Christ Church

A Message on Plagues

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Introduction

The prophecy of Joel is about a coming disaster in Israel, the hope of repentance and reformation, and the promise of international justice. We do not know the full nature of the hardship we are facing, but we know that it is from the Lord. It is for our good, it is for His glory, and it is part of His plan to fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. But one of the great lessons of Joel is the centrality of worship to all of life. Joel confronts our national sin of thinking that worship is not related to plagues, politics, economics, and family life.

A Summary: The Locusts & the Acquittal

The book opens with the word of the Lord describing a locust plague of epic proportions (1:2-4), but by the end of the book the Lord is declaring the condemnation of Egypt and Edom and the acquittal of the bloodshed of Judah (3:19-21). So we need to know how Joel gets from locusts to the judgment of nations. A big clue is found in the canonical run up to Joel. It’s striking that Daniel foretells the coming of four kingdoms (Dan. 2: image dream, Dan. 7: four beasts). In the latter vision, Daniel sees a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a great beast representing four empires (Dan. 7:2-23ff). And Hosea follows also promising that God will be to Israel like a lion, a leopard, a bear, and a wild beast (Hos. 13:7-8). So when Joel tells us that four kinds of locusts are coming, we should take note (Joel 1:4, 2:25). On the one hand, locusts are one of the plagues of judgment that God promises to send on His people if they forget Him and break His covenant (Dt. 28:38-42). Foreign nations are also described as devouring locusts in various places (Jdg. 6:5, 7:12, Jer. 51:14, 27, Nah. 3:17). Putting this together, I take Joel to be describing an actual, literal locust plagues (past, present, or future), but he is also clearly using that to foretell the invasion of foreign nations (1:6, 2:2-11, 20). And this is confirmed by the resolution of Joel’s prophecy being the great judgment of the nations in the Valley of Jehoshaphat (3:2-12, 19). So the judgment of locusts is a sign of an international crisis facing Israel.

Whatever it is that we are facing in this moment – whether it is a plague of a virus or a plague of complete panic or both, biblically literate Christians should ask what is God saying to us? And for that answer, we must look to His word and not the newspaper and not our best guesses.

A Famine of What?

What is striking about the book of Joel is how he connects the judgment of God to the international political situation they are facing. And one way to see that is by noticing what’s missing. There are at least two major things missing in the book of Joel. There’s a great plague coming, and repeated calls to lament, wail, fast, sound the alarm, cry out, mourn, and return, but the prophet does not dwell on “what” they should cry out, mourn, return from. There are a few hints, but the sin of Judah is not described in much detail. So a great deal of the message of Joel is: you know what you need to do. Turn, cry out, repent. You know what you need to do. This is what true repentance and conviction looks like. When God is at work, you know exactly what needs to be done.

Second, the effects of the locust and invading nations are not what you’d expect. Yes, there’s “wasted land” and “food is cut off” (1:10, 16) and the earth has become a “desolate wilderness” (2:3), but that isn’t the worst of it.

“Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord.” (1:9).

“Be ashamed, you farmers, wail you vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley… Gird yourselves and lament, you priests… for the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God” (1:11-13).

“So rend your heart and not your garments return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm. Who knows if He will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him – a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?” (2:13-14).

Or after the promise of returning the years devoured by the locusts, Joel says: “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God…” (2:26).

The real crucial issue for Joel is not merely the sin itself, nor the material, economic, or political effects of plagues and invasions – the really crucial issue is the lack of worship in the temple, the lack of grain and drink offerings, the lack of praise from God’s people.

“The Lord also will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain… And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drip with new wine, the hills shall flow with milk… a fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord…” (3:16-17). Where does healing and fruitfulness flow from? The house of the Lord.

It slowly becomes clear that the real famine, the real tragedy caused by the locusts and invading armies is the lack of worship. It’s not hunger and drought first and foremost – the lack of harvest means a lack of worship. Other prophets dwell on the precise sins (e.g. greed, injustice, idolatry, sexual immorality, etc.).

It isn’t that Joel doesn’t care about those things, it’s just that he knows the root problem is the lack of true worship of the true God. Joel says that it’s lack of true worship that leaves them prey to the nations (2:19). It’s lack of satisfaction in God’s good gifts that leaves people vulnerable to sin. But when He sends the rain and the fruitful harvests, it is precisely so they will remember the Lord and rejoice in the Lord and so not be overrun by their enemies (2:21-27). The worship of God is their fortress.

The Spirit of God & Calling on the Lord

Joel’s description of God’s salvation is really quite striking. And what’s striking is the order of events recorded in chapter 2, leading up to the pouring out of the Spirit (2:28). There was a very clear historic fulfillment of that promise in Acts 2 as Peter noted – which incidentally means that the “wonders” of earth, blood, fire, and smoke are symbolic of the great cataclysm of the end of the Old Covenant era, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD (e.g. Is. 13).

