Christ Church

Christ and the Monsters of Chaos

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INTRODUCTION

We do not pay enough attention to foundational myths. This is the case both with the fanciful myths of the unbelievers and the genuine myths that are recorded for us in Scripture. While many myths are false, and Scripture treats the word in that way, with myths being described as pernicious, false, and unedifying (1 Tim. 1:4, 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4; Tit. 1:14; 2 Pet. 1:16), the phrase true myth is nevertheless not oxymoronic.

THE TEXTS

“So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:21, NKJV)

“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” (Isaiah 27:1).

“For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness” (Psalm 74:12–14).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXTS

In Scripture, the great dragons of the deep were creatures, and they were formed on the fifth day. They are called tanninim, sea monsters, great sea dragons. Not only so, but God made leviathan for fun. “There go the ships: There is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein” (Ps. 104:26).

But in a fallen creation, these sea monsters became symbols of great wickedness and insolent pride, usually associated with Egypt. And this is why God is described as conquering and defeating them. The exultation over God’s victory over Leviathan in both Isaiah and Psalms is a triumph over Pharaoh. And in a related example, there was another great sea monster was named Rahab. And God describes the crossing of the Rea Sea, and the defeat of Egypt, in terms that are reminiscent of Jehovah’s conquest of that sea dragon.

“Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; Awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; That hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?” (Isaiah 51:9–10).

The defeat of these sea dragons might be a symbolic description of God dealing with Egypt decisively, or perhaps it is using a primal battle between Jehovah and these sea creatures as an image for describing what He also did to Egypt. When Job curses the day of his birth, he calls upon those capable of rousing Leviathan, which would unhinge everything. “Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan” (Job 3:8, ESV).

This is not just some ancient “old covenant” thing. Remember the red dragon with seven heads in Revelation, and which pursues the woman with turbulent flood waters (Rev. 12:3-4, 15)

SOME BACKGROUND

In order to understand all this more fully, we have to grasp the fundamental contrast between the believing and unbelieving mind at this point. For the believer, God is the ultimate and personal starting point. For the unbeliever, the foundation is chaos. Everything began with chaos, and threatens to return to chaos.

The scriptural account begins with God speaking. God speaks, and as a result there was an earth that was formless and void, and then God shaped it according to His good purposes.

But unbelievers do not begin with the Word that was with God and was God, and so they must in some manner begin with the chaos. In the ancient pagan myths, as in the Enuma Elish, it begins with water, and—long story short—Marduk kills Tiamat the watery goddess, and creates heaven and earth out of her carcass. Then man is created to help the gods keep order, and to keep the chaos at bay.

  1. Infinite personal God > Formless & void (tohu wabohu) > Ordered cosmos . . . or
  2. Chaos > Apparent order and design > Ever present option of lapsing

STRUCTURAL DEFECT OR REBELLION?

In the biblical view of the world, when God created all things, He pronounced all of them good(Gen. 1: 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). This would include the sea dragons of the fifth day (Gen. 1:21). Nothing whatever wrong with them. But after the rebellion of man, after we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the whole created order fell with us. Man was the driver, creation the car, and we crashed it into a tree. This is why the whole creation groans (Rom. 8: 22), looking forward to the day when the sons of God are to be revealed. But some parts of this crashed creation order became identified with the great rebellion. It is hard to imagine packs of hyenas roaming the outskirts of Eden.

But it is important for us to distinguish the two visions. For the Christian, the problem is sin, and the solution is the gospel and right worship. Civilization is fragile, but it is fragile because of sin. For the unbeliever, civilization is also fragile, but it is fragile because of the underlying chaos. This whole thing is built on chaos, chaos is the foundation. In addition, because the unbeliever has no ultimate standard of order, his only hope—when things get intolerable—is to drive it all back down into shambolic chaos again, with the desire that we might get luckier next time. Such pagan religion is driven by a gamblers’ hope.

“Before there was earth or sea or the sky that covers everything, Nature appeared the same throughout the whole world: what we call chaos: a raw confused mass, nothing but inert matter, badly combined discordant atoms of things, confused in the one place” (Ovid, Metamorphoses).

THE ORDER OF CHRIST AND THE CHAOS OF SIN

According to the gospel, the problematic issue is what man did in his rebellion. The problematic issue is not the very nature of the created order itself. And this is why our worship is so important.

“For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, He created it not in vain [to not be chaos, tohu], he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:18).

“Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). We want nothing to do with those who walk disorderly (2 Thess. 3:6-7, 11). “For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ” (Col. 2:5).

