Who Is The Lord? I invite you to turn to Exodus, the second book in the Bible. We will be reading all of chapter 5 this morning, beginning at verse 1. Hear God’s Word: 1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” 2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” 3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” 4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.” 5 And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!” 6 The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, 7 “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.” 10 So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I will not give you straw. 11 Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.’” 12 So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. 13 The taskmasters were urgent, saying, “Complete your work, your daily task each day, as when there was straw.” 14 And the foremen of the people of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, “Why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday, as in the past?” 15 Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you treat your servants like this? 16 No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.” 17 But he said, “You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ 18 Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.” 19 The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, “You shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day.” 20 They met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them, as they came out from Pharaoh; 21 and they said to them, “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” 22 Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? 23 For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.” (Exodus 5:1-23) One of the first things I did when I was in seminary—I think it was on one of the first weekends there—was go to downtown Boston with a friend of mine. As we were walking through the city, one of the things that I really wanted to do was get a bird’s-eye view of it. It’s not like Chicago where you can go up the Sears Tower (I guess it’s the Willis Tower now) and have an observation deck. I didn’t know if there was such a thing in Boston—I still don’t know if there is one—but people had told us, “Just find one of these tallest buildings and go up to the top.” I think I went to the Fleet building, which was a bank building (that’s now Bank of America). It was one of these big, tall bank buildings downtown. I went in there and thought, “Well, I’ll just walk through the lobby.” The doorman said, “Hello.” He was really doing a bang up job as I just walked in, went to the elevator, and pushed whatever the top floor on the elevator was. I thought, “Well, there’s probably some sort of deck up there that we can see the whole city from.” We went all the way up, however many stories that was. When the door opened, to my surprise, it was like one of those scenes in a movie where you see people working on important business—everyone is in coats and ties, and stuff that people are doing is flying around—and then, all of a sudden, everyone stops. It felt kind of like that as the doors opened. This was clearly not an observation deck. It was the very top floor of the bank, and everybody was working. Thankfully, this was pre-9/11. I don’t know what would have happened post-9/11. We might have been on the news or something. But as we made maybe three steps to just look out the door, we were quickly alerted that we would not be looking out that window here on the top floor. It was not for twenty-year-old yahoos to come up and look out. We were quickly ushered out of their office space and back down the elevator to the bottom. I tried to explain that we were just going up to get a view. I tried to explain that the nice man in the lobby by the elevator didn’t seem to mind that we were going there. I even tried to explain that I was from Michigan, I didn’t know better, and we were just here to see the city. All of those things were to no avail, because we were nobodies in a room with somebodies. They didn’t know who we were, and they were not interested in the message we were telling them. So, despite our protestations, we were sent out of the Fleet building. That’s why I never wanted to live in Boston. I’m here, where you can climb up to the top of the six story building and nobody kicks you out. Moses and Aaron had a similar experience when they went to Pharaoh. They were there, they had an audience with the great and the powerful—and he was not very interested in what they had to say. Look at verse 2. This is the most important verse in the chapter: 2 But Pharaoh said [in response to Moses and Aaron and their demand that he let the people go], “Who is the Lord…?” (Exodus 5:2a) See ‘Lord’ there in those small capital letters? “Who is YHWH? Who is this Jehovah?” “Thus says YHWH, ‘Let my people go!’” “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:2b) “Who is the Lord…?” With that question, Pharaoh revealed more of his heart than he realized. Throughout the next ten chapters, we will see God go to great lengths to make sure that this question is answered. Pharaoh will know who the Lord is. By the time the Israelites leave Egypt, he will have unmistakably encountered the God who makes Himself known. Who is the Lord? This is the central question of the whole Exodus narrative—and, you could argue, the central question of the whole book of Exodus. Wasn’t that what Moses was just asking in the wilderness in Midian? “Who are You? What’s Your name? Who should I say that You are that has sent me to Egypt?” And now Pharaoh asks a very similar question. “Who is the Lord…?” There are all sorts of problems in the world. Open a paper, look at the little ticker across the bottom of your screen, or look down at your phone. There are all sorts of problems. I don’t know if there are more problems than there ever have been. Probably not. There are probably fewer people dying from disease or war. Actually, murder rates are down in this country. You could put together statistics that suggest that things have actually been a lot worse before. But, with the ubiquity of news and information, it sure feels like things have never been worse. It’s just one piece of bad news after another: another killing, disaster, tragedy, terrorist act, or scare. There are lots of things wrong in the world. Maybe you’re tempted to buy what the news is selling: that we are this close to having it all figured out—if we could just get the right president, have a strong enough military, have a climate change summit, fix education, or just have another program. I’ll leave it to you to decide how important each of those things might be, but here’s what we know from the Bible: there is one true, living God, and our central problem is that we do not know and worship Him. It’s not to discount or be pie-in-the-sky about whatever problems there are in the world and just say we don’t have to be involved in them. Of course we do. But here’s what we know from the Bible: whatever you might make of the world’s problems, and whatever you might think of the solutions, there is one true, living God, and our central problem is that we do not know and worship Him. We, like Pharaoh, must ask the question, “Who is the Lord?” The problem of the Garden of Eden is still the human problem today: unbelief. “Has God really said that you shall not eat from any tree in the Garden?” We have here, in Pharaoh, a particularly powerful example of a stubborn refusal to listen to God. Exodus 5 gives us a quintessential picture of unbelief. We have here an anatomy of unbelief. What does it look like when you don’t believe in God? That’s where we were. That’s where some of you are, perhaps. That’s where many of your loved ones reside (and you pray for them). What does unbelief look like? Let me unpack three characteristics of unbelief we see in Pharaoh that you