is for us an inconvenience; for them it was a very major failure. If you were to invite your family over for Easter dinner, then forget and have nothing to feed them when they arrived, you’d be in this man’s situation.

So he goes to his neighbor at midnight for help. He knows that his neighbor will likely have baked enough bread to solve this crisis, and apparently believes that he would want to help. But the man’s door is locked (v. 7), a very significant detail in the story. People didn’t usually lock their doors for security, as they had little worth stealing and lived in homes which were easily vandalized (cf. Matt. 6:19). They locked their doors only when they wanted privacy. The man and his family have gone to sleep and do not want to be awakened. A locked door was their “Do Not Disturb” sign. Cultural customs required the neighbor to honor their wish.

The reason was simple. Common homes in Jesus’ day were one room, with one window and a door. The front two-thirds of the room had a dirt floor where the animals slept for the night. The back one-third was a raised wooden platform with a charcoal stove around which the entire family slept. For this man to get up at midnight he must awaken his family, then his animals, just to get to the door.

All this to give the neighbor what he was already required by social custom to have. If your family came for Easter dinner and you were unprepared, so you went to your neighbor and asked her to give you her meal so you could serve your guests, you might anticipate her reaction.

In Jesus’ story, the neighbor gets up despite all this—the rudeness, the inconvenience, the breach of social custom—because of the man’s “boldness.” The Greek word means “shameless refusal to quit.” The neighbor simply will not go away until the man gives him what he wants. And so he does. Jesus concludes: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (v. 9).

How is Jesus’ story yours? Why do you need bread at midnight? Where do you need help only your Father can provide? Nehemiah’s God is our God today.

What does Jesus’ parable mean for us? How does it help us understand the logic of praying to an omniscient God? Let’s begin by dismissing what it doesn’t mean.

First, Jesus is not teaching that prayer notifies God of our need. In the parable, the man had no idea that his neighbor needed bread for a midnight guest, and would not have learned of the neighbor’s problem if it had not been made clear to him. But the man in the story bears little likeness to the omniscient God of the universe. Just as God knew about Nehemiah’s crisis before Nehemiah prayed, he knows our need before we seek him.

Second, Jesus is not teaching that we can wear God out if we ask for something with enough persistence. At first reading, it seems that God is the man inside the house asleep; if we bang on his door loud enough and long enough he will give us what we want. Even if he doesn’t want to, if we keep asking eventually we’ll receive what we want. Unfortunately, I’ve heard that very theology preached: if you have enough faith, God will give you whatever you ask. Whether you want to be healed, or wealthy, or anything at all, just ask in enough faith and it’s yours.

That assertion is absolutely not the point here. Jesus is using a very common rabbinic teaching technique known in the Hebrew as the qal wahomer; it translates literally, “from the lesser to the greater.” Applied here, the point is this: if a neighbor at midnight would give you what you ask if you ask him, how much more will God answer our requests when we bring them to him.

You see the qal wahomer again in verse 13: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven given the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Jesus does not mean that we must inform and persuade God as the man informed and persuaded his neighbor. To the contrary, he means that your Father in heaven is even more willing to help you than the disgruntled man in the story.

If Jesus is not teaching us that prayer informs God or persuades him, what does he intend us to understand about praying to our Father? Here’s a principle which has been very significant for me: Prayer positions us to receive all that grace intends to give.

We all know the frustration of wanting to help people who won’t let us. If they’d only ask, we’d be happy to do what we can. Their request would not inform us of their need, or persuade us to meet it. Rather, their request would enable them to receive what we already wanted to give. So it is with praying to an all-knowing Father who loves his children but will not force them to accept his grace.

Nehemiah’s prayer doesn’t earn God’s favor any more than our prayers do. Prayer is not works righteousness or legalism. Nor does prayer inform an omniscient God about our problem. Praying opens our hands to his help. It allows our Father to guide and bless his child. If I will not receive his grace, he will honor my refusal, to his pain and my loss. Then I have not because I ask not (James 4:2). But if I will knock, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7). Not because I deserved God’s favor, but because I was willing to receive it.

The same God who helped Nehemiah when the walls were tumbling down all around him wants to help us when our walls are tumbling down.

So we pray because praying enables us to receive what God wants to give and because praying changes us.

The necessity of intercession:

Required by God: “You have not because you ask not” (James 4:2).

He will not violate our freedom.

The practice of intercession:

Seek God’s glory.