But Paul quotes this same passage in Romans 10: “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved… For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” (Rom. 10:9-13)

This teaches us that Joel not only had a historic fulfillment at Pentecost, but Paul teaches us that Joel also gives us general description of Reformation and Revival. But what’s striking is that when the people mourn their sin and turn to the Lord, the joy of the Lord fills their hearts and it’s in that moment that they know that the Lord is their God – and then after that, the Spirit is poured out in power. First, the Spirit is poured out then people call on the name of the Lord to be delivered from their enemies (2:32). In other words, people don’t call on the name of the Lord in order to receive the Spirit; they call on the name of the Lord because they have received the Spirit. This is true in the moment of conversion and the whole process, but it is also true for Reformation and Revival – the cataclysmic cultural and political turning of nations back to God.

The order of reformation and revival according to Joel is this: Mourning/repentance — Joy — Worship — Knowledge — Spirit — Deliverance — Justice.

The Spirit is poured out because God’s people have turned to Him and rejoiced in Him and in His good gifts and come to know Him. Of course God’s Spirit is at work in every step of the way – we can do nothing apart from God, but there is the work of conversion and there is great deliverance from enemies.

Conclusion

The Spirit is not a genie that we summon up. The Spirit is poured out with power on those who seek God with all their hearts, who rejoice in Him, who study His word and His ways. Joel teaches us that when God’s people turn away from Him, the central thing they have turned away from is worship of Him. And so He removes His blessings from their midst, and the central sign of that judgment is the removal of public worship from their midst. If we were ever in any doubt about whether we are under the judgment of God, let there be no mistake: we are under the judgement of God because we are not worshipping God together this morning. He has taken away the grain offering and drink offering from the house of God.

But if we will call on the name of the Lord. If we will turn back to Him with all our heart, and seek His word and seek His ways, He will pour out His Spirit upon us once more and deliver us from all our enemies.

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Jesus in the Garden

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The Passages

For so many reasons, Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane is one of the most pored over scenes in Scripture by the devout. Wedged between the Last Supper and Judas’ betrayal, the scene shows us Jesus at His most emotional. In John 11:35, Jesus weeps over Lazarus. But in Matthew 26: 36-42; Mark 14: 32-35; Luke 22: 39-44, we see and understand His pain. His tears are like blood. His disciples are sleeping. His anguish is so extreme that an angel is sent to comfort Him. Hebrews 5 describes the desperation of Christ’s prayer, but also the surrounding purpose. Christ had something to learn?

The Whole Story

In the Garden, we see Jesus ask His Father to do something. And we see His Father deny Him. This is the Incarnate Word, the One through Whom all things were made. This God-Man was the lynch-pin of all history. The One Whom the prophets foretold, the Lamb to unmake and remake the world. And in His most desperate prayer, His Father denied Him.

The Lessons

I’m sure faithful pastors have been thundering on these verses since they were still freshly written history, and faithful ministers will be thundering on them still until the very end of history. And there will still be new things for us to learn from Christ’s anguish and courage when this world is in its final week. There are new things for us here right now.

God Says No

God is speaking all around us all the time, crafting every whirring atom in every scene in which we exist. Every one of our moments is divinely bespoke, and when we cry out to Him, He hears us. He answers prayers. But He does not always say yes. Because, while we are often focused on physical comforts (comforts which He invented for us), your comfort is not your highest and best use. The Father denied Christ here, because His purpose was Christ’s glory for eternity, for His Son’s highest and best use…

Feelings

Feelings should be given to God to be confirmed by Him or to be thrown down. By all means, tell Him what you feel. Be raw and completely honest. But our feelings should never be given the steering wheel. Not even Christ’s feelings in that Garden were given control. How much less should yours be? And Christ’s pleading had an ending. In the story that follows, throughout the passion narrative, we do not see Christ still begging to be relieved of the cup. Think of Him standing in front of Pilate and how changed His demeanor is. Christ pleaded with God. And then, having received His answer, Christ acted. He ran the Father’s play to His own extreme hurt.

We live in a moment in time when feelings are treated like more than just sacred cows. They are treated like sacred black holes, bending light itself with their gravity, bending the very truth. In the face of feelings, truth is treated like blasphemy.

It’s Not About Us. It’s Never Been About Us. Let’s Talk About Us.