may find in your heart or the hearts of people you love. Disregard for God’s Character In the heart of unbelief, there is a disregard for God’s character. This can be based on ignorance. Pharaoh didn’t really know who YHWH was. Remember, even Moses wasn’t sure until very recently who this Lord, YHWH, was. Pharaoh would certainly have been what we might call a spiritual person. He was even a very religious person. He was no doubt aware of many gods and goddesses. Perhaps he considered himself to be one. He no doubt worshiped a number of deities—deities of the sky, the earth, or the Nile—made sacrifices, and performed rituals. He was interested in the afterlife, and believed in miracles and unexplained phenomena. So he was what we would call a very spiritual person. But this God of the Hebrews, this I Am that I Am, this Jehovah, this God he did not know. I’m speaking to those who came here for whatever reason this morning. Somebody made you come, you just wandered in, or you’re visiting this country, and you don’t really know God. You wouldn’t call yourself a Christian or a believer. Maybe even this fits some students or young people here. I’m very glad that you’re here. Have you ever considered that perhaps your disregard for God is because you don’t really know Him? You know, you’ve heard about God. You’ve been to church. There was a time that you were kind of interested in spiritual things. You know some Christmas carols, and you recognize one or two of these songs. You like that about going to church—but honestly, you don’t know Him. If there is a God, do you think that you can understand Him, pretty well size Him up, and figure Him out based on a semester course in philosophy? That happens to some people. “I’ve kind of been to church. I’m kind of interested in God. But then I went to school and thought about things for ten weeks, and then I decided ‘Yeah, I think I know more than everybody.’” You’re ready to dismiss what you do not know; ready to ignore after a few moments reflection what the greatest minds in the world spent a lifetime pursuing. Perhaps they were all mistaken, but you cannot say they were all dumb. We have to remember this when talking to others about our faith. People may affirm there is a God. They may believe in a Creator. They may have no problem accepting that there is an afterlife. They may be spiritual people like Pharaoh. They may even be religious people like the Egyptians. They may profess a lot of things about God and still not know the Lord, just like Pharaoh. I’ve heard a line from D.A. Carson a number of times in his decades of doing university missions and speaking at different colleges all around the world. He’ll say, “You know, twenty or thirty years ago, it at least used to be the case that if you met somebody who was an unbeliever, the God they didn’t believe in was the Christian God.” What he means by that is that there used to be a sort of default, at least in the West: here’s ‘Christian’. If you don’t believe in God, then you are saying, “I understand this Christian understanding and I reject it.” Whereas now you go and find all sorts of people who say, “I don’t believe in God” or “I don’t believe in a deity” or “I don’t believe in even a Christian God,” but they don’t really understand it. They’ve never really been introduced to it. It may be in their cultural background—sort of slipped through a few of their cultural filters—but they don’t really know this God. They’ve not really been taught the gospel. They’ve never really studied the Bible. They didn’t have parents who brought them to church week after week. They are not well-versed in the Scriptures. We must remember that when people reject the God that we offer them, they may well be rejecting a God that even you and I would reject. “I can’t believe in a God who is just petty and just sends lightning bolts at people and He’s always mad at everybody all the time.” I’m with you. That’s not my God either. But they may have a god who is just the opposite. The god that they want is a god who’s just like this big guy who comes down a chimney in a white beard, says “Ho, Ho, Ho,” and gives presents. He looks at people, whether they are good or bad, and then rewards them. The people that you’re praying for likely do not know the God who is holy, self-existent, independent, transcendent, sovereign, and just. The God they think they know is not the triune God, not the God of the Bible, not the God we sing about in our hymns and confess in our creeds, not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They may be very spiritual and religious like Pharaoh. Yet do they know the Lord? Pharaoh’s disregard for God’s character is based at least partly on ignorance and partly on indifference. It’s not just that Pharaoh never had the opportunity to know the Lord. He’s getting that opportunity, and he will have the opportunity whether he likes it or not. No, he appears to have no interest in knowing the Lord. You can picture him with folded arms: “YHWH? Not interested. Don’t know Him. Don’t care about Him. Get back to work.” Ignorance and indifference go hand in hand. The people most indifferent toward God are often those most ignorant of God. Read the Gospels sometime. The demons were not indifferent toward God. They did not worship God, but they were the first ones to recognize the true identity of the Son of God, and they feared. They were not indifferent. There is no devil or demon in Hell who is indifferent to God, because they are not ignorant of Him. So many people—perhaps some of us—have this invincible (or so it seems) indifference to the God who made you, loves you, rules over you, and directs all your steps, and before whom you will one day sit in judgment. If you are indifferent to all of that, then you must not know who you are really talking about. I remember years ago. I don’t even know what it was about, but I came in and was telling my wife something that I had just heard or learned from some new documentary (it was really interesting) about Wayne Gretzky. I think she said something like, “Wayne who?” I said, “Wayne Gretzky. You know, the most famous hockey player ever? Hockey, you know—with the sticks, the puck, and the ice?” So, being a very much better wife than I deserve, she sat down and watched this thing about Wayne Gretzky. Now we can always have Wayne Gretzky to hold us together. We both know who he is! It’s kind of like how I need to learn who these people are on HGTV. I’m ignorant, so I’m indifferent—and truth be told, in that case, even if I wasn’t ignorant, I still might be indifferent. Just like my wife. When it comes to God, though we’re slightly less indifferent and ignorant, the two things often go hand in hand. Think about it. If you are here this morning, and you are bored—okay, sermons can be boring. We sometimes put that on the preacher. It happens. I’ve been there, done that. I’ve been bored with some of my own sermons! You say, “Then why do you keep going?” I’m just trying to find an interesting point. You can be bored with church. You can be bored with the sermon. There are boring things sometimes. But God is never boring. If you are indifferent to God, you must not really know Him. I’m not talking about you having a bad day, or about you feeling sort of low and spiritually dry. That happens to the best of us. I’m talking about you being completely indifferent. Then you don’t know this God who made you, loves you, and rules and reigns over you. The obstacle with so many people is plain indifference. They disregard God’s character because they don’t know Him and they don’t care to know Him. They are not curious, interested, or even bothered. At least Pharaoh was bothered! So many people today, when you tell them about the God of the universe, are all like, “You know, whatever.” Disregard for the God of the universe is the first quality of unbelief. Defiance of God’s Commands When Moses and Aaron present