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The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Part 1

Christ Church on December 4, 2022

INTRODUCTION

The coming of the Messiah Jesus at Bethlehem was in many ways the end of the world. It was the end of an old world and at the same time the beginning a new world. In the old world Satan, Sin, and Death had a fierce power. The god of that age blinded many, and they served many idols and false gods viciously. The light of God was relatively faint and shadowy, largely limited to a tiny nation in the middle east.

But with the coming of Christ, Satan has been struck with a fatal blow, and now sin and death are on the run. Satan has been cast down and now Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. This means that we live in a radically new world, a new heavens and a new earth, and we are witnesses of a New Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven.

THE TEXT

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken…” (Mt. 24:29-35)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

We call this passage the “Olivet Discourse” because Jesus gave this message on the Mount of Olives (24:3, cf. Mk. 13, Lk. 21). While Jesus had just called down a great curse upon Jerusalem and the temple (23:35-38), His disciples pointed out how beautiful the temple was, and Jesus says every single stone will soon be cast down. This provokes the disciples to ask when these things would take place, when Christ would be coming, and when the end of the world would be (24:2-3).

While they may have assumed that the destruction of the temple/Jerusalem would coincide with the final return of Jesus and the final end of the world (24:3), Jesus proceeds to answer these questions like an Old Testament prophet, describing the destruction of the temple as a cataclysmic, world-ending event with the sun and moon going dark and the stars falling out of heaven (24:29). He describes a coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven (24:30) and a gathering of the elect by angels and sounding trumpet (24:31). But Jesus insists that the disciples understand that these things are very near, like they know summertime by the leaves on a fig tree (24:32-33). Jesus says that what He is describing will happen during that present generation (24:34). Heaven and earth will pass away, but His words will not pass away (24:35).

COLLAPSING SOLAR SYSTEMS

It’s important to remember that when God created the sun, moon, and stars, they were created in part for “signs,” and the sun and moon were created to be rulers of the day and the night (Gen. 1:14-16). This is why when Joseph dreamed that the sun, moon, and 11 stars were bowing down to him, everyone knew what the dream implied (Gen. 37:9-10). When the great darkness covered the land of Egypt, God was warning Pharoah that his world-empire was about to come to end if he didn’t relent (Ex. 10:22).

So when the prophets take up descriptions of collapsing solar systems, we should read the contexts carefully: Ezekiel 32 addresses Egypt centuries later, and in addition to other plague-like language, says, “And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD. I will also vex the hearts of many people, when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations, into the countries which thou hast not known” (Ez. 32:7-9). We see the same thing in Isaiah 13 describing the destruction of Babylon and again in Joel 2 regarding the destruction of Jerusalem. So when Jesus says the sun and moon will go dark and the stars will fall from the sky, He is describing the apocalyptic end of the world of Jerusalem.

THE SON OF MAN COMING

When Jesus says that a sign will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will see the Son of man coming in the clouds, He is quoting Daniel: “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom thatwhich shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:13-14). Notice where the Son of Man is coming to: He is coming to the Ancient of Days in heaven. Jesus is talking about His Ascension, not His final coming at the end of history. What’s the sign that all the tribes will see? Pentecost: the pouring out of the Spirit upon all the nations represented there. This would be the most natural reading of the angels gathering the elect: these are the apostles and evangelists preaching the gospel (Mt. 24:31, cf. Acts 6:15, Gal. 4:14).

CONCLUSION

Jesus says that “this generation” will not pass away until all these things take place (Mt. 24:34). Many Christians attempt various exegetical gymnastics to make “generation” mean something longer than the usual 40 years or else some way of selectively choosing which things happened in the first century and which things are still awaiting fulfillment. But the words of Christ are clear, and He did ascend to the Father where He was given all authority and power and that was proven by the gift of the Holy Spirit. And about 40 years later, in 70 A.D., the city of Jerusalem was burned to the ground and the temple was destroyed.

We must not underestimate what the first coming of Christ accomplished. What was only foreshadowed in the tabernacle and temple has been accomplished by the crucifixion of Jesus: the curtain in heaven has been torn open and a new and living way has been opened through the flesh of our Lord (Heb. 10:20). The old heavens and earth truly were dark, but the Sunrise from on High has visited us (Lk. 1:78). And a new heavens and a new earth have been inaugurated by the coming of Christ. “Arise, shine, for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon us” (Is. 60:1). We have come to a New Jerusalem that is coming down out of Heaven; Immanuel has come and the dwelling place of God is with men (Heb. 12:22, Rev. 21:1-3).