Seek spiritual lessons.

Seek eternal good.

Be specific.

Be consistent (God may be preparing in ways you cannot see).

People of intercession:

For your family.

For your country: 1 Timothy 2:1-4.

For your church: Ephesians 6:18.

For your spiritual leaders: Ephesians 6:19-20).

Nehemiah’s first impulse was to pray. Is yours?

A Future Worth It All

Written by

A Future Worth It All

Studies in the Book of Revelation

Dr. Jim Denison

Revelation 21-22

We are on the preparation committee, not the planning committee. Three times in our passage in this study, Jesus promises us, “I am coming soon.” The first Christians took this promise to mean that he would return in their lifetimes; of course, he did not. Even they tended to be more interested in planning than in preparing. Let this final study help us to be prepared for Jesus to return, whenever he chooses to come.

But first, there are two questions from last week I’d like to address briefly. The first is the idea of “double fulfillment”—could Revelation have both a first-century application and an end-of-time interpretation and fulfillment?

Sensus plenior. Seen in Scripture; example is Hosea 11.1, “Out of Egypt did I call my son,” used by Matthew 2.15 for Jesus.

But be careful seeing double fulfillment where the Bible does not clearly say that it is so; this is speculative. And be careful not to see a second fulfillment which requires a completely different interpretation of the passage. I think Revelation intends to be understood as symbols, whether those symbols applied only to the first century or also to ours in an historical way (the locusts were not and are not army helicopters!).

The second question relates to the “book of works” (Revelation 20.13: “The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books”). Did I mean that Christians will not face this judgment? Not at all.

Scripture is clear: Christians will be judged for our works as well. Paul in 1 Corinthians 3.11-15 is explicitly clear; 2 Corinthians 5.10 is clear as well: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” The referent is obviously Christians (“we”).

My point was that we will not gain heaven by it, for no one can. Our names in the “Lamb’s book of life” are what give us eternal celebration in heaven with God.

Now, to a description of that heavenly future, we close our study of Revelation with chapters. 21-22.

An outline of Revelation

I. Prologue (1.1-18)

A. Preface (1.1-3)

B. Author and recipients (1.4-5)

C. Doxology (1.6-8)

II. The first vision (1.9-3.22): the glory of Christ and letters to his churches

A. The vision of the risen Christ and commission of the book (1.9-20)

B. The letters to the seven churches (chs. 2-3)

III. The second vision (4.1-16.21): judgments on the evil powers of the world

A. The vision of God in heaven (ch. 4)

B. The vision of the Lamb who breaks the seals (ch. 5)

C. Seven seals (6.1-8.1):

1. White horse of conquest (6.2)

2. Red horse of war (6.3-4)

3. Black horse of famine (6.5-6)

4. Pale horse of death (6.7-8)

5. Altar of slain faithful (6.9-11)

6. Great earthquake of the wrath of the Lamb (6.12-17)

Interlude—the sealing of the 144,000 (ch. 7)

7. Silence in heaven for “about half an hour” (8.1)

D. Seven trumpets (8.2-11-19):

Interlude: the angel with incense, the prayers of the saints (8.2-5)

1. Hail and fire—1/3 of earth burned up (8.7)

2. Huge mountain thrown into the sea—1/3 of sea to blood, 1/3 of

its creatures killed, 1/3 of its ships destroyed (8.8-9)

3. Great star fell on 1/3 of the rivers, turning water bitter (8.10-11)

4. 1/3 of sun, moon, stars struck and turned dark (8.12)

5. First woe: Abyss opened, scorpions released to attack all without

the seal of God (9.1-12)

6. Second woe: four angels released to kill 1/3 of mankind

(9.13-21)

Interlude: the angel with the little scroll (ch. 10),

two witnesses (11.1-14)

7. Praise of God by heaven and the 24 elders (11.15-19)

E. The seven signs (12.1-14.20)

1. The woman (12.1-2)

2. The dragon (12.3-13.1)

3. The beast out of the sea (13.1-10)

4. The beast out of the earth (13.11-18)

5. The Lamb and the 144,000 (14.1-5)

6. The three angels (14.6-13)

7. The harvest of the earth (14.14-20)

F. The seven plagues (15.1-16.21)

Preparations (ch. 15)

1. First bowl: ugly and painful sores on those who had the mark of

the beast and worshiped his image (v. 2).