their request to Pharaoh, it does make you scratch your head a little bit. You want to know, “How did they get in there?” You can’t just go in and see the president whenever you want. Did Moses have some old connections from his time forty years ago when he grew up as a son of Pharaoh’s daughter? Some people have suggested that in the ancient world it was actually the responsibility of the king to meet with both the greatest and the lowliest. Consider how later in the book of Exodus you will find that Moses is overworked because he is trying to personally adjudicate every case that comes before him. Or think of how, later in the Old Testament, Solomon will have different people come before him and ask, “Whose baby is this?” “Could you decide this case for me?” Some people have argued that in the ancient world it was understood that the king would (in part of his time) have an open door to see people who would come with various complaints. Wouldn’t that be an interesting idea? However it was, they got in. I think it’s probably likely that there was some sort of understanding that you could have an audience before Pharaoh. Perhaps he thought of himself as a deity, and though he could be a tyrant, he was at least accessible. At least you got some sort of reply. When I was in fifth or six grade, I was a different sort of kid. I asked for atlases for Christmas. I had Transformers and some dinosaurs too—really cool stuff like that. But even when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I got really interested in politics. So, before the end of the school year, I wrote a letter to Ronald Reagan. Some of you just read about him in your history books. I’m so old… I have no idea what I wrote about. I think I was just interested because I heard he had this Star Wars program. I was like, “I’ve seen Star Wars. That’s cool.” You know, it was a missile defense program or whatever. But I remember getting a call from my elementary school in the middle of the summer saying, “Kevin, there’s a piece of mail here. It says it’s from the White House. Would you come?” Oh, man, that was…I just thought for sure I was going to…was I old enough to be a Vice President? Ronald Reagan wrote me back! Was I going to ride his horse? So I went in there and they were pretty excited. “Why don’t you open this up?” So I opened it up. It was a very nice form letter that obviously gets sent to all eight or nine-year-olds who write a letter to the President that said, “Thank you so much for your interest in the government and here’s this and this”. I probably got a Reagan sticker or something, but at the time I didn’t know any better. I just knew that I got a letter from the President. I got in the White House! I would think that something similar is going on here. Moses and Aaron get an audience with Pharaoh and, at the very least, he’s going to write back his form letter. Of course, they don’t have that method of communication, so you get a “Come in. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. No. No, you’re not going.” I don’t know. He hears request after request: “I’m not interested.” “I don’t know who this YHWH is.” “You just want to get out of work. Get back to work, and no straw.” Moses and Aaron try to explain, “You don’t understand. The God of the Hebrews met with us. You don’t know Him, Pharaoh, but we do. He met with us—which means, by implication, He is on our side—and He wants us to go worship Him for three days.” We still have that nagging problem. Why is it that they ask to go worship for three days when what they really want is to be free from Egypt? I think that the best explanation is that God was testing Pharaoh. “Let’s just start with three days. We’ll go from there, but will you give My people three days to worship Me?” The contest, really, is about whom you will worship. Who is the Lord? Is it the God of the Universe, YHWH, or is it Pharaoh? “Will you give to YHWH three days?” Pharaoh says, “No.” There are evidences in ancient literature and artifacts that show that Egyptian slaves were sometimes given time off to worship their gods. This was not an unheard of request. But Pharaoh will hear none of it. A document called the Targum, which is a rabbinical paraphrase of the Old Testament, give Pharaoh’s reply as this: “I have not found the name of the Lord in the book of the angels. I am not afraid of Him, nor will I release Israel.” So Pharaoh says, “I don’t know this God of yours. Who is He?” and “I don’t have to listen to Him.” Pharaoh set himself up in place of God. His plan was to defy a God that he didn’t believe in. That’s not the first time nor the last time that will happen. Ever see that in people? Maybe yourself? “I don’t even believe this God exists, and I hate Him.” Really? So is the problem in your head or in your heart? Pharaoh was, as Paul would say years later in Romans 1, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. I love this line from Phil Ryken in his commentary. He says, “Disobedience has a way of perpetuating ignorance.” Isn’t that true? When you do what you want to do, in defiance of God’s commands, it has a way of producing the ignorance required to do what you want to do. Did you ever see the show Family Feud? You ask 100 people some sort of ridiculous survey question, and there’s the board behind them. “The survey says…”, the little tiles turn over, and it gives the answer. Imagine if you surveyed 100 people: “Tell me why you do not believe in God.” People would give their answers: “God hasn’t shown Himself to me.” “The survey says…” Ding. It’ll turn over. 15 people say that. “Well, He’s not relevant for my life.” “The survey says…” another 12 people. “I’m going to say a bad experience with the church.” “The survey says…” There it is! 30 people had a bad experience with the church and Christians. Someone says, “Problem of evil.” It’s on the board. They go down the line. “Not intellectually credible.” “The survey says…” another 25 people. “You can’t buy the manuscripts.” “Creation doesn’t fit with science.” “How do you get the books of the Bible?” “Didn’t the early church just vote Jesus to be God?” “Aren’t there a bunch of made-up stories?” These are the sort of answers you would get on the board if you were playing a game of Family Feud on “Why don’t you believe in God?” All of those reasons certainly have some traction with people. It’s not to say that they are never sincerely held, but here is the one reason that would not show up on the board. It may be the most common reason why people do not believe in God. Here it is: “I don’t want to listen to God.” That’s why. Oh, it’s not going to show up. It’s much better to say, “I had a bad experience,” because people do have bad experiences with the church. It’s much easier to say, “Well, I’ve got intellectual questions,” because that sounds sophisticated—and maybe you do. But here’s the heart reason: “I don’t believe in this God because I don’t want to listen to Him.” It’s just like in the Garden. Adam and Eve wanted autonomy. They ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which meant they considered themselves adequate to determine what is good and evil. Ever since you were a little tiny toddler, you’ve learned to say, “You’re not the boss of me.” You say it your whole life to God. “Nobody is going to tell me what to think, what to feel, or how to live. I don’t like my sins being called sins. I don’t like that the Bible says I need a Savior. I don’t like the stuff about Heaven and Hell.” In a moment of honesty, some of us raise a fist toward Heaven and say, “Who do you think you are? Some kind of God!” Exactly. We don’t want a God. We want to be God. Pharaoh says to himself, “I hate this God of yours, whom I don’t even believe exists.” Such is the inconsistency of the unbelieving heart. The head finds reasons to disbelieve when the heart is unwilling to surrender. We’re not rational people so much as we are rationalizing