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Black Bethlehem (Christmas Eve A.D. 2021)

Christ Church on December 24, 2021

As we continue to tell the story of how the Christ child was born, we need to take into account the story that his birth place had already been telling for centuries. That small town provided the perfect backdrop for the work of redemption that the Messiah was going to accomplish. It would be hard to imagine a better statement of the need for the salvation of all men.

We should begin with the stark fact that Bethlehem has always had what might be called outsized significance. It was a village (John 7:42). And in his famous prophecy, Micah pointed to the fact of its small size—it was little among the clans of Judah (Mic. 5:2).

But Matthew 2:6 cites this as saying that Bethlehem was “by no means least among the rulers of Judah.” We may harmonize this apparent conflict by noting that Bethlehem was always small, and yet Bethlehem was at the same time always important. It comes up in the biblical narrative a lot more than a village that size really had any right to expect—long before David was born there, and long before Jesus was born there.

Now Jerusalem was located in the territory that belonged to Benjamin, and Bethlehem is just a few miles south of Jerusalem, in the territory of Judah. This obviously places Bethlehem right near the boundary of Judah and Benjamin.

It is the place where Rachel died (while giving birth to Benjamin) and so she was buried there. The traditional site of her tomb is pointed out to tourists down to this day (Gen. 35:19; 48:7). Samuel used it as a landmark in his instructions to the future king Saul (1 Samuel 10:2). So the first thing to note about this village is that it is the memorialized place of Jacob’s grief.

A couple of real curiosities with regard to Bethlehem occupy the last part of the book of Judges. In the first half of the book, we have numerous stories about Israel’s judges and how they delivered Israel many different times. But then the last part of the book is dedicated to a couple of horror stories, both of which involved Bethlehem, and which seem odd.

On the reasonable (and ancient) supposition that Judges and Ruth were written by the prophet Samuel, we may well ask why he included these two lengthy stories at the end of Judges. The judges ruled Israel down through Samson (Judges 1-16). Then in Judges 17-18, we have an apparently random story about a man named Micah who stole 1100 pieces of silver from his mother, returned it, and they make an idol. He recruits a Levite named Jonathan from Bethlehem to be a renegade priest, who is subsequently recruited by a roving band of Danites to go off with them (Judg. 18:30). The thing that makes this striking is that this Levite from Bethlehem is Jonathan, son of Gershom, son of Moses.

Then we have the appalling story of the rape and murder of another Levite’s concubine, her dismemberment, and the near eradication of the tribe of Benjamin (Judg. 19-21). The concubine was also from Bethlehem, was unfaithful to her husband up north in Ephraim, and then came back to Bethlehem for four months. In this second story, the name of Bethlehem is brought up four times. The concubine was from Bethlehem, David’s village, and her assailants were from Gibeah, which was Saul’s home town. And the resultant war on Benjamin was directed by Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron.

With these two stories, if we are dealing with the grandsons of Moses and Aaron respectively, we have to wonder why these stories are placed at the end of Judges, when they would need to have happened at the very beginning of the period of the judges. If they are chronologically out of order, then it would appear to be in order to highlight some aspect of those stories. And Samuel all but tells us why he included the book of Ruth, a story that takes place almost entirely in Bethlehem. In a very real way, the story of Ruth is about Bethlehem.

“And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Beth-lehem: And let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the seed which the LORD shall give thee of this young woman” (Ruth. 4:11–12; vv. 18–22).

The wise men that Herod consulted told him that the Messiah was to be from Bethlehem and they cited Micah 5:2 in support. I am suggesting that the birthplace of the Messiah to come was perhaps known as early as the time of Samuel. Peter said that all the prophets, from Samuel on, spoke of the days of the Christ (Acts 3:24). Micah certainly spoke the truth, but I don’t think it was a new truth.

Jeremiah prophesied (Jer. 31:15) that Rachel would be given over to weeping for her children, which was fulfilled when Rachel’s daughters lost their sons to Herod’s cruelty (Matt. 2:18). This was fulfilled by the slaughter of the small boys at Bethlehem, but we should remember that Ramah was just a few miles away.