2. Second bowl: the sea turned to blood, and all life in it died

(v. 3).

3. Third bowl: rivers and springs of water became blood, while the

angel praised God (vs. 4-7).

4. Fourth bowl: the sun scorched people, but “they refused to

repent” (vs. 8-9).

5. Fifth bowl: poured on the throne of the beast, and the world was

plunged into darkness but refused to repent (vs. 10-11).

6. Sixth bowl: Euphrates was dried up “to prepare the way for the

kings from the East”; demons gathered the kings of the

world “for the battle on the great day of God Almighty”

(v. 14), “the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon” (v. 16).

7. Seventh bowl: the greatest earthquake in human history;

Babylon (Rome) was destroyed as God “gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath” (v. 19). 100-pound hailstones fell upon men, and “they cursed God”

(v. 21).

IV. The third vision (17.1-21.8): victory over the evil powers of the world

A. The mystery of Babylon (ch. 17)

B. The fall of Babylon (ch. 18)

C. The praise of heaven (19.1-10)

D. The victory of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (19.11-21)

E. The millennium (20.1-6)

F. Satan’s final doom (20.7-10)

G. The judgment of the dead (20.11-15)

V. The fourth vision (21.1-22.21): the future blessing of the faithful

A. The new creation (21.1-8)

B. The new Jerusalem (21.9-27)

C. The river of life (22.1-6)

D. The promise of Jesus’ imminent return (22.7-21)

The new creation (21.1-8)

There are three promises here:

•Fellowship with God (21.1-8)

•Protection by God (21.9-26)

•Provisions from God (22) (Summers 212ff).

The descriptions are not architectural but spiritual. Greek vs. Hebrew, speculative vs. practical. This section does not tell us all we would like to know, but all we need to know.

We cannot understand heaven fully until we’re there, anyway: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2.9 / Isaiah 64.4).

John sees “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea” (v. 1). The sea had separated John from his fellow believers; in heaven there will be no such separations, ever.

The Holy City, the “new Jerusalem,” comes down out of heaven from God as a bride prepared to meet her husband (v. 2). The imagery of a wedding to express the intimate relationship between God and his people is found in the prophetic literature of the Old Testament. For instance: “Your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is his name” (Isaiah 54.5); “I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord” (Hosea 2.19-20).

Jesus made the same analogy: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son…” (Matthew 22.2ff). Paul uses the same comparison: “‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5.31-32).

What is the point of this comparison? We must be ready; we are bound to him and to him alone (vs. spiritual adultery); we must have passion for Jesus, not just performance; our commitment is eternal. How’s your “marriage”?

The voice from the throne says: the dwelling of God is now with men; we will be his people, and he our God. He will wipe away every tear; there will be no more death, dying, or pain, for the old order has passed away (vs. 3-4). He is making everything new (v. 5).

It has always been God’s desire to dwell with his people. Thus he walks with Adam and Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3.8). Cf. Leviticus 26.11-12: “I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.”

Cf. also Ezekiel 37.26-27: “I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.”

Cf. Isaiah 25.8-9: “The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. IN that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

This desire of God to dwell with us and comfort us stands in clear distinction to the pagan impulses of the day. The Greeks put their temples as high as possible, and thus as close to heaven as possible. They were inaccessible to their daily lives, but they didn’t think the gods wanted daily experience with them, anyway.

God wants our Christianity to be this relevant to daily life, and he wants us to show the world that it is so. How can we make it so? I think of the executive with a Bible on his desk, another with a prayer closet in his office, another who told his employees he was praying for them. We can be legal and still spiritually effective, demonstrating the relevance of our faith for life. This is the greatest single problem lost people have with Christianity—they don’t see its relevance to their daily lives and needs. And only 7% think the church is relevant to their problems today.

The Alpha and Omega now gives from the spring of the water of life to all who thirst (v. 6). We who “overcome” will be his children (v. 7). But all who refuse God’s grace through their sin will experience the “second death” (v. 8).

The new Jerusalem (21.9-27)

The New Jerusalem is “the bride, the wife of the Lamb” (v. 9). The city “shone with the glory of God” (v. 11), with twelve gates over which were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel; the foundations were named for the apostles of the Lamb (vs. 12-14).

