Christ Church

The Keeper of the Vineyard Pt.2 (CC Troy)

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ISAIAH 27

In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

2 In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine.

3 I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.

4 Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.

5 Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.

6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.

7 Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him? or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him?

8 In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.

9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up.

10 Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof.

11 When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.

12 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.

13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

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The Keeper of the Vineyard (CC Troy)

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ISAIAH 27

In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

2 In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine.

3 I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.

4 Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.

5 Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.

6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.

7 Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him? or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him?

8 In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.

9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up.

10 Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof.

11 When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.

12 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.

13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

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State of the Church 2025 (CC Downtown)

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INTRODUCTION

Many passages of Scripture require us to have a sort of double vision. The problems of heresies and schisms arise when one group sees the text one way, while another group sees it another way. Meanwhile, when viewed with the right sort of double vision both aspects fit together perfectly with no contradiction or violence to the distinctions between them. Our task is to receive such texts humbly with both hands.

THE TEXT

That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace: That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets: That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets. Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD. (Psa 144:12-15 KJV)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

This Psalm is a prayer for deliverance from enemies (vv1-11). There are echoes of the prayers found in several prior Psalms. The second part, which we are considering, is the reason David gives to God for why the Lord should grant a gracious deliverance. Why should God condescend and consider man (v3)? The reason David gives to the Lord for why God should answer this prayer is so that the sons of Israel might become stately cedars, and the daughters of Israel may become ornate pillars of a stable civilization (v12). Additionally, David reasons with God that this deliverance from “strange children” will allow Israel to enjoy barns full of grain and grapes, innumerable herds (v13), strong oxen for next year’s sowing and harvesting (v14a), and streets that are quiet and undisturbed by warfare (v14b).

David concludes his argument with God by prevailing upon the Most High to consider the happiness of those whose God is Yahweh. David echos Moses’ blessings upon Israel at the end of Deuteronomy: Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places (Deu 33:29 KJV). God delivered His people in order to bestow upon them everlasting happiness by covenant fellowship. David points at the surrounding enemies and then invites God to consider His covenant promises, calling upon God to establish the joy of His people.

SONS, DAUGHTERS, AND WEALTH

We should see this picture with double vision and both are good. Some might take this to be David being too consumed with temporal and earthly blessings of children, crops, and herds. Someone might snark that David seems to have made his family, material comfort, and happiness an idol. Others try to scrub these verses with lysol wipes of etherealism: David means metaphorical flocks and is envisioning the flock of the NT church. Still others see the promise of full barns, and get dollar signs in their eyes and conclude that earthly wealth is the top floor of the joy elevator. But both the prosperity Gospel swindler, and the thinly sliced pietist miss what is going on here.

The promise of sons that are strong as oak trees, daughters ornate as palace pillars, and flocks as numerous as the sand no the seashore is not an automatic blessing. This blessing is downstream from blessing God. David blesses God, David sings a new song to the Lord (vv1, 9-10). The legacy of healthy offspring and earthly prosperity is not automatic. But it is promised by God, and our response should be one of true faith. But here is where the double vision is needed. The reasons David gave God for delivering Israel was so that Israel could have robust sons and daughters and earthly wealth; but if you look at it rightly you can see that everything in David’s list is, in part, what is necessary to maintain the sacrificial worship of the tabernacle.

The prophet Joel portrays the inversion of these covenantal blessings, and explicitly highlights that the devastation of the locust army had consequences when it came to continuing the sacrifices which God had commanded (Joe 1:8-10 KJV). David then sees children and earthly wealth as the means whereby worship of the living God might be carried on to all generations. He is not the short-sighted hedonist, nor is he the severe exegete. David summons us to consider that sons and daughters and material blessings are the means whereby God’s kingdom is continually built up and prospered and advanced.

OUR GROWING BODY

We have been worshipping together as a distinct service for two and half years. Our aim should be that as this congregation grows, as a microcosm of the broader Moscow growth, we must get the order right. Bless God first and foremost in order for your vineyard to be well-laden with fruit. But don’t stop there. The fruit of children and the fruit of your labors are not ends in themselves, they are the continuation of God’s promise to fill the world, from one side to the other, with worshippers.