Jesus died for you, but He didn’t really die for you. The atonement wasn’t one of those terrible claw games at a grocery store where our Savior paid an enormous price only to discover that we were cheap trash made of itchy, recycled polyester suits. Jesus didn’t get ripped off. And if we were all He had been given, the rip off would have been significant. Jesus glorified the Father. He drank the cup and went to the cross and rose again to glorify the Father. If saving us—if saving you–hadn’t glorified the Father, Jesus wouldn’t have done it. It wasn’t about us. We weren’t worth it! But Restoring the imago dei, raising millennia upon millennia of corrupt dry bones, remaking a race of helpless, hopeless trash into beings that could also please and glorify the Father, that was a miracle of miracles. Our rotten corruption, our darkness, our canker sore hearts—what we brought to the table was an impossible level of difficulty and a manifestation of Christ’s humility. And yet, Christ stooped lower than low and made us new. Yes, He died for us. But He did it for our Father’s glory…

Fatherhood

Fatherhood is not protectionism. Fatherhood is preparation. Fatherhood is sending.

Freedom vs Predestination

God shows His work when He chooses to. We love the idea of a radical human freedom that even God defers to. It is a concept that rubs our human fur the right way, because it’s a tasteful basket of fruit left at the feet of our favorite idol…ourselves.

Our Cups, Our Crosses, Our Easter Mornings

We should face our trials, our suffering, our feelings in the same way Christ did. Give them to your true Father, the One Christ leads us to. But once you’ve given them to God, submit to what He chooses to do with them. More than that, labor to live through them and with them in whatever way will bring your Father in Heaven the most glory, knowing that route is never painless. Not even for the most perfect man who ever walked this earth. But on the other side, there is Easter, and joy eternal to dwarf mere hours of pain.

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Calvinism 4.0: God as the Good Author

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Introduction

Many people struggle with the problem of evil. If God is all powerful then he could eliminate evil. If God is all good then He would certainly want to. So then why does the classic Christian position teach us that God is both all powerful and all good, and yet evil continues to exist?

The Text

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field” (Matt. 13:44).

Summary of the Text

I want to work through this short little parable, and summarize it for you. What is the kingdom like? It is like hidden treasure. When a man finds it, he then hides it again, and in his joy he goes and sells everything in order to buy that field. This is a kingdom mystery—it is like the purloined letter in Poe’s mystery. The treasure in this instance is hidden in plain sight. The seller gives it all up, not knowing the value of what he is giving up. The buyer relinquishes everything he has elsewhere in order to obtain that which has value beyond reckoning? Who is the seller here? I take it to be the nation of Israel, not knowing the value of their field, or the treasure in it. Although they did not know the value, their ignorance was culpable. They ought to have known. The buyer abandons all he used to have, gives it up, and comes into his new possession, well knowing the value of what he has. Thus far the point of the parable.

But after that point, I want to step back a few paces and look at the mere fact of the parable.

Gospel Story, the Story of the Gospel, and Story Gospel

“The kingdom of God is like a man who . . .” Time is mysterious, space is mysterious, people are mysterious, and story arcs are mysterious. In order to have a story that is interesting, there must be conflict. Perhaps we should qualify this by saying that in order for story in this world to be interesting, there has to be conflict. Presumably, we won’t be bored in Heaven, and we know that in the resurrection the kind of warfare that we now undergo has ceased. “Her warfare has been accomplished” (Is. 40:2). If the millennial age is one in which the swords are fashioned into plowshares, how much more will this be true of the eternal state (Micah 4:3)?

But in order to keep from becoming bored, there must be a placeholder for that conflict. In our resurrected and glorious condition, there will be no suffering, tears, bloodshed, or anything else like that. But there will be something. We just don’t know what it is yet. My nomination for that post is a little something called difficulty. Maybe God assigned you to the planet Jupiter, and charged you to grow giant turnips, fifty feet across. But all that is just speculation. We know that the resurrection life will be perfect, and that means not boring.

Perfect Storytelling

Whether or not the stories themselves grow increasingly gripping, we know that storytelling will finally come into its own. Perhaps the solution to this dilemma is found in the fact that in the resurrection, the glorious things that God accomplished here will finally find a narration that is worthy of the subject.

“And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Rev. 5:11–12).

God knows how to stack one choir upon another, and so myriads of angels ascend on the celestial risers. And they sing about the crucifixion, about something that happened here, in this life, in our history.

What is Evil?

If you were making the perfect salad, you would take the garden slug out of it. If you were making the perfect wine, you would make sure to remove the battery acid. If you were decorating the living room perfectly, you would take the greasy engine block off the coffee table. If you were making the perfect flower arrangement, you would not drape a bicycle chain over the vase. But we are in danger of becoming the victim of our analogies.

But if you were telling the perfect story, would you remove the evil from it? Think for a moment. Would it have improved The Lord of the Rings if Tolkien had left out Sauron? Or Saruman? Or the Nazgul? Or Gollum? With the disappearance of each villain or antagonist, is the story getting progressively better? Or worse?