Twelve gates point to abundant entrance to the City of God. Ancient cities had only one gate, so it could be shut at night and thus protect the people inside. If a person didn’t get inside the gate before it shut, he was without protection and would probably die. These gates are on every side, and they are never locked. We are all invited to be with God through Christ. The Eastern Gate of Jerusalem is locked to this day, waiting for the Messiah to open it. He will, for us all!

The angel measures the city: 1,400 miles cubed, with walls 200 feet thick. It is made of pure gold, with foundations decorated with “every kind of precious stone” (v. 19). The twelve gates are each made of a single pearl, and the street of pure gold “like transparent glass” (v. 21).

The Holy of Holies was also a perfect cube, but only 60 feet in each direction. As God is “Trinity,” so his heaven is cubed. Pearl is the only jewel which is produced by suffering and pain. So is our gateway into heaven through the cross.

The streets of gold remind of the story: a wealthy man asked permission to bring one possession to heaven when he died; Peter granted his request. The man opened his suitcase in heaven and unpacked hundreds of gold coins. Peter said, “Why did you want to bring pavement to heaven?”

The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple; the glory of God gives the city light, and the Lamb is its lamp (vs. 22-23). There will be no night, nor will the gates ever be shut (v. 25). The glory of the nations will come to it (v. 26), but no one impure will ever set foot inside—only those “whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (v. 27).

The river of life (22.1-6)

The river, “clear as crystal” (v. 1), flows from the throne of God and the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city (vs. 1-2). On each side stands the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding fruit every month; the leaves heal the nations (v. 2).

There will be no curse; the people of God will serve him in the city, see his face, live in his light, and “reign for ever and ever” (vs. 3-5). Before heaven, God said, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33.20). Now, that all changes in heaven.

In ancient times criminals were banished from the presence of the king. Remember what happened to Haman after the Persian king condemned him: “As soon as the word left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face” (Esther 7.8).

And David had to say about his rebellious son Absalom, “‘He must go to his own house; he must not see my face.’ So Absalom went to his own house and did not see the face of the king” (2 Samuel14.24).

One blessing of heaven will be to see the Lord face to face, forever. This is the promise of Scripture: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13.12).

These things “must soon take place” (v. 6).

The promise of Jesus’ imminent return (22.7-21)

This is the promise/warning of Jesus: “Behold, I am coming soon!” (v. 7). He repeats it in v. 20, the last recorded words of Jesus in all of Scripture: “Yes, I am coming soon.” The angel makes the same statement: “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near” (v. 10). This statement shows that the book was intended to apply to John and his day, and by principles, to us all.

In response to these revelations, John “fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them” to him (v. 8). But the angel forbade this and said, “I am a fellow servant with you and with all your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!” (v. 9).

It is encouraging to know that even John the Beloved Disciple can make spiritual mistakes. In Revelation 1.17 he was right: “When I saw [Jesus], I fell at his feet as though dead.” But here he worships the messenger, not the One who is the message.

This is the true response to awe (cf. Isaiah 6, Peter in the boat).

We all have the innate desire and capacity for worship (cf. the earliest worship in human history). But we must be sure that we worship the right One. Tillich: “Our ultimate concern is best identified not by our words but by our time and money.”

And we must make certain that no one gives this reverence to us, or that we seek it. Cf. Cornelius to Peter: “As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. ‘Stand up,’ he said, ‘I am only a man myself'” (Acts 10.26).

Remember how fickle such “worship” can be. The Jerusalem crowds shouted Hosanna on Sunday, and “Crucify” on Friday. Remember what happened to Paul in Lystra: the crowds worshipped him and Barnabas as Zeus and Hermes and wanted to offer sacrifices to them; but then some Jewish opponents “won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead” (Ac 14.19). I love what comes next: “But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city” (v. 20).

Make certain you worship the right One, and that your life leads others to him and not to yourself. Remember Jesus’ words: “Let your light so shine that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5.16).

God will reward everyone “according to what he has done” (v. 12). Those who “wash their robes” are blessed, and have the right to the tree of life. Outside stands everyone who commits intentional and habitual sin (vs. 14-15).

Now we come to the invitation. These words have come from Jesus through his angel (v. 16). The Spirit and the bride say to us, “Come!” All who hear should say, “Come!” to this promise: “Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (v. 17).

And to the warning. Anyone who adds to the words of this book will have added to him the plagues described therein; anyone who takes away from this book will have taken from him his share in the tree of life and the holy city (vs. 18-19). This warning relates specifically to Revelation, not by intention to the rest of Scripture.