people. We can always chase down an objection, always find a reason, always say, “Well, what about this? You can’t answer it.” Pharaoh had a disregard for God’s character and defiance of God’s commands. That was the heart problem. Disdain for God’s Community When you want nothing to do with God, you want nothing to do with God’s people. This may not always be the case, but it often is. God is invisible, so it can be hard to tell Him off to the face—but if you can’t poke God in the eye, God’s people will do. “Saul, Saul!” Jesus says. “Why do you persecute Me? You’re persecuting the church, but you’re persecuting Me! You hate them because you hate Me.” Jesus said in John 15, 18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you…‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. (John 15:18,20b) Pharaoh takes out his frustrations and his unbelief on the Israelites. Bricks without straw. It’s fascinating. Historians have looked at chapter 5 and demonstrated how historically accurate this description of Egyptian building and slave labor practices is. Most buildings in Egypt at the time (palaces, storehouses, military installations, and official residences) were made out of brick and mud. There are pictures in ancient Egyptian tombs showing people making bricks and wooden castings. Straw was a necessary component to keep the clay in place and help the bricks stay intact, keep them stronger and more secure. An archeologist in the late 19th century commented that he saw in one building a corner of the brickwork where the bricks were made without straw. He said that in all his years he had never seen it in any other place in Egypt. Could it have been the very bricks that the Israelites were making? We don’t know. What we do know is that brick making was a hard, hot, miserable process. It was difficult enough with the provision of straw, and virtually impossible without it. It’s no wonder that the Israelite foremen complained to Pharaoh that it’s his fault that the slaves can’t meet their quota. So you had this system with Egyptian bosses at the top, a layer of Hebrews who were foremen in the middle, and then all the slaves. It made sense that if you gave to this layer of Hebrew middlemen some of the responsibility (and perhaps some greater privilege), they would be happy to have the position and to have less work. They were the ones responsible to actually administer the discipline, or to keep their own countrymen working. It’s really an ingenious system. When these middlemen, these foremen, realize that they have the same quota without the same provisions, they go to Pharaoh and they say, “It’s your fault. You’re telling us, ‘You’re not making the bricks.’ How are we supposed to make the bricks? That was almost impossible. Now it is impossible because we have to go and find stubble in the fields and collect our own straw.” One of the things Pharaoh wanted to do was drive a wedge between the people and their leaders. After the foremen complained to Pharaoh, then all the people complained to Moses and Aaron. “You’re the leaders! You’re the saviors! You’re the deliverers! How’s that working out for you?” When people are mad, they find someone to yell at. Usually their leaders will do. What’s sad is that the people begin to doubt their leaders as a result of Pharaoh distrusting those leaders. Pharaoh didn’t believe Moses and Aaron, and now the people aren’t going to believe Moses and Aaron either. You see verse 4? “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.” (Exodus 5:4b) Verse 9: 9 Let heavier work be laid on the men…and pay no regard to lying words.” (Exodus 5:9) Verse 17 says to the foremen, “You are idle, you are idle…” (Exodus 5:17) Pharaoh says, “Look, you’re lying. You’re lazy people. You want to get out of work. You’re not telling the truth. This is all a ruse so that you can get out of being slaves. You don’t want to work hard. I’m not buying it.” Pharaoh considered the words of YHWH and His messengers to be lies. He approached the Word of God like a lot of people approach it—that is, “God’s Word is unfair. I don’t like God’s word, because it makes my life harder. It’s going to not allow me to enjoy life on my own terms. I want slaves to do the work for me. God’s Word says to let them go, so God must be lying. His people must be lying.” Ideas have consequences, and so does unbelief. Pharaoh is a striking example, on the one hand, of the bondage of sin. We can see why later in the New Testament. This exodus event will become the picture of our redemption from sin. We can see why Jesus would tell us that His yoke was easy, and His burden was light, because the history of God’s people was to have a master like Pharaoh, whose burden is cruel, and whose yoke will kill you. So it is with sin. If you try to serve sin, you think that to trade that master for God as your master is going to make you less free. That’s the lie of the devil. Then, as we’ll see over and over again, when you have that freedom in the Lord, what do you do when life is hard? You want to go back to the sin. “You know what? The status quo wasn’t so bad. Sin’s not such a bad master. Pharaoh wasn’t such a bad guy.” Pharaoh, like sin, demands bricks from the weary and the exhausted, and provides them with no straw. Pharaoh is an example of the bondage of sin. He’s also an example of the cruelty of unbelief in how he takes out his frustrations on God’s people. Here’s what Calvin says: “Now-a-days the Gospel procures hatred for many, deprives others of their pleasures, degrades others from their honours, brings to others the loss of their goods, sentences others to prison, others to exile, and endangers the life of some; in a word, the more God exerts His power, the more is Satan’s rage excited on the other side, and the wicked become more fiercely cruel.” Did you ever think that when you see the wicked more fiercely cruel and Satan raging as it seems that he hasn’t before, that perhaps he knows what we may have forgotten—that God is doing amazing things. What Calvin described here in Europe in the sixteenth century is absolutely the reality for millions of Christians in our world today. Perhaps some of it will be a reality for us: that to believe in the gospel will mean hatred, will deprive you of certain pleasures and degrade you from certain honors, will bring loss of certain goods, and will endanger your very life. If that happens to any of us now (or fifty years from now), remember that it’s not ultimately about you. There is a much bigger battle going on, just like there was in Moses’ day. One commentator says: “The real combatants here are not just Moses and Pharaoh or the Israelites and the Egyptians, but between YHWH and Egypt’s gods.” That’s what we’re going to see. It’s not Moses versus Pharaoh. It’s not even Israel versus Egypt. It’s the one True God versus false gods and the satanic realm which inspires those idols. So it is in our day. The battle is not ultimately against flesh and blood. You should not be surprised, Peter says, when the fiery trials come. You should not be surprised that in the heart of unbelief is a disdain for God’s people. You and I both know all sorts of very nice, decent, on-the-face of it moral, non-Christian friends and family members who are pleasant to be around. Thank God for His common grace. But if a culture becomes less and less tethered to some sort of Christian moorings, and if there is less residual truth to buoy up a moral framework, then we can expect this heart of unbelief to become more and more manifest. When it does we should not be afraid or take it personally. I always remember a little line that I heard from Ben Patterson. He says, “If you’re in a war and somebody shoots at your foxhole, you don’t pop your head up and say, ‘Was it something I said?’ No, you’re in a battle. You get shot at.” In the heart of unbelief is a disdain for God’s people because of a disdain for the God that they worship. It’s not to excuse us. We do all sorts of ridiculous things. We get that. But at the heart of it, Jesus said “If they hated the Master, why do you expect them to love those who follow Him? Are you greater than your Master?” A disregard for God’s character, a defiance of God’s commands, and a disdain for God’s community—such is the heart of unbelief. Two Other ‘D’s Look at the last two verses as we close. There’s disregard, defiance, disdain. What about doubt? That’s what we see with Moses. “Lord, I told You this was not a good idea! Can I be right once, God? Didn’t I say that this is not going to work? Didn’t I say that I’m not good at talking? Didn’t I say that he’s not going to listen? Are you sure about this?” Even the Lord’s chosen prophet was still struggling to know exactly who the Lord was. He needed to have the question “Who is the Lord?” answered. He wasn’t so sure. Let it be an exhortation and a comfort that our faith is often mingled with doubt—just like the father in the Gospels who cried out to Jesus, “I believe, O Lord. Help my unbelief.” Here’s Moses. “I believe. I’m going in to Pharaoh with Aaron. We’re going to say, ‘Let my people go!’”, and then when they don’t go, “I told You this was a terrible idea! Can we give it up now?” It’s faith mingled with doubt. Jude says to have mercy on those who doubt. There will be seasons when we doubt. But there’s a difference between the doubt that walks with God (like Moses) and the doubt that turns against God (like Pharaoh). The doubt that walks with God says, “Okay, are you sure God? I don’t know. I’m still worried about this.” But you’re walking with Him. And then there’s the stiff-arm that Pharaoh does. “No, no.” What about another ‘D’ as we finish. It was just hinted at and it’ll be the theme of all the chapters to come: ultimate defeat for Pharaoh. The king of Egypt would know the Lord before all was said and done. Just like: …every knee should bow… 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, (Philippians 2:10b-11a) Everyone will see the glory of the Lord revealed. For some it will be too late. There’s a popular saying—you can probably even find a few bumper stickers to this effect—“True Love Wins.” That’s true. Love wins—but not always in the way that we think. God’s love for His people will win out. God’s love for justice will win out. God’s love for the glory of His name will win out. All of that will mean that Pharaoh’s unbelief will lose. Love wins, which means unbelief loses. Who is the Lord? It’s the central question of the exodus and of the book of Exodus. Do you know the answer to that question? Who is really in charge? Not just in an abstract way. In your life, who is really in charge? Who can really be trusted? Whom will you serve? Who has the real power? These are the questions we all must face. Our prayer is that we would put our trust, faith, and belief in the One True God—this I Am, this YHWH, this Jehovah, this God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If not, perhaps you will at least be honest enough to understand why.

Faith, Philosophy and Spirituality 10 years

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48:43

Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of Sin

Episode in Sermons | University Reformed Church - East Lansin

Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of Sin

Faith, Philosophy and Spirituality 10 years

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49:38

Born Again To Hope

Episode in Sermons | University Reformed Church - East Lansin

Born Again to Hope Let’s open the Word of God and look at 1 Peter 1:3-5. I want you to see several things in this passage as we study it. First, notice that there’s a doxology (a word of praise to God) in the very first sentence of verse 3. Peter begins this section (vv. 3-5) with a word of praise to God. Everything else in this section is really a recounting of God’s blessings to you. So the first sentence has you blessing God, and the next several sentences are Peter recounting God’s blessings to you. By the way, that’s a perfect picture of what happens in worship. Have you ever thought about that? You bless God, and then God’s blessings to you are recounted through the Word as it is read, preached, prayed, and sung. Then you bless Him again—and then you are blessed more. That’s the rhythm of worship: blessing God, and then receiving God’s blessings. That’s what happens in this passage. First, Peter gives a doxology. Then he gives this account of God’s blessings to you. I’d like you to see three parts of that account before we even read the passage. The first thing that we see is a focus on God’s mercy. Peter says, “According to his great mercy,” reminding us that God’s mercy is fundamental to all of His other blessings. Then he points you to the new birth as the gift of God’s mercy. We’ll think about that as the great gift of God to us. Then he lists three gifts that flow from and come along with that new birth in the Christian life: a living hope, an inheritance that will never fade, and your protected salvation. He mentions the living hope in verse 3. Then he mentions the inheritance that will never fade in verse 4. Then he mentions the protected salvation in verse 5. That’s the shape of the passage we’re going to read. Remember what Peter is doing here. He is writing to Christians who are under duress. You may have come here this morning feeling under duress in your Christian life. There may be a family problem or a job problem that you’re facing. There may be something that you’re dealing with in your own heart that’s discouraging you. Peter is speaking to Christians that are under duress. In fact, these Christians are going to face the persecution that flowed out of the Emperor Nero’s malicious acts in Rome. There will be repercussions for these Christians in Asia Minor because of Nero. Many of them will be persecuted and exiled. They’ll lose their jobs. They’ll be separated from family. Some of them will be martyred, and Peter is preparing them for this. If you’re here today, you’re probably not under the kind of duress that they were under—but if you’re under any kind of duress, and you feel discouraged and hopeless, then Peter’s words are especially appropriate for you. He wants to encourage Christians and help them know how to go on in these kinds of situations of duress. Here are Peter’s words for you. Before we read the word of God, let’s pray and ask for His help and blessing as we study it. Heavenly Father, this is Your Word, breathed out of Your very mouth. We don’t live by bread alone, but by every word that is breathed out from the mouth of God, and all Scripture is God-breathed. And it is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, that we may be equipped for every good work. Heavenly Father, the grass withers and the flowers fade and fall, but Your Word stands forever. Help us to believe that right now as we hear Your Word read, and help us to base our lives on the truth of Your Word. Open our eyes by Your Spirit to behold wonderful things in Your Word, O Lord. We ask all of these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. This is the Word of God: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5) Amen. This is the Word of God: inspired, inerrant, and profitable. May He add His blessing to it. John Calvin, in his commentary on 1 Peter, says: “This is why Peter wrote this letter. The main object of this letter is to raise us above the world, in order that we may be prepared and encouraged for the battle of our spiritual warfare.” The Christian life is a fight. It’s not easy. Hard things happen. Discouraging things happen. We need to realize that we are not being invited to a tea party, but to a war. So, how are you prepared for that war? That’s what Peter is saying. Calvin goes on to say this: “For this purpose [so that we’ll be prepared for that spiritual battle], the knowledge of God’s