And so here is the point. Banish from your minds a quaint little Bethlehem, filled with traditional values, holly wreaths, and silver bells, the kind of place that our secular humanists love to make war on. No. Bethlehem means house of bread, but Elimelech took his family away because of famine (Ruth 1:1). The grandson of Moses came from there, and became a priest-for-hire, introducing gross idolatry into Israel. Bethlehem was a place of deep grief—Rachel’s tomb, and centuries later, Rachel refusing to be comforted. A fratricidal civil war swirled around Bethlehem, a war that happened all because a woman from that town was raped and murdered. And then David, clearly under the favor of God, was essentially hidden out by the sheep pens when the prophet Samuel came to anoint the next king of Israel.

So Bethlehem provides a wonderful witness to our desperate need for cleansing and salvation. Without the forgiveness of Christ, we do awful things to one another, whether we dwell in big cities or in small towns, whether it is centuries before Christ or centuries after, whether we are tall or short, male or female, white or black, red or brown.

Wicked Bethlehem, dark Bethlehem, lost Bethlehem, black Bethlehem, broken Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.

There are glimmers of the light to come—Phinehas, Rahab, Boaz, Ruth, Samuel, David. There are glimmers by grace. We do see real covenant loyalty. But we do not see real hope, we do not see true grace rise like the sun on a summer day until Joseph helped Mary to lie down on the straw, so that she might in that place give birth to the desire of nations.

In Bethlehem, of all places.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.

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The Coming of Christ (A Star Out of Jacob #4)

Christ Church on December 19, 2021

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THE TEXT

And now, indeed, I am going to my people. Come, I will advise you what this people will do to your people in the latter days.”

15 So he took up his oracle and said:

“The utterance of Balaam the son of Beor,
And the utterance of the man whose eyes are opened;
16 The utterance of him who hears the words of God,
And has the knowledge of the Most High,
Who sees the vision of the Almighty,
Who falls down, with eyes wide open:

17 “I see Him, but not now;
I behold Him, but not near;
A Star shall come out of Jacob;
A Scepter shall rise out of Israel,
And batter the brow of Moab,
And destroy all the sons of tumult.

18 “And Edom shall be a possession;
Seir also, his enemies, shall be a possession,
While Israel does valiantly.
19 Out of Jacob One shall have dominion,
And destroy the remains of the city.”

20 Then he looked on Amalek, and he took up his oracle and said:

“Amalek was first among the nations,
But shall be last until he perishes.”

21 Then he looked on the Kenites, and he took up his oracle and said:

“Firm is your dwelling place,
And your nest is set in the rock;
22 Nevertheless Kain shall be burned.
How long until Asshur carries you away captive?”

23 Then he took up his oracle and said:

“Alas! Who shall live when God does this?
24 But ships shall come from the coasts of Cyprus,
And they shall afflict Asshur and afflict Eber,
And so shall Amalek, until he perishes.”

25 So Balaam rose and departed and returned to his place; Balak also went his way (Numbers 24:14–25).

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The Person & Work of Christ (A Chalcedon Christmas #3)

Christ Church on December 12, 2021

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INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of Hebrews 3, we are told that Jesus Christ is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. As an apostle, sent from the Father, He represents God to us. As a high priest, designated to come before God on our behalf, He represents us to God. Consequently, the bridge between God and man is a bridge that can be traveled in both directions—from God to man, and from man to God. But in order to be the high priest, He also had to serve as the sacrifice, and this meant that He had to be a spotless sacrifice. This also is addressed by the author of Hebrews.

THE TEXT

“Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14–16).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Because Christ was given to us, we have a great high priest. Because He is our high priest, He travels away from us, in order represent us in the heavens. In the heavens, He sprinkles His own blood on the altar (Heb. 9:12), and in the heavens He also intercedes for you (Rom. 8:34), praying for you by name.

We are instructed to hold fast our profession precisely because we have a high priest in the heavens, and this high priest knows exactly what it is like down here. The original word here is sympatheo—we have a high priest who is sympathetic with us in our infirmities. He was tempted in all the same basic areas we are tempted, and yet without sin. His ability to sympathize with us is not despite His perfection, but rather is the result of His perfection.

His throne is a throne of grace, not a throne of recrimination or accusation. It is a throne of grace. So, we are told, when you are in need of grace (unmerited favor) or mercy (demerited favor), or both, you are supposed to come to his throne boldly.

All of this is reflected wonderfully in the Definition of Chalcedon, which says that Christ was “like us in all respects, apart from sin.”