However, we should treat all of the Bible as the word of God: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3.16-17).

And remember Deueronomy 4.2: “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.”

The conclusion: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.'” And John agrees: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” And the Revelation closes with the prayer, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen” (v. 21).

“Come, Lord Jesus” in the Aramaic is “Marana tha.” This was an expression used by the early church to celebrate the fact that Jesus is coming back, and it may be today!

God’s reward for our faithfulness will exceed everything it costs us. We will spend eternity enjoying his presence together. This hope makes present faithfulness worthwhile.

A Home in Your Microwave

Written by

A Home in Your Microwave

Luke 10:25-37

Dr. Jim Denison

The microwave oven for homes was first sold in America in 1952, and it’s changed our lives so much that sociologists call us the “microwave society.”

I’m old enough to remember when popping popcorn meant getting out the popper, putting in the oil, stirring in the kernels, and waiting five or ten minutes. Then the world discovered Jiffy-Pop, popcorn and oil inside the foil, ready to shake over a stove. When’s the last time you saw some Jiffy-Pop? Do you even know what I’m talking about?

Today popcorn comes in microwave bags. And we get impatient that it takes two minutes to cook.

This morning I bring you this thesis: the greatest threat to our families and relationships today is the microwave. Not in our kitchen—in our hearts.

Restaurants now have entire rooms for cell-phone users, so people can eat and work and thus save time.

“Sink Eaters Anonymous” is an actual support group for people who are so busy they eat their meals standing over the kitchen sink.

John P. Robinson, director of the Americans’ Use of Time project at the University of Maryland, says that the value of time has clearly surpassed the value of money in our society. Tell us something we don’t know.

As we begin looking at relationships today from a biblical perspective, let’s begin with their place in priorities. What does our culture value today? Doing more, faster, better, so we can have more and be more. But Jesus disagrees. According to him, our cultural values are exactly backwards. And unless we get our priorities right, our relationships will forever be wrong.

So, what should we value most today? Let’s ask Jesus.

From Jericho to Dallas

The lawyer asks Jesus the famous question: “Who is my neighbor” (v. 29). And Jesus replies not with principles but with a parable, the greatest story in all of Scripture.

A man is “going down” from Jerusalem to Jericho—2,300 feet above sea level to 1,300 below, a drop of 3,600 feet over 20 miles. This was one of the most dangerous highways in the world, and is still so today. I’ve traveled it twice, and felt safe in a bus during the day; I wouldn’t want to walk it alone, even today. Especially today.

But this man does (v. 30). And you know what happens to him.

But there’s good news—a priest is coming! The “church pastor,” the “man of God” has arrived. The man who stands before God in the temple, bringing the sacrifices of the people to him. Suppose your car is broken down in a parking lot near the church, and you see me come by. You’d expect me to stop and help, and you should.

Well, perhaps you shouldn’t. Not long ago I saw a woman trying to change a flat tire on her car outside Walgreen’s, down from the church. I stopped to help—we got the car on the jack, up in the air, and the old tire off. I was just about to put the new tire on when the jack collapsed! It was not a good thing. No one was hurt, fortunately, and my call from mechanic to minister was strongly reinforced.

Well, this priest doesn’t even stop. Why not? Numbers 19:11 says that if he touches a dead body, he’ll be ceremonially unclean for seven days. This wounded man is getting in the way of his job, his religious responsibilities. So he leaves him to die.

But all is not lost—a Levite comes by next. The man who keeps the temple, who helps the priest. A staff member, deacon, Sunday school teacher today. But he’s too busy to stop as well—he has work to get done.

In one of John Maxwell’s books, he tells about a new staff member at his church who walked by a group of people on Sunday morning to get to his office. He later confronted the man, who said, “I had work to do.” Maxwell responded correctly: “These people are your work!” This priest and Levite didn’t get it. Many of us don’t.

Finally a Samaritan comes along. Now all hope is gone.

As you know, the Samaritans hated the Jews, and vice versa. This man will probably rob what the wounded traveler has left, maybe kick him or beat him, certainly leave him to die. But no. He is “filled with pity.” He uses his own clothes to bind the man’s wounds, and pours his own oil and wine (very expensive first-century medicine) on his injuries. He puts him on his own donkey (while he walks), placing himself at the mercy of these same robbers. He brings him to the inn, pays for his room, and promises to pay any other charges the man incurs.