benefits is of great help.” In other words, if you’re going to fight the fight of the Christian life, you need to know the benefits of God. You need to know the blessings that He has bestowed on you, or you won’t be able to fight the fight of the Christian life. “For this purpose, the knowledge of God’s benefits is of great help, for when we appreciate their value, all other things will become worthless.” When we realize what God has given us—when we understand His benefits—we won’t be scrounging around like paupers, hoping that somebody will give us a blessing. We’ll realize how much blessing God has given us. When we especially consider what Christ and His blessings are, everything without Him will seem but dross, he says. Jesus will be such a blessing to us that anything in this world that we enjoy that He is not all in and through will seem like nothing to us. What a wonderful summary of what Peter is doing in this letter! It’s as if Calvin has already given us our application of this particular passage. That’s exactly what Peter is doing. He wants to make sure that you understand exactly what God has bestowed on you. It makes a difference in the Christian life. There was a Scottish pastor named William Guthrie who wrote a book called The Christian’s Great Interest. In that book, he says this about Jesus Christ: “Less would not satisfy. More is not to be desired.” Do you see what he’s saying about Jesus? He’s saying that anything less than Jesus Christ could not satisfy us for eternity. Once you have Jesus, you’ll never say, “Well, I’d like more of something else,” because He is capable of supplying satisfaction for your soul forever. Nothing less than Him would satisfy, but nothing more than Him is necessary for you to be satisfied. In this passage, Peter is pointing you to something that you have in Jesus Christ that is meant to supply what you need to fight the fight of faith, to live the Christian life, and to face the various duresses of Christian life—whether it’s persecution or some other sort of problem. Starting with Praise When you have a big problem, you’re tempted to be caught up with that problem. It dominates your mind. You start obsessing about it and thinking that it is the worst thing that you’ve ever encountered. It seems so big! Over and over, what does the Bible encourage us to do? Put our problems in comparison to our God. Don’t deny that our problems are great, but put them in perspective by comparing them to our God. Here’s Peter talking to Christians under duress, and he says, “The first thing that we need to do together is praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, Peter starts with doxology. That reminds us that it’s always time to give praise to God. There’s never a time when a Christian can’t give praise to God, even when in deep distress. Think of Job. Job gets word that his children have been killed, his houses have been lost, and much of his wealth has been dispersed—and what is his response? The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away… (Job 1:21b) And he fell down and worshiped Him. There’s a reason why we quote that verse so often at funerals and at gravesides. When we have lost someone that we deeply love, and have born that wound of bereavement, we need to remind ourselves that God is still worthy to be praised. Even in our deepest sorrow, He is worthy of praise. These Christians are going to be persecuted, yet Peter says, “Let’s pause right now, before we say another word, and bless God. Let’s praise God.” It’s always time to praise the Lord. It’s singularly instructive that a letter written to help Christians coping with persecution would begin with a doxology. In a day when so many people respond to personal pain and suffering by questioning the existence, sovereignty, or kindness of God, isn’t it interesting that Peter responds to those kinds of challenges by praising God? So often, when you find skeptics that are denying parts of Christianity, you’ll find that their problems aren’t really rooted in intellectual issues, but in a wrong response to the trials of life. Many of you have heard the name Bart Ehrman. He is a liberal New Testament scholar who teaches at the University of North Carolina, and who denies the inspiration, inerrancy, and authority of Scripture. That denial was rooted in his belief that the Bible did not supply a persuasive answer to human pain and suffering. Isn’t that interesting? Human pain and suffering led him to deny the Bible and the God of the Bible. But Peter’s experience of pain and suffering pressed him back into praise to God. Isn’t that interesting? That tells us something very important about the Christian life. So the first thing that I want you to see is this: it’s always time to praise our God. No circumstance in our life can undercut the worthiness of God to be praised in the least. That’s the beauty of it. Our circumstances will change, but our God is unchangeable. No matter what’s happening in your life, our God is still worthy to be praised. That’s why Job could say what he said. I’ve been blessed my whole life to be exposed to Christians who are facing great trials and yet still praise God. I’ll never forget Margaret DuBois, holding her dead two-year-old boy in her arms, saying to me, “Ligon, would you lead us in singing the doxology?” I’ll never forget Bob and Amanda Bailey, after their niece and nephew had died in an automobile accident. When I said, “How are you, Bob and Amanda?”, they said to me, “The Lord is good in all He does.” I’ll never forget Paul Stephenson, when his son had taken his own life, leading us in prayer. Normally the pastors would lead us in prayer as we went into the funeral service, but Paul turned and said, “I’d like to lead us all in prayer.” He gave praise to God, even at the funeral service of his son. The privilege of being with Christians that face trials like that and trust and praise God—I can’t tell you what a blessing that has been to me. My friends, when you face duress, troubles, and hardship, don’t forget to praise God, because our praise is not circumstantially rooted. It’s rooted in who our God is, and that never changes. That’s why He’s a rock to us in all those circumstances of life. The Roots of Praise Look again at verse 3. Notice that as soon as the doxology is given, he now focuses on God’s mercy. “According to his great mercy”. The praise that he lifts up to God is rooted in God’s mercy shown to us. Biblical praise, Biblical doxology, is never rooted in our circumstances. If it were, it would ebb and flow, right? Sometimes things are good and sometimes things are not. If we only praise when things are good, then our praise is going to ebb and flow. What is our praise rooted in? It’s rooted in who God is and in what He has done for us. Here, Peter focuses on God’s great mercy. Christian praise is supernaturally grounded in the gift of great mercy to us by the triune God. Therefore, our praise is really always a response to what God is and does for us. How can a Christian praise a sovereign God in the face of trial, persecution, and suffering? The answer is, “Only if you have seen His mercy. Only if you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.” Samuel Rutherford has this amazing phrase. He asks: “How do you learn to kiss the hand of a striking Lord?” That’s an interesting picture, isn’t it? I’m sure the image probably comes from the discipline of children. Parents have to discipline their children. Well, how do you learn to love your parents when they are disciplining you? When you realize that what they are doing is for your good. They really love you. They really care about your best interest. So how does faith learn to kiss the hand of a striking Lord? By seeing His love, mercy, and goodness to us. Peter is saying, “According to His great mercy, He has given us gifts.” So Peter is drawing our attention to the gift of mercy’s as the ground of praise. This