God's Grace Never Runs Out

God has put enough into the world to make faith in him a most reasonable thing.  But he has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason or observation alone.     --Ravi Zacharias, Christian apologist and author

I am working on a project on grace.  My fear is that it will be so heavily optimistic that it seems to grant license to sin; or, at the other extreme, that it will be pedantic--boring, pedagogical, pretentious, showing off great knowledge of words but missing the point entirely.  While being an absolute joy to write, I fear it will be unreadable.

I have chosen a great theme: grace is one of everybody's favorite attributes of God, one that we all strive to emulate as much as humanly possible.  I also have great source material:  the Christian Bible is the story of God's love and mercy throughout the history of man, from the creation to the fall to the redemptive work of His only Son, who paid the ultimate price for my salvation.

But not everyone who hears about grace lives in it daily.  We all sin and fall short.  Some of us try to repent, but the world is a very unforgiving place.  So we try to love God where we are, whether that's in a job we hate, or a loveless marriage, or in an environment of open hostility toward Christ and His followers.  We read about persecuted Christians in Syria and Iraq, who give up their lives rather than denounce their faith or pay a religious tax imposed by followers of the Qur'an.

How do you preach grace in those places?  How do those people receive the message of God's grace available to them?  The world is not always sunshine and lollipops.  God knows how hard it is to follow Him.  And for those who reject the message of Christ, what about them?  The Bible says we should love them, to show grace to them whenever possible.  When something tragic happens, our hearts go out to them, because we know they are humans, ones who love and who are loved, ones who were also created in God's image, whether they accepted it or not.

Jesus said, "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.  People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark.  Then the flood came and destroyed them all.  It was the same in the days of Lot.  People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.  But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all." (Luke 17:26-27).  Some people don't heed the warnings of God's wrath.  Noah preached for 120 years as he was building the ark, but no one believed him.  Lot begged his sons-in-law to come out of Sodom and Gomorrah, but they did not listen.  It is easy to think of those who died in those stories as victims.  But if God sent people to warn them, did they not have any personal responsibility for what happened to them?

The prophet Jeremiah gave a message of disaster, and then of comfort, in chapter 16 of his book.

Then the word of the Lord came to me:  You must not marry and have sons or daughters in this place. For this is what the Lord says about the sons and daughters born in this land and about the women who are their mothers and the men who are their fathers: they will die of deadly diseases.  They will not be mourned or buried but will be like refuse lying on the ground.  They will perish by sword and by famine, and their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. --Jeremiah 16:1-4

This sounds harsh, doesn't it?  But in context, God's message was that there were consequences for the decisions the people of Israel had made.  They had left their God, and did not follow the moral law, instead following after the pagan idols of other nations.  They were no longer a people separated to God, to show His blessings to a fallen world.  They were fallen themselves.  We can see signs of this even today.  Not to sound too ancient, but America was founded by religious people who wanted to get away from persecution.  They wanted to be free to worship as they pleased.  When our forebears became like other nations, great revivals brought us back to God.  We followed moral teachings from the Bible, and did not worry about sexually transmitted diseases or HIV/AIDs.  There was a time when it was taboo to produce a child out of wedlock.  Today, almost half of children born in our country are being raised by single parents.  The culture has changed, and whether we like it or not, the occurrence of disease and death related to moral decay is on the rise.

Jeremiah goes on:

And do not enter a house where there is feasting and sit down to eat and drink.  For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says: Before your eyes and in your days I will bring and end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in this place.  When you tell these people all this and they ask you, "Why has the Lord decreed such a great disaster against us?  What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the Lord our God?"  Then say to them, "It is because your fathers forsook me, declares the Lord, and followed other gods and worshiped them.  They forsook me and did not keep my law.  But you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers.  See how each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying me.  So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor. --Jeremiah 16:8-13

I think that those who lived in this country a century ago would not recognize this place now.  Where we were a land of plenty, now we have to protect our natural resources.  In some places we must ration water; in other places we must have food shipped in, because the land is no longer self-sustaining.  Where we once had freedoms, we now have regulations.  We have gotten used to the new normal; we have defined deviancy down.  (Google it: read the government report written by a US Senator almost a quarter-century ago entitled "How we've become accustomed to alarming levels of crime and destructive behavior".)