Imagine that your car breaks down near the church—I stop by, fix it so it will drive, go with you to the repair shop, pay for the repairs, and promise to pay for any other work the car ever needs. Has anyone ever done that for you?

Jesus says we should “Go and do likewise.” How? What does his story say to our “microwaved” homes and hearts and lives?

Choices to make today

How do we “go and do likewise”? There are several simple choices we must make today. Our first decision, foundational to all the others: value people as God does.

People are eternal; nothing else in this world is. Not our jobs, our possessions, our status or significance. One day the only real estate we’ll possess is a little piece of ground, six feet deep. And even then someone else will tend it, because we’ll be gone.

So we are commanded to value people, for only they have eternal souls. The Samaritan got this right. He valued this wounded Jew more than his clothes, or oil and wine, or donkey, or safety. He valued this man as God does.

So must we. People come before possessions. Listen to this remarkable statement from the Song of Solomon: “Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned” (8:7). In other words, wealth cannot buy love. Put people before possessions.

God valued you enough to send his Son to die for you. If you’re good enough for God, you’re good enough for me. Be clear on this: people come first. In a secular, materialistic, self-centered and self-absorbed society, we must refuse the popular culture. We must value people as God does.

Now, how do we value people? Our second choice: give your best to that which matters most.

The Samaritan gave his best resources to this injured man—his oil and wine, his donkey, his time, his safety. He gave his best to that which matters most. So can we.

Would your family say they get the best part of you? Or have you already given so much emotional energy to your work, your day, that you are done before they see you? When is the last time you sacrificed your time for them? The last time you turned down a request at work so you could give that time and energy to your family or friends?

For two years I’ve chaired a missions study committee for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. I didn’t know the group would meet primarily on Fridays, my one day of the week to be with Janet. So, before I could preach this sermon I had to decide that I’ve served on my last such committee. I want to give my best to that which matters most.

Decide right now that you will reserve your best time and energy to those who should matter most to you.

Now, how do you give this best? Our third choice: spell love, “time.”

The priest had no time for this hurting soul; neither did the Levite. Neither did the Samaritan, but he gave it anyway.

In our time-crunched culture, our greatest possession and currency is time. Would you rather someone ask you for some money, or for some time? We now pay people to change our oil and wash our cars, to launder our clothes and mow our grass. In north Dallas, people pay others to do their shopping, run their errands, and even walk their dogs. All so we can save time.

For what purpose? For what people? When did you last sacrifice some time so you could be with the people who matter to you? When did you leave the job undone, so your family wouldn’t be? When did you last give time you didn’t have, rather than fitting people into your calendar?

Recent surveys indicate that, on average, the American father spends a maximum of six minutes a day with his son or daughter. If I asked people close to you, would they say that they come first with your time? Spell love, “time.”

Our fourth decision today: never give up on people. This Samaritan didn’t; neither can we.

Who are you ready to quit on today? Your brother or sister, kids or parents, colleague or neighbor? It is always too soon. It is always too soon to decide that God cannot redeem this situation, that he cannot heal this hurt, that he cannot restore this home. The Samaritan refused to give up on this man left for dead. We must likewise refuse to abandon the hurting people we know.

Ben Carson grew up in a Detroit ghetto. He was an angry young man, failing everything in school, one of the kids society gives up on. But his single-parent mother wouldn’t give up on him. She made him and his brother read two books every week and write reports for her. Ben didn’t know she couldn’t read the reports with her third-grade education. But he did the work, and his life began to change. He moved from the bottom of his class to the top. Today he is the Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University. His gifted hands have saved countless lives. He volunteers every week in the inner city, and his story has touched millions.

I heard him at a National Prayer Breakfast say, “We came over to America in many different boats, but we’re all in the same boat now. And if one part of the boat leaks, we all go under.” Never give up on people.

Our last decision: start now. This is the only day you have. If the Samaritan had decided to come back tomorrow, there would have been no one to come back to. Who should you pray for and about, right now? What wounded person do you know?

If it all depended on this day, would you be a priest and Levite, or a Samaritan? It does.

Conclusion

Why did Jesus tell us this story? Because he’s the best neighbor in all of history. Because he is the Samaritan who stopped for every one of us when we were beaten by sin and left for dead. Because he bound up our wounds with his own, and paid for our room in the inn with his life. Because he loved us more than this world, more than pain, more than life itself. And now he calls us to do for each other what he has done for us.