is so important, by the way, in the way that we sing. If you’ve paid attention to the lyrics that you’ve sang today, all of the praises that you gave to God were rooted in truths about Him and His salvation. That’s exactly the way that the Psalms operate. They never ask you to praise God without giving you a reason. They always tell you why it is that you ought to praise the Lord. When we are singing Psalm 100 (to the Scottish Metropol version)… “All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice; him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell. Come ye before him and rejoice.” What does it say when you get to that fourth stanza? “For why? The Lord our God is good…” The reason that we’re going to come before Him with singing and praise Him with cheerful voice is because the Lord is good, His mercies endure forever, and His truth shall stand at all times. All of these reasons are piled up as to why we ought to praise the Lord. Watch that in singing. Often times, the difference between a good song and a bad song in worship is that a good song will call you praise the Lord, tell you why, and give you biblical reasons for it; and a bad worship song will call you to worship, but never tell you why. The Psalmist always tells you why, and Peter’s telling you: “Why should you give praise to God in the midst of your troubles? Because of His great mercy. He’s been merciful to you. Mercy is God’s goodness toward His people, with a view toward our miserable condition. To praise God in every circumstance, you have to have tasted of that mercy. You have to have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. To do that, you have to look at the cross. You can’t know this kind of praise unless you have seen the mercy of God, shown to you at the cross in the giving of His Son, Jesus Christ. In this passage, Peter will emphasize the resurrection of Christ. But you can’t know this mercy if you haven’t seen the mercy of God to you in Jesus at the cross, haven’t trusted in Him, haven’t believed in Him, and haven’t rested in Him for salvation. But there’s the second thing we see. The focus is God’s mercy: that’s the grounds of our praise. That’s what enables us to praise God in every circumstance. Then what is the gift of that mercy? What is the thing that Peter wants to draw our attention to? What’s that mercy given to you? Look at the language: “According to His great mercy, He has caused you to be born again.” Mercy’s Gift: New Birth God has given you a new life. He’s made you alive. You were dead in trespasses and sins, to use Paul’s language from Ephesians 2. What has He done? He’s raised you to newness of life. Or, to change the picture to Ezekiel 37, you were a valley of dry bones, and what has He done? He’s spoken the word, the Spirit has brought the bones together, put sinews and muscles on you, and brought you back to life and back into the land. Or again, Jesus in His conversation with Nicodemus: you can’t see the kingdom of God unless you are born again. That’s the gift that God has given. Notice that he speaks of this new birth, this new life, this being born again, not as something that you do, but as something that God has given. A lot of people approach Christianity as if it’s a way to make a new start in life. “I’m going to do better than I’ve done before. I’m going to turn over a new leaf. I’m going to stop doing the bad things that I did, and I’m going to resolve to do better.” But Peter is talking about something far more profound than that. I was recently with a man (who is not a believer) who had lost his wife. He had been ministered to by the church in a very kind and loving way, and he said, “I’m going to be a new man.” I thought, “Well, we’ve got a gospel opportunity there, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he understands the gospel yet.” The gospel isn’t something that makes us able to save ourselves. The gospel is the announcement of what God has done to save us. The new birth is not something we do. It’s something that God gives to us. I love the way John Blanchard puts it: “Christianity is not making a new start in life. It’s receiving a new life to start with.” The new birth that’s being talked about here is a gift from God to us from His mercy. Peter wants us to realize that God has given that to us. Our new life flows from the heart of a merciful Father, and our new birth is effected by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He has caused us to be born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. When Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, all those who trust in Him alone for salvation as He has offered in the gospel are also raised to newness of life through what Jesus did in His resurrection, and Peter wants us to understand that. That is the grand gift of God’s mercy: new birth. You are a new creation. It’s as if you were a person in a coma who was woken up, or a person who had literally been buried who was brought back out of the tomb more alive than ever before. That’s the picture of what it means to be a believer and that’s the gift of God’s mercy. Peter knows you need to understand that if you are going to live the Christian life. That has a determinative effect on a Christian life. You have been given the new birth by the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The power that raised Him from the dead is at work in your life. Now, you have to accept that by faith sometimes. Sometimes you look at your own life and you say, “You know, it doesn’t feel like the power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in my life.” But it is, believer. If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, that power is at work in your life. New Birth: the Gift of Living Hope According to the mercy of God, you’ve been given the new birth ‘through’ the resurrection of Jesus Christ but ‘to’ or ‘toward’ three other things. The first is a living hope. You’ve been born again through the resurrection of Christ to a living hope. That is, when you were saved, when you were regenerated, you were given a living hope. Now you may not feel like you have a lot of hope right now. There may be something going on in your life that doesn’t make you feel very hopeful this morning. But guess what? If you’re a believer, you have a living hope, whether you like it or not. You’ve got one. This is not a subjective feeling. Peter is saying, “Believers, you may feel hopeless, but you are never without hope. Jesus died and was raised again so that you may never be without a hope. You have a living hope. It’s not just wishful thinking. It’s alive.” One of the mottos of the state of South Carolina is “Dum spiro spero”. It’s a Latin phrase that just means, “While I breathe, I hope.” I’ve often thought, “I wonder if a Christian came up with that motto,” because that’s a really good motto. I’ve even seen it in Scotland—it’s a family motto for the Lindsey family in Scotland. It’s almost like it comes out of 1 Peter 1:3-5. It’s true for the believer: while we breathe, we always have hope. There’s never a time when those lungs are pumping air and that heart is beating that we’re without hope. That’s part of the gift of God to us. Even when we feel hopeless, you know what our job is? Our job is to line up our attitudes, feelings, emotions, and desires with the truth of the reality of the objective hope that we already have. This has been given to us by God, and what we need to do is to work to really believe it. New Birth: the Gift of an Unfading Inheritance You were given inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. You know that that’s like nothing in this life, because things in this life are perishable. They can be corrupted or messed up, and they can fade away or be taken away. It kind of reminds you of Jesus talking about where the moth corrupts and thieves break in or rust comes about. It’s a lot like that language. You wonder