But remember that in and through the church, God is remaking the cosmos. We are the new way of being human in Christ. And that means we are worshiping God here, this morning, as the sea wall that is holding back the raging flood that wants to inundate the world. But God promised—ironically, with a rainbow—that this was not going to happen again.

“And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:22–23).

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Sons & Daughters

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INTRODUCTION

Sons & daughters, hang with me here, are different. If you hand a girl a nerf gun, she’ll wrap it in a blanket and put it to bed. If you hand a doll to a boy, somehow he’ll turn it into a gun. As fathers and mothers, you are called to raise your sons and daughters in the fear and admonition of the Lord. But while the Lord admonishes certain things to all people––male or female––He admonishes certain things for boys who are to become men, and girls who are to become women.

THE TEXT

I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee. It is he that giveth salvation unto kings: who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful sword. Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood: 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” (Psalm 144:9-15).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

=The first half of this Psalm deals with David at war (vs1-8), and the second half deals with David at peace. But underneath it all is God’s favor, and thus His strengthening blessing. God strengthened David’s hands (v1) to war against “strange children (v7).” But it is also God who establishes the peace and prosperity of a kingdom.

After blessing God for granting him might and victory in battle, David sings a new song of praise (v9). Salvation is from God (v10), and so he requests continued deliverance from “the hand of strange children” (v11).

This deliverance is requested so that peace might be enjoyed by the nation. This peace is presented in terms of familial prosperity. God’s favor in conflict brought strength for battle against enemies, but God’s favor in peace looks like happy households.

The olive plants around the table (Ps. 128:3) are intended to grow into masculine strength and feminine glory respectively. By God’s favor in deliverance, Israel’s sons might grow up into sequoias, and their daughters might be the family’s hidden ornaments family together like polished cornerstones (v12). Garners are filled, the table is laden, the flocks are fertile, the oxen are hardy, and there are no “mostly peaceful protests” (vs13-14). This is true happiness, but it is only because God is their Lord (v15).

SONS OF COURAGE

Children are a blessing from the Lord, but not an automatic blessing. After all, “A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him (Pro 17:25).” The greatest folly which a son can disappoint his parents with is a lack of courage. Boys are to be raised to die. They need to learn to be ready to die in battle protecting their treasured wives, daughters, and mothers; or else to die in backbreaking provision for the household.

Sons need straight lines. Go take that hill. Go conquer that enemy. Go obtain that treasure. Go rescue that damsel.Sons are to be raised to be men who can rule kingdoms, take dominion, and build wealth. To do this, they must first learn to take dominion of their appetites.

DAUGHTERS OF CHASTITY

While sons need straight lines, daughters need circles. Circles of safety. Circles of companionship. Circles of security. Circles of industry.

In Titus 2:4-5, we are told how older women are to instruct young women, “That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” Whereas sons are raised up to die, daughters are raised up to give life. She gives life by following the Apostle’s instructions to be “into husband, and into children.” This chastity is to recognize that her privilege is that of bearing life, bringing life, and sustaining life. The home which she keeps is the incubator of life, and she does all this in order that God’s Word be honored.

Daughters are to be raised to be queens of nations, industrious in their creativity, and give nurture and refreshment. To do this, they must first learn to take dominion of their emotions.

FATHERS, MOTHERS, SONS, AND DAUGHTERS

Your father points, your mother encircles. Children need direction and they need nurture. Sons which never grow up into sturdy oaks are the result of some combination of a pampering mother and an ambivalent father. Daughters which don’t become finely crafter palace ornaments are the result of fathers who aren’t affectionate towards them, and mothers riddled with envy and rivalry.

Mothers, you must not raise your sons to be safe. You are a mother, not a smother. You must raise your daughters to be loving wives, and loving mothers, and thus you must model this in your own marriage and parenting.

Fathers, you must not raise your sons to be self-indulgent. You are teaching them to be warrior-poets, not black-holes. Teach them to make, not take. You must raise your daughters to know and understand that they are rare treasures, which you prize highly.

A HAPPY PEOPLE

We talk of our rights for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We will not be a happy people merely by economic prosperity. Better is a crumb in peace than a feast with contention. However, a happy home is a blessing indeed, a prosperous home is a blessing indeed, a nation at peace is a blessing indeed. But the closing lines of this Psalm are not either or; rather it is intended to draw out how much more happy a people is who enjoy the electing grace of God upon them.