TRUE TEMPTATION?

Some people are prone to rely on their own wits instead of the plain instruction of Scripture, and so they reason something like this. “If it was not possible for Christ to sin, then in what way was His temptation a true temptation?” And because we share some of the frailties of the objector, this kind of thing sometimes make sense to us.

Let us answer it with another illustration. Were Christ’s bones breakable? And the answer to that question is both yes and no. They were breakable in that they were made of the same breakable substance as our bones are. His bones were not unbreakable; they were not made out of titanium. But because Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), because the Word of God is unbreakable, His bones were not going to be broken (Ex. 12:46; Num. 9:12; Ps. 34:20; 1 Cor. 5:7; John 19:36).

So Christ’s human nature was peccable (capable of sin), but the promises of God concerning Him were impeccable, which meant that God’s Word was going to be fulfilled in Christ, and that Christ would see the desire of His soul and be satisfied (Is. 53:11). The Christ will prevail through all of His temptations and trials, and He will praise His Father in the great congregation (Ps. 22:25).

TRUE SYMPATHY?

We can only come before this throne of grace boldly if we are sure of our reception, and if we are also sure that the one who receives us warmly is actually capable of helping us. “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). We must believe that He is there, and we must also believe that He is both willing and able to help us. “And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean” (Matthew 8:2). And Christ said yes.

Suppose that temptation is the wind, and that sinning consists of blowing right over. Suppose also that all of we assigned the task of walking 10 miles in winds that were up to one hundred miles per hour. To make this an illustration with nice round numbers, suppose that 100 of us were told to walk this distance in this wind. Ninety of us blew over the moment we stepped outside, nine of us blew over after three yards—true saints, all nine of them, and one of us (Jesus) walked the entire distance. Now which of the 100 can be considered a wind expert? Who knows the most about it?

When you sympathize with a fellow right next to you, who blew over the same moment you did, your sympathy is weak and pathetic compared to the true sympathy that Christ has for you and for him. His sympathy is the stronger for His strength. His strength does not render Him a weak high priest. How could it?

COMPLETE MAN, COMPLETE OFFICER

We have considered the person and work of Christ. The person of Christ was the result of the great miracle that was wrought by the Holy Spirit nine months prior to Bethlehem (Luke 1:35). And because He was the complete and perfect man, He also perfectly fulfilled the calling of His various offices (prophet, priest, and king). Only a perfect man can be a perfect prophet (Dt. 18:15). Only a perfect man can be a perfect high priest (Heb. 4: 14-16). Only a perfect man can be a perfect king (Rev. 19:16).

And precisely because Christ has entered into His inheritance, it is possible for us to enter into ours—because all that He has and is belongs to us by grace. “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

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Through Covenantal Eyes (A Star Out of Jacob #3)

Christ Church on December 12, 2021

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THE TEXT

Then Balak said to Balaam, “Please come, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.” So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, that overlooks the wasteland. Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me here seven altars, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.” And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on every altar.

Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not go as at other times, to seek to use sorcery, but he set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam raised his eyes, and saw Israel encamped according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him.

Then he took up his oracle and said:

“The utterance of Balaam the son of Beor,
The utterance of the man whose eyes are opened,
The utterance of him who hears the words of God,
Who sees the vision of the Almighty,
Who falls down, with eyes wide open:

“How lovely are your tents, O Jacob!
Your dwellings, O Israel!
Like valleys that stretch out,
Like gardens by the riverside,
Like aloes planted by the Lord,
Like cedars beside the waters.
He shall pour water from his buckets,
And his seed shall be in many waters.

“His king shall be higher than Agag,
And his kingdom shall be exalted.

“God brings him out of Egypt;
He has strength like a wild ox;
He shall consume the nations, his enemies;
He shall break their bones
And pierce them with his arrows.
‘He bows down, he lies down as a lion;
And as a lion, who shall rouse him?’

“Blessed is he who blesses you,
And cursed is he who curses you.”

Then Balak’s anger was aroused against Balaam, and he struck his hands together; and Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, and look, you have bountifully blessed them these three times! Now therefore, flee to your place. I said I would greatly honor you, but in fact, the Lord has kept you back from honor.”

So Balaam said to Balak, “Did I not also speak to your messengers whom you sent to me, saying, ‘If Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the Lord, to do good or bad of my own will. What the Lord says, that I must speak’? (Numbers 23:27–24:13).

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