if Peter’s thinking about Jesus’ words when he says these things. He’s given you an inheritance that nobody in this world can take away, and it will never corrupt in this world. When I was in Scotland, the book shop that I liked to go to the most was the Free Church of Scotland Book Shop on the Mound in Edinburgh. The lady that ran the book shop was Mrs. Brand. She was very kind to me, and I got be friends with her because I love books and I was always in that book shop. Her daughter lived in Kuwait with her husband. I think he was working with the British Foreign Service, and so they were stationed in Kuwait for a period of time in the 1980’s. Mrs. Brand and her husband went to visit her daughter one time, and they were in Kuwait for a couple of weeks. When they came back, they discovered that their house had been broken into, the family silver, the family china, her jewelry, and some of his medals from the Second World War had been stolen. He had been a soldier in the British Army and had gotten the Victoria Cross, which is sort of like the Congressional Medal of Honor. All of that had been stolen. She was telling me about this one day in the bookstore, and I said, “Oh, Mrs. Brand. I’m so, so sorry. I know these things meant so much to you. They weren’t just of material value. They were of sentimental value. I’m so sorry you’ve lost these things.” And Mrs. Brand said, “Oh, Ligon. They’re just baubles.” Understand this: she was not one of those super spiritual people that you couldn’t have a real conversation with. I mean, she was a really normal, nice, wonderful, Christian lady and if she had been hurting about that, she would have told me. So when she said that, I felt about that big, because I knew that if that had happened to me, I would have really been missing the things that I lost. I realized this Christian woman was really, genuinely saying to me, “You know what? My husband and I are alive. We’ve got wonderful children. We’ve got the Lord. I’m sorry I lost those things, but they’re baubles in comparison to what we have in Christ.” That’s exactly what Peter is saying here. He’s saying, “You can go through tremendous losses in this life—but the inheritance that God gives you? Nobody can take it away.” There’s a play on the word ‘inheritance’ in the Old and New Testaments, by the way. Paul, in Ephesians, will talk about God’s inheritance and our inheritance: the inheritance that God has given us—that’s the inheritance that’s being spoken of right here—and also the inheritance that God gets out of redemption. Do you know what the inheritance that God gets is? You. Over and over He says, “You are my inheritance.” Have you ever asked the question, “What is it exactly that God gets out of redemption? I know what I get out of redemption. I don’t go to hell. I don’t get the condemnation that I deserve. I get Heaven forever with the Lord Jesus Christ and His people. What is it that You get, God?” The answer is you. You are His inheritance. You are what He wants. Well what you do get out of it? The ultimate thing that you get out of it is fellowship with God—what you were made for. You were made to fellowship with the living God. You were made in His image, to commune with Him forever. You get that as your inheritance. That’s the inheritance that God has given to His people. When He made you alive with Christ Jesus in the resurrection, He gave you that inheritance, and nobody can take it away from you. He’s just reminding you of something that nothing can touch or take away in this life. Why? Again, as Calvin says, so that He can raise you up from this world—so that you can fight the fight of faith, because you’re going to lose a lot of things in this world. When you lose them, are you going to think of them as, “Oh, I’ve lost my greatest treasure,” or are you going to think, “They’re just baubles. Nothing can take away the inheritance of God from me”? New Birth: the Gift of Protected Salvation He says: [This] inheritance [is] kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:4b-5) Nobody can steal your salvation from you. Nobody can snatch you out of His hands. This is a strong word about assurance. You sang one of my favorite Augustus Toplady songs this morning. Another favorite among his songs is A Debtor to Mercy Alone. Do you know that hymn? That’s a good hymn worth memorizing. In that hymn, there’s a line that goes: “More happy, but not more secured, the glorified spirits in Heav’n.” You see what Toplady is saying in that line? He’s saying that when we are glorified in Heaven, after the coming of Jesus Christ, the final supper, and the marriage feast of the Lamb—as we’re living with Him forever!—we will more happy, but no more secure than we are right now. You will never be more secure than you are right now. That’s exactly what Peter is talking about. God’s got ahold of you, Christian, and He’s not going to let go. You are secure. Nothing can take away the salvation that is yours in Christ Jesus. No one can take it away. You are secure. Peter wants you to know that you have those things. Why? So that you can face the trials that you’re going to face in this life. One of the sad things is that so many Christians go through life without fully appreciating all of these benefits that God has given to them. Sometimes we even forget about them, and other times we find it hard to believe that we really have these benefits. I’ve seen a particular story told in a variety of ways that makes me kind of suspicious about it, but it’s such a good illustration at this point that I’ll share it. It’s a story of a man who was living somewhere in the plains of the Ohio Valley. He was not doing well in his business there. So he decided, “I’m going to make a new start in life. I’m going to move to New Orleans and find a new profession.” So he got together all of his possessions, sold them, and was able to buy one one-way river-boat ticket from somewhere on the shores of the Ohio—maybe around Kentucky. He was going to make his way to the Mississippi, go all the way down to New Orleans on that river-boat, and make a new start in life. After he sold everything, he got together a little bag of food, because it was going to be a several-day journey on the river-boat to get to New Orleans. He got on the boat, and when it came time to have the dining hall times—when everybody else on the boat was going to the dining-hall and eating these nice meals that were prepared for them in the dining hall—he would slink off into the corner, open up his little bag of cheese, crackers, and apples (and whatever he had in his little bag), and eat that while everybody else was in the dining hall. One day, a person said, “Why aren’t you coming to the dining hall to eat with us?” And he said, “Well, I don’t have any money to pay for the food that’s in the dining hall, so I have my own food here and I just go off somewhere and eat it on my own.” And they said, “Well, have you looked at your ticket?” And he said, “No.” And they said, “Take your ticket out and look at it.” So he pulled his ticket out. On the bottom of the ticket, it said, “All meals included.” So for two days, he had been eating moldy cheese, crackers, apples, and other things in his little bag, when, in fact, all of those benefits of those wonderful meals were his. He just didn’t know it. That’s the way a lot of Christians live. You don’t realize the benefits that come along with your salvation in this life. Those things are there to help you fight the fight of faith in the Christian life. So study them until you believe them, and then praise God in every circumstance. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for this time in Your word. We pray that You would bless it to our spiritual nourishment. Receive our thanks and praise, all in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Faith, Philosophy and Spirituality 10 years

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