We have many young families. Our vision for what God is doing here at CCD must be that these sons will soon be running the institutions the previous generation established, these daughters will soon be raising their own brood, all your wealth will soon be handed down to your heirs. The question is, will they be steadfast in the worship of the living God? Will they love the standard? Will they be more courageous and bold than you? Will they treasure God’s Word as great spoil?

Our prayer for deliverance from enemies of woke policies, globalist tyranny, deluded sexual ethics, and vain fiscal measures must always be aimed at the intention that we and our children might worship God in all peace and quietness. But deliverance from evil is never a permission slip to longer naps, lazier work ethic, gentle parenting, or hazy Bible reading practices.

TEMPORAL AND ETERNAL HAPPINESS

All this demands three things. Do not let off the gas when it comes to teaching your family to walk in the ways of the Lord, and filling your home with joyful songs of praise, the truthful words of sincere confession, and the rejection of mindless worldly entertainment. Secondly, work hard. David’s request to God to spare Israel from the destruction of invading armies is so that next year Israel can get to work again on another season of plowing, sowing, watering and harvesting. Do not avoid hard work, find another gear, and do so for the reasons described in this Psalm: supplying the needs for the mission of God’s covenant promises to a thousand generations.

Lastly, blessing God and being made happy by God are the brackets of this Psalm. This is true living. Bless God. Receive His blessings with true faith and gladness in order to bless Him once more. But don’t fall into the trap of viewing the temporal and eternal as enemies. You are raising children who will either live forever in the bliss of heaven, or forever damned due to unbelief. You are working to bring glorious treasures into the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:24). This is because if the Lord is your God, happiness is both your present and everlasting reality.

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What is a Mediator (Advent #4) (CC Downtown)

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INTRODUCTION

Last week we saw that the very fact of creation is indicative that the world is covenantal and that covenant is, by nature, a gracious one. God made the world with no external obligation, but He obligated Himself to it. Due to Adam’s sin, something dreadful took place. The marriage of heaven and earth was broken. How would God reconcile Himself to man, and man with the creation he had brought down into a ruinous curse? God wrote the code upon which this world was to run, sin introduced a corrupted file that if left to run on its own would disable the entire system. Christmas is the entrance of God Himself into the story, and His purpose was nothing other than to take the curse upon Himself, and restore the whole system.

THE TEXT

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.    ~Isaiah 11:1-10

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Isaiah foresaw the restoration of all things, and speaks of the new creation in terms of the resurrection of David’s kingdom. A Righteous Branch would sprout from the stump of Jesse (v1). The Lord’s Spirit would rest upon this Branch, endowing Him with all that is needful for righteous rule over the earth (vv2-3). His rule shall raise up the poor and meek, while dashing the wicked to bits (v4). His regal robes will be righteousness, and faithfulness will be the sword at His side (v5).

His rule will not be confined, but will have application in all directions. Beasts will be tamed and do violence to one another no more; furthermore, man will no longer be in an adversarial relationship with the beasts (vv6-8). The curse shall be so entirely reversed that even serpents, once counted as wretched for their association with Satan, will be the play thing of infants. Destruction and death, sorrow and sighing, war and wasting will be ended; the dark years shall fade, and in its place the bright and warm light of the knowledge of Lord shall fill the entire earth, as waters cover the sea (v9). This Mediator, springing from the massacred stump of Jesse, would rule in such a way that not Israel only, but even the Gentiles would clamor to rest under the victory banner of His kingdom (v10).

FOUR THINGS NEEDFUL

As we reflect on who could fulfill such a task, it is important that we ascertain what is required of this mediator. The mediator of such a covenant between God and man must have four attributes. He must be a man (Gen. 3:15). However, he must also be a righteous man (Ps. 24:3-4). Further, he must be true God (Is. 9:6). Fourth, he must be both God and man (Is. 7:14).

In order to crush the serpents head, it was required that He be a true man. Since it was human nature “in which the disobedience had been committed” the Son assumed our nature “in order to bear in it the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death (BCF Art. 20).”  But in order for Him to please the covenant law of creation He must be holy, righteous, without flaw. He made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf.