Happy is the people who are in such a case, but that happiness is exponentially heightened when the bedrock underneath, the waves washing overtop, the air all around is God’s favor. This favor is not found anywhere other than in His beloved Son. God will not look with favor on a people who are not in Christ. So turn to Christ, both you, the wife of your youth, your sons, your daughters, reckon yourselves in Christ, and enjoy the favor of God. God who forgives your sins. God who grants everlasting life. God who also gives sons like oak, daughters like beautifully carved palatial adornments, garners full of the fruit of hard work, and city streets empty of complaining.

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Psalm 124: Like a Bird in the Bracken

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INTRODUCTION

When you consider the peril our nation is currently in, and you reflect on the fact that this psalm came up as the text for this Lord’s Day purely by happenstance, your conclusion needs to be that it is almost as though a higher power were at work.

In 1582, in Edinburgh, an imprisoned minister named John Durie was released from prison. He was welcomed on the edge of town by several hundred of his friends, and as they walked along, that number soon swelled to several thousand. Someone began to sing—Psalm 124—and they all, much moved, sang it together in four parts, much as we will be singing it later in the service. “Let Israel now say in thankfulness . . .” One of the chief persecutors was said to have been more alarmed by this spectacle than anything else he had seen in Scotland, which is very likely saying something.

THE TEXT

“A Song of degrees of David. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: Then the proud waters had gone over our soul. Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: The snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

This psalm of gratitude for deliverance begins with a fragmented joy (vv. 1-2). Instead of trying to smooth it out, try reading it this way:

“Had it not been Jehovah! He was for us, oh let Israel say!
Had it not been Jehovah! He who was for us when men rose against us.”

If Jehovah had not been our deliverance, we would have been gulped down quick (v. 3). The wrath of man would have burned us up right now (v. 3). The flood waters would have overwhelmed us, and the stream would have drowned our soul (v. 4) when those proud waters went over our soul (v. 5). Notice that the water is proud water, haughty water. Blessed the name of Jehovah, who took us away from their ravening jaws (v. 6). We escaped the way a bird would dart away from a broken snare (v. 7).

Had it not been for Yahweh, we would have been swallowed, burned, drowned, eaten, and captured. But our help is in the name of the Lord, who made Heaven and earth (v. 8).

WHEN MEN RISE AGAINST US

The key to understanding the long war that is human history is found in the first chapters of Genesis. In Gen. 3:15, as God is pronouncing the curse on the serpent, He declares a necessary and permanent antipathy between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. This is the key—this is the antithesisbetween up and down, white and black, righteousness and unrighteousness. It is why the Lord clashed with the brood of vipers when He found them running the Temple.

So what God promised to do through the seed of the woman (Christ), He also promises to do through us who are in Christ. “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen” (Rom. 16:20). So remember this antithesis. The fact of a necessary conflict here is a fact of life. It is not an indicator that something has gone wrong. In fact, the indication goes the other way (Luke 6:26).

And remember that the waters that would drown you are proud waters. This means that they believe that you are the proud one, that you are the fanatic clinging to your obstinate ignorance. Why don’t you believe in science? Why don’t you submit to all the current authorities, who require us to say that a boy can become a girl? But if this is science, why didn’t all of this start in the vet schools, with them turning bulls into cows, thus augmenting our dairy production?

SING LIKE A BIRD IN THE BRACKEN

As I have reminded you before, you must remember also how much God loves cliffhangers. God delights in last minute deliverance because there is no joy like the joy that follows a last-minute deliverance. Chesterton put it marvelously: “The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God’s paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle—and not lose it.”

Imagine a bird in a snare, and how it flutters in the net in a desperate panic. And then imagine that snare broken, and if you blink you will not see the bird darting back into the bracken. But you will hear us back there in moment, singing our hearts out. And you haven’t lived until you hear birds singing Psalm 124.

A UNIVERSAL PSALM

We are not given a particular circumstance that occasioned the composition of this psalm. But because the antithesis is a constant reality in this fallen world, there have been many occasions where God’s people wanted to sing it—and there will be many more. This is a universal psalm, suitable for every age. We would be hard pressed to find a river in the world that did not at some point have the saints of God gathered on the bank, singing about their deliverance in this way. Whether we are talking about the Ohio, or the Ganges, or the Tiber, or the Jordan, or the Tigris, or the Nile, we can see that the proud waters were tamed and humbled. Wherever God’s people have gone, they have eventually had to deal with the fact that their soul was among the lions. And when God delivers, as He loves to do, He delivers us like we were Daniel. Let us trust Him like we were Daniel.