I love Frederick Sampson’s story about his summer on his uncle’s farm. He told the story at an evangelism conference I attended, and meant it to illustrate the priority of evangelism over work around the church.

The first morning, his farmer uncle rousted him out of his bed in the hayloft at 4:00 in the morning, and got him busy cleaning out stalls, sweeping floors, chopping wood, heating water, doing what the house required.

Finally Fred was done, and started back up to the hayloft to go back to sleep. His uncle stopped him and asked where he was going. Fred said, “I’ve finished my work.” His uncle put his finger in his face and said, “I’m going to tell you something, and don’t you ever forget it. What you do around the house is chores. What you do in the fields is work.”

As I said, Fred meant the story to tell evangelistic truth, and he’s right. But for our purposes today, he’s exactly wrong. What we do in the “field” is chores, my friends. What we do at home is the real work.

How’s your work going today?

A Lifetime Spent With Your Father

Written by

A lifetime spent with your Father:

How to practice the presence of God

Dr. Jim Denison

Psalm 23

Two friends, Bill and Tom, were drinking coffee at an all-night café. They got into a discussion about the difference between irritation, aggravation, and frustration. About 1:00 AM, Bill said, “Look, Tom, I’ll show you an example of irritation.” He went to the pay phone, put in some coins and dialed a number at random. The phone rang and rang. Finally a sleepy voice answered, and Bill said, “I’d like to speak to Jones.” “There’s no one here named Jones,” the man replied as he hung up. “That,” Bill said to Tom, “is a man who is irritated.”

An hour later, at 2:00 AM, Bill said, “Now I’ll show you a man who is aggravated.” Again he went to the phone and dialed the same number. The sleepy man answered and Bill said, “May I please speak with Jones?” “There’s no one here named Jones!” came the angry reply as the man slammed down the phone.

An hour later, at 3:00 AM, Bill said, “Now, Tom, I’ll show you an example of frustration.” He went to the phone, dialed the same number, and when the sleepy man finally answered he said, “Hi, this is Jones. Have there been any calls for me?”

We all tend to be irritated, aggravated, and even frustrated. I’ve discovered a simple remedy for such stress and anxiety: practicing the presence of God. On those days when I have sought to walk with God, all across the day, I am far less irritated, aggravated, or frustrated. On the days when I don’t, I’m not.

How do we practice his presence each day, all day?

Admit that you need communion with God

David recorded his prayer life thus: “Evening, morning and noon I call to God, and he hears me” (Psalm 55:17). These were the three watches of the Jewish day: sunrise, noon, and sunset. During each of these hours, every day, he called out to God in prayer and worship. As he fed his body breakfast, lunch, and supper, so he fed his soul.

So should we.

The medieval Christians went even further in their daily discipline of prayer. Taking their cue from Psalm 119:164, “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous ordinances,” they divided the day into seven “offices” of prayer. Called “lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline,” the hours themselves varied according to the monastery and the day, but the intent was always the same. Seven times every day the monks would stop whatever they were doing to spend fifteen or twenty minutes in prayer, communion and worship.

Nor are Christians the only faith to do this. In Malaysia I saw Muslims leaving their mosques with their foreheads bleeding because they had rubbed them with such fervency on their prayer rugs. Five times each day, the typical Muslim will turn toward Mecca and bow in prayer.

Adoniram Judson, the great missionary, took seven times a day to be alone with God. At dawn, nine in the morning, noon, three, six, nine, and midnight he would withdraw for secret prayer. George Muller, John Hyde, and other famous men and women of prayer had regular times all across the day to be alone with God.

Jesus himself made time to be alone with his Father all across the day. We see him praying early (Mark 1.35) and late (Matthew 14.23). He prayed in performing miracles, teaching, and ministering. He prayed constantly to his Father, and took time regularly to be alone with him.

If his soul needed such times, doesn’t ours?

Start early

I met God in the morning

when my day was at its best,

and his presence came like sunrise

like a glory to my breast.

All day long his presence lingered.

All day long he stayed with me,

and we sailed in perfect calmness

o’er sometimes troubled sea.

Other ships were torn and battered.

Other ships were sore distressed,

but the winds that seemed to drive them

brought to us a peace and rest.

So I think I’ve learned the secret,

learned from many a troubled way,

you must seek God in the morning

if you want him through the day.