But as the Belgic Confession so wonderfully puts it, His divinity never ceased to be in Him: “So then, what he committed to his Father when he died was a real human spirit which left his body. But meanwhile, his divine nature remained united with his human nature even when he was lying in the grave; and his deity never ceased to be in him, just as it was in him when he was a little child, though for a while it did not so reveal itself. These are the reasons why we confess him to be true God and truly human—true God in order to conquer death by his power, and truly human that he might die for us in the weakness of his flesh (BCF Art. 19).”

Furthermore, in order to accomplish our redemption, and to satisfy God’s righteous requirements, the Mediator must be have these four attributes. Additionally, in His role as the Mediator of this covenant of grace, He would fulfill that mediatorial role in a number of ways; here is how the WCF describes it: “It pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Savior of His Church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world; unto whom He did from all eternity give a people, to be His seed, and to be by Him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified (WCF Ch. VIII, Sec. 1).” Notice that the doctrine of Christ as our Mediator, and all the glorious attributes of that role, leads to what theologians call the ordo salutis. The person of Christ is inextricably tied to the redemption of His people.

WHAT THE MEDIATOR BRINGS TOGETHER

Returning to our text we see that the “one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5),” brings about a restoration in all directions. Between God and man. Between heaven and earth. Between man and beast (Hos. 2:8-12). Between man and man. To quote one theologian, “No realm can be withheld from Christ’s reign. The covenant is a total treaty.”

He does so by becoming the curse for us, and being righteous for us, for judging sin, and receiving sin’s judgement, by dying for us, raising human nature out of the dust and breathing His everlasting Spirit into us. He truly holds all things together. And it is not sappy sentimentalism to say that the reason He did all this was because of His great love wherewith He loved us: “So God made known his justice toward his Son, who was charged with our sin, and he poured out his goodness and mercy on us, who are guilty and worthy of damnation, giving to us his Son to die, by a most perfect love, and raising him to life for our justification, in order that by him we might have immortality and eternal life (BGC Art 20).”

NEW CREATION

The nativity of Christ Jesus really is the beginning of the New Creation. In His mediatorial office He not only reconciles us to God, but He renews and remakes all things. So it is fitting to bring trees into our homes, ornamented with symbolic fruit, surrounded by gifts made of plastic and pearls, wool and wood. It is right to spread a great feast, inviting as many people as will fit around the rearranged living room furniture. Christ Jesus ushered in a new creation in Himself. He is the nexus of history. He is the new man. He is the true God and our eternal life. He is the ladder which bridges the glory of heaven with the bounty of earth. He is our Mediator which rules over this world with everlasting truth and grace. Indeed, joy to the world, for the Branch of Jesse has come.

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A Star Out of Jacob (Advent #3) (Christ Church)

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INTRODUCTION

One of the most familiar elements of the Christmas story is the star of Bethlehem. But at the same time, it remains one of the most unknown features of the story—because unlike what the wise men did, we don’t really look straight at it.

THE TEXT

“I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth” (Num. 24:17).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

As we should all know, the prophet Balaam was a covetous and sinful man (Jude 11; 2 Pet. 2:15). But at the same time, even though he was not of the nation of Israel, he was a true prophet. It was possible to be a true prophet without being a true man. The Spirit of the Lord really did come upon him (e.g. Num. 24:2). Balak, the king of Moab, had Balaam summoned in order to put a curse on Israel. In spite of everything, the Spirit of the Lord refused to let Balaam prophesy disaster for Israel—it kept coming out as blessing (Micah 6:5).

Balak was understandably peeved with Balaam (Num. 24:10), but Balaam calmed him down by giving him some very practical and carnal advice . . . for a fee (Rev. 2:14). The women of Moab enticed the Israelite men into idolatry and fornication, and God dealt with them severely (Num. 25:1-3). Balaam was eventually killed by the Israelites when they came to invade the land (Josh. 13:22). Judging from the number of times it is referred to explicitly, both in the Old Testament and the New, this is a very important story. And in the Christmas story, as we tell it every year, we most likely have an implicit reference to it.