“The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:26–28).

God is the good author of the good story. God is the perfect author of the perfect story. God freely and unalterably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, “yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established” (WCF 3.1).

God is not the author of sin, but He most certainly is the author of a story that has sin in it. This is not a defect in the story, but is rather the glory of it.

The Bloom of Fallen Creation

When the day of resurrection comes, it is not the case that God has mighty angels pick up big erasers in order to wipe out everything that was. The cosmos is not erased. The cosmos is reborn, and what went before is contained within, and glorified by, that resurrected state.

“Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Rom. 8:21–22).

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).

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Apostles Creed 10: Was Crucified, Died, and Was Buried

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction

The word crux helps us understand when we need to express the importance of getting to the crux of a matter—and crux comes from the Latin word for cross. Nowhere is this more important that in discussing the death of Jesus, the salvation of the world.

The Text

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord.  He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.  He descended into Hades.  On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text

“For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).
The death of Jesus was an historical event, as we emphasized last week. But if the death of Jesus were simply one more historical event, situated among numerous others, then this determination of Paul’s to emphasize that event alone would be curious and nonsensical. Why talk about this one thing, when there are so many other things that have happened?
The answer has to do with the radical nature of Christ’s death. The word radical comes from radix, which means root. The root principle is the cross, the intersection at the crossroads is the cross, the foundation and cornerstone is the cross. It is therefore possible to talk about Christ and Him crucified in relationship to absolutely anything else in the world and to do so without changing the subject. It is possible to move from the death of Jesus to any subject whatever, and to do so without lurching.

Died, and Was Buried

Let me begin with the aftermath of the cross—the death of Jesus. Jesus had a true human body, capable of dying. When He was nailed to the cross, He was in the process of dying. He died. He was not an apparition that seemed to die. He was not a true human being who only appeared to die, fainting from the torture. He was a man who could die, and who under those circumstances did die. The phrase that He was buried underscores this fact. His death was a true death. He was dead and buried. He was buried for three days. This exclamation point is part of the gospel as the apostle Paul recounts it. “how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose . . . ” (1 Cor. 15:3–4).

Was Crucified

There are four aspects of this momentous death which we must consider. We will define and consider each of them in turn. They are redemption, propitiation, co-crucifixion, and reconciliation. These are all described as happening in the cross. We will discuss another aspect of our salvation—justification—when we come to the resurrection (Rom. 4:25).
Redemption is the result of having been purchased or ransomed. Propitiation is the turning aside of wrath. Because of union with Christ, co-crucifixion is how we die when Christ dies. Reconciliation is the establishment of peace where before there was hostility. And the Bible describes all four of these as occurring in the cross of Jesus Christ.

Redemption

The Bible talks about the blood of Jesus as a purchase price, or as a ransom payment. With His blood Jesus purchased men for God (Rev. 5:9). Jesus referred to His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). We have redemption through His blood (Eph. 1:7). Jesus died as a ransom to set us free from the sins we had committed (Heb. 9:15). Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Gal. 3:13).
Why? He redeemed us so that we could have the promise of the Spirit (Gal. 3:14), so that we might have forgiveness (Eph. 1:7), so that we could have liberation from sexual lust (1 Cor. 6:18-20), and so that we could be freed from actual slavery (1 Cor. 7:13).

Propitiation

The Bible talks about the death of Jesus as absorbing the blow that the wrath of God delivered. When people try to escape the Bible’s teaching on the substitutionary death of Christ, it is this element that often bothers them the most. But Scripture is clear. God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17, ESV). “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). In order to be just and the one who justifies, God sent Christ to be a propitiation (Rom. 3:25-26).
The word propitiation refers to that which satisfies the wrath of God.

Co-crucifixion

The Bible talks about the death of Jesus as somehow accomplishing a death, a most necessary death, for us. “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14). Paul confesses that he was crucified together with Christ (Gal. 2:20). We are not to boast in anything, except in the cross which crucified the world to us and us to the world (Gal. 6:14). Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh, and all its longings (Gal. 5:24). If we have been baptized, we were baptized into Christ’s death (Rom. 6:3), so that we might be freed from sin (Rom. 6:6-7).

Reconciliation

The Bible talks about how the death of Christ effected a reconciliation between us and God. “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight” (Col. 1:21–22). God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing our trespasses to us (2 Cor. 5:18ff).

All Together

Because the wrath of God fell on us in Christ (propitiation) as the curse of the law, this means we were ransomed from the curse of the law (redeemed) so that we would be separated from everything that came before (co-crucifixion), with the end result that we now have peace with God (reconciliation).

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