As Alfred Edersheim once noted, this psalm contains sweet doctrine concerning the past, present, and future (1, 2, 8). The Lord was on our side, which is past. The snare is broken, which is the present. Our help is in the name of the Lord, which is going to be true out to the end of the world, meaning that it applies to every possible future.

SO LOOK TO CHRIST

If you are alive and here with us now, that means you were born for this time. And because Christ is constantly at the right hand of the Father, set your minds on the things which are above (Col. 3:2), where He is. Set your minds on Christ, and He will bestow on you exactly what you need for this moment. And unless I miss the mark, that gift will be the triadic outpouring of faith, courage, and joy.

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Cause Your Face to Shine

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THE AARONIC BLESSINGS (Num. 6:24–26)

The most famous blessing of the Old Testament is the Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6. Here, the Lord, through Moses, gives to Aaron the blessing that he will use to bless the children of Israel. This blessing inspired the hope in many that God’s people would be able to see his face. This became a mystical quest in the medieval era – the beatific vision. And it drives many modern Christians to haphazardly urge one another to “look to Jesus,” without any real understanding of what that might mean.

THE MAN OF YOUR RIGHT HAND (Psalm 80)

Asaph, the psalmist, picks up on this idea of God’s favor being revealed by God’s face shining on you. If his face shines on you, then you will be saved. In this Psalm we see a few more things revealed about what will happen when God’s face shines. First, it will happen when God returns to his people. And you will know when God returns to his people, because his people will return (repent) to God. Second, it will happen when the hand of God is on the man of his right hand, the Son of Man, made strong to save by the power of God himself. And lastly, the result will be the shining of the face of God and the salvation of God’s people.

UNVEILED FACES (2 Cor. 3:18-4:6)

Paul explains that it is in Christ that the veil is taken away and the glory of God is seen by God’s people in the shining face of Jesus Christ (Mat. 17:2). This is the message that Christmas announces (Is. 9:2). And it is why Christmas should be celebrated with lights everywhere.

GIDEON’S POTS

Paul makes clear that the beatific vision is something that happens in the heart of the believer. You see the shining face of Christ when you come to God in faith. As Psalm 80 teaches, you come to God with a divinely prompted repentance, he reveals Christ in your heart, and you experience his tremendous salvation. And this light you carry about in your heart, like one of Gideon’s earthen pots, carrying the torch inside that announces the victory of Christ’s army.

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You Are My Son

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THE TEXT

“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me,‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel'” (Ps. 2:7–9).

THE SONSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST

Psalm 2:7-9 is probably one of the busiest intersections in all of Scripture. It is quoted or alluded to many times throughout the New Testament. Here David reveals to us the great irony that one of his own descendants will be actually be the eternal Son of God. This sonship is an eternal sonship, not something that came into being at a certain moment in time. Therefore, the sonship of the Son of God is unlike anything that we have ever known or experienced. The Son is the eternal Son of the Father, whose being is a revelation of God’s eternal self-giving love.

THE DECLARATION OF THE SONSHIP

God the Father announced that Jesus was this eternal Son at both his baptism and his transfiguration. And in both instances the proclamation that Jesus was God’s Son was accompanied by the declaration of the Father’s love for his Son.

And then again, we see the revelation that Jesus is the eternal Son of God at his resurrection, when he became the firstborn from the dead, and at his ascension to heaven, where he is seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus’ life corresponded to the Father’s announcement, showing that he was the eternal Son.

TODAY

So when is the “today” of Psalm 2? The answer is yes. There isn’t one moment when the Son was begotten, because the Son was eternally begotten. What we have are multiple moments throughout history when the eternal sonship was revealed in the life of Jesus Christ.

GIFTS

And one of the things that Psalm 2 reveals is that being God’s Son means that you have a Father who intends to give you certain gifts, like victory over all your enemies (including death itself) and an eternal inheritance.

YOUR SONSHIP

But here is the amazing part, in Rev. 2:26-27 we see because Jesus is the Son of God who became a man and joined himself to us, we can be placed inside of Jesus by faith. And when we are untied to Jesus through faith, we receive sonship as well. This means that the declaration of the coming of God’s eternal Son is the declaration to you that you are now children of God. What Jesus has you have.

And so you have victory over all your enemies (including death itself) and an eternal inheritance. And this is why the declaration that a Son is born in Bethlehem is good news for you. It means that you are a child of God, waking up on Christmas morning with a pile of gifts from your Father that you didn’t deserve. But they are yours because you are his. And you live inside his eternal love.

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