At the end of his exchanges with Balak, Balaam gave the words of our text above, and as a prophecy of blessing for Israel, we should be careful to ask what it might mean. The first fulfillment of these words came with the reign of King David four hundred years later. He was the one who struck Moab (v. 17), not to mention Edom (v. 18). David was the king who was a type of the great king, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus—so Jesus is the antitype, the final and complete fulfillment of this word. A star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter out of Israel, and He will establish His reign. The scepter would stay with Judah until Shiloh came, and He would be the one who would gather all the people to Himself (Gen. 49:10).

THE WISE MEN

Balaam was a prophet, but he was not a prophet of Israel. He was from the east, and was of the heathen nations there. The wise men who came to search for Jesus on account of the star were also from the east. It is likely that Balaam’s words had been preserved outside of the Hebrew Scriptures—and note how the wise men speak of this (Matt. 2:2). They appear to have much more information than could be gleaned from looking at a star in the sky, even if they were serious astrologers. Balaam had prophesied of a king, one with a scepter. The wise men asked about a king. Balaam had specified that this king would be from Jacob, and the wise men asked about a king of the Jews. Herod, the man they asked about it, was an Edomite, one of the peoples that this particular prophecy described as being conquered by the coming king. And, most noticeably, Balaam spoke of a star, and the wise men came in response to a star. And incidentally, we don’t know for certain that there were three wise men—that is simply an inference from the three types of gifts they brought (Matt. 2:11).

LED BY THE STAR

One of the reasons we don’t look too closely at what the text says about our star is that it might mess with our modernist cosmology too much. The text says that the star, the same one which they had seen in the east, led them from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, a distance of about eight miles, and that the star then stood still over a particular house where Mary and Jesus were (Matt. 2:9, 11). Picture a star leading you to Pullman, and then pointing out a particular house. This is to say nothing against modern astronomical calculations about the Bethlehem star, but it is to assert that there was more going on than just that.

Either the wise men were being “led by” the star in some astrological sense, meaning that they were doing some serious math on the back of their camels in the dark (also unmentioned in the text, by the way), or a star actually came down into our atmosphere and did some very un-starlike things. But why should this be a surprise? A whole host of stars had done the same thing for the shepherds (Luke 2:13).

NOT WHAT WE WERE EXPECTING 

Now if we don’t accept the astrological math option, then that means the star came down into our sky, and stood over a particular house—fifty feet up, say. Does faithfulness to Scripture require us to accept absurdities? That a flaming ball of gas, many times larger than our entire earth, came down into Palestine in order to provide first century mapquest services? And that it managed to do so without incinerating the globe? We need to take a lesson here from our medieval fathers in the faith, brought to us via Narnia. “In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.” “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.” If we can leave our bodies behind when we go to heaven, why cannot a star leave its body behind to come to earth? But any way you take it, the Christian faith flatly contradicts the truncated cosmology of moderns. Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.

REMEMBER WHAT THE STAR MEANT

Balaam was talking about what would happen to all the tinpot and jitney monarchies when the real kingdom arrives, when the true scepter is established. In the book of Revelation, Jesus identifies Himself with His ancestor and subject, King David. He is the root and offspring of David, and He is the bright and morning star (Rev. 22:16). Balaam was talking about what was going to happen in “the latter days” (v. 14), and he is very clear about the rise and fall of various nations before the Messiah would come. First, the Amalekites would perish forever (v. 20). After them, the Kenites would go down (v. 22). They would be followed by invaders from Kittim (the Greeks, under Alexander), which is what verse 24 is talking about. But then the Greeks would fade away (v. 24), which is what happened with Rome in the ascendancy. And thus it was during that time that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed (Luke 2:1).

So Caesar gave the command in order to tax the whole world (v. Luke 2:1). The star gave the command that magi from the east would voluntarily come, bearing gifts (Matt. 2:11). Augustus won his throne through a great deal of killing at the battle of Actium. The Lord Jesus won His throne at the battle of Golgotha, where He conquered and crushed the devil by dying. The star in the east, the one the wise men followed, was a star that declared a coming kingdom, a kingdom that would never end. This is the kingdom of the true king, before whom the most magnificent kings in the history of the world were but flickering types and shadows.

The star of Bethlehem is therefore the regal emblem of a scepter, a scepter of never-ending glory.

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