Jesus started his day early with his Father—read Mark 1:35. And then he knew his direction for that day, and for his ministry. He was not alone in Scripture:

•Jacob: “Early the next morning he took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it” (Genesis 28:18).

•Hannah and Elkanah: “Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah” (1 Samuel 1:19).

•Hezekiah: “Early the next morning he gathered the city officials together and went up to the temple of the Lord.”

•Job: “When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them” (Job 1:5).

•David: “Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn” (Psalm 57:8).

•The psalmist: “I arise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word” (Psalm 119:147).

•To sum up: “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation” (Psalm 5:3).

Nor was Jesus alone in Christian history:

•Bishop Asbury: “I propose to rise at four o’clock as often as I can and spend two hours in prayer and meditation.”

•Joseph Alleine rose at four o’clock for his business of praying until eight. If he heard other tradesmen at work before he was up, he would exclaim, “Oh, how this shames me! Does not my Master deserve more than theirs?”

•Charles Simeon devoted the hours from four to eight in the morning to God.

•Tens of thousands of Korean Christians rise every morning at 4:30 to pray for an hour.

Why is this practice important? Why must we begin practicing the presence of God early? First, it ensures that we spend time with God.

If I wait, more often than not I miss a conscious experience with God across the day.

For instance, it’s hard for me to do my personal Bible study on Thursday mornings early because of the prayer meeting we’ve begun then. So if I wait until I get to the office I’m surrounded by work; if I wait until that night I’m tired and ready for bed. I must carve out a time first thing, or I will likely make no time at all for God.

Second, it prepares us for the day to come.

•Runners stretch before the race, some for as much as an hour.

•Golfers hit the driving range before the course if they can.

•Baseball players swing the weighted bat before they get in the batters’ box.

•Basketball players shoot warm-ups before the game begins.

It just makes sense spiritually for us to do the same.

Third, it sets our spirits right with God before anything else intervenes.

When we start the day with God, the Holy Spirit becomes the “lens” through whom the rest of the day is seen and filtered.

Do you have a place and time with God every morning? An appointment with him? If you eat breakfast for your body and read the newspaper for your mind, do you make a time to prepare your soul for the day?

A. W. Tozer made the point well: “It is not mere words that nourish the soul but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.”

Make hours during the day for God

First, we admit that we need such a time. If we don’t, we’ll likely not make time like this. Time is too precious a commodity for us to spend on anything unless we must.

In recent weeks I have learned that this is something I must do. Not only do I need time in the morning, but also after lunch and at night. Working from David’s prayer, I have begun to make time after lunch to be alone with the Father, if even for just a few minutes. And each night before I go to bed, I have begun to spend a few minutes alone with him as well. Not to go over a prayer list, or to do my daily Bible study, but just to be alone with God. This is becoming a pattern I want never to stop.

Second, we make a place. Do you have a place set aside for the Father? A desk, a chair, a closet, some place where you can be alone with God? A place used only for that purpose?

I found upon moving here that there is no place in the building I can be sure of being alone. And so Roger Garza made me a prayer bench, and it sits in my office right next to my desk. I can kneel on it whenever I want to, and need to.

We all need such a place.

And third, we make a time. We make appointments for our souls with the Holy Spirit of God. Would you make such an appointment tonight, for tomorrow? At least three times across the day? As you will feed your body breakfast, lunch, and dinner, why not your soul?

Conclusion

Wesley was convinced that God does nothing except in answer to prayer. Archbishop William Temple said, “Coincidences occur much more frequently when I pray.”

Richard Foster says, “We are working with God to determine the future! Certain things will happen in history if we pray rightly. We are to change the world by prayer. What more motivation do we need to learn this loftiest human exercise?”

Do you need God to change things all through the day?

It really can be done. Thomas Kelly says, “There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship, and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings.”

May it be so for my soul, and for yours.

Oswald Chambers’ classic devotional guide, My Utmost For His Highest, is the best I’ve ever found, and so I read from it every morning. I highly recommend its use to you. Here are two statements he makes on prayer which capture the essence of our subject:

“We think rightly or wrongly about prayer according to the conception we have in our minds of prayer. If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows ceaselessly, and breathing continues ceaselessly; we are not conscious of it, but it is always going on. We are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect joint with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. prayer is not an exercise, it is the life” (p. 147).

“When a man is born from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it. Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself” (p. 241).

Do you want to know him better? Then you must practice his presence. What will you do to practice his presence more fully today?