But Jeremiah gives hope.  Although he predicts that the people of Israel will be taken into exile in Babylon to the north, he also predicts their return.  "However, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when men will no longer say, 'As surely as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites out of Egypt', but they will say, 'As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.'  For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers."  The return from Babylonian exile would be as great a feat of God's power and mercy as their deliverance from Egyptian bondage in the time of Moses.

You see, God does not lose His power when disaster strikes.  He does not become weak in time of war.  He is still God, and He is still gracious. He still wants what's best for us, even when we disobey Him.  He still shows His mercy, even to those who are persecuted for His names sake.  If some must lose their lives, God will at the very least allow it to be used to teach the next generation.

Oh Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, "Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good.  Do men make their own gods?  Yes, but they are not God!  Therefore I will teach them--this time I will teach them my power and might.  Then they will know that my name is the Lord."  --Jeremiah 16:19-21

Sometimes people have to come to the end of their rope before they look to God.  Some people have to be driven to their knees before they look up.  God is there, waiting patiently for us to return to Him.  To those who are faithful to the end, who lose their lives for His sake, He promises a crown of Glory.

Immersed in the Spirit

There are certain catch-phrases within Christianity that identify one with a certain sub-group.  One of those phrases is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Those within that sub-group believe that there are certain "sign gifts", without which one cannot reveal all that God has for you.

I grew up in a denomination that does not believe sign gifts are needed for today.  They feel that God worked through His Holy Spirit in a unique way right after the Resurrection, in order to grow the Church into a thriving, autonomous body that could withstand persecution, opposition, or neglect.  Now that the Church is established, they feel the Spirit moves in missions and ministry, not in signs and wonders.  Unbelievers who come to the Church looking for miraculous signs are like the Pharisees who came to Jesus asking for miracles; He told them then that the only sign they would get was the sign of Jonah, a miracle from centuries earlier.  Unbelievers today who expect Christians to be endowed with the ability to do signs and wonders should look to the Apostles who were present in the second chapter of Acts, who spoke in the languages of the international congregation assembled there.  They say that speaking in a "prayer language" defeats the original purpose, which was to spread the gospel to as many people as possible.  "Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but one who prophesies edifies the church." (1 Corinthians 14:4)

Unfortunately, due to the de-emphasis of the works and gifts of the Holy Spirit, denominations like the one in which I grew up miss out on the power and presence of the third Person of the Trinity.  Growing up, I understood the concept of being filled with the Spirit--I saw a cup or container, and saw water being poured from a pitcher or a faucet into that container.  It is a powerful image: being filled to overflowing by the power and presence of God.  The concept of a baptism of the Spirit is harder to visualize.  Is it best represented by a dove (representing the Spirit of God) dunking us in a pool of water?  No, I don't think so.

The Greek word baptizo literally means "to immerse".  In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had a practice of sprinkling.  When their translators came to the word which actually means "immerse", they got creative.  They transliterated the Greek word baptizo into a new word, "baptize", which could mean any form of baptism that a church might use (sprinkling, pouring, dunking).

Thinking in terms of the baptism of the Spirit, it would literally be to be immersed in the Spirit of God.  So not only are Christians filled up on the inside, but really committed, productive Christians might be considered as Spirit filled inside and out.  I don't mean to be flippant, but we have all known Christians who are just dripping with the Spirit of God.  Those are the ones that are used by God, who have a calling and a purpose, and who have the visible blessing of God on their lives.  They may or may not have a prayer language, but they are certainly used by God to build up the Body of Christ.

I want to be filled with the Spirit, yes, and I am.  When I became a Christian, the Holy Spirit began to indwell me.  As I give Him more control over my life, His power and purpose are made manifest.  But I want to surround myself with God.  I want to go all in.  I want God to touch me, not just with a finger but literally surround and engulf me.  I want to be immersed in the Spirit.

The next time you read about being baptized in the Spirit, substitute the word "immersed", and think about stepping into His presence and power fully and completely.  

The Angel of the Lord

I am constantly amazed at how many pre-cursers to Christ there are in the Old Testament.  From the very beginning, in Genesis, God found Adam and Eve after they had eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  They realized that they were naked, and had tried to cover themselves with leaves.  Leaves were opaque, and would hide them for a time, but they would crumble away in time, exposing them again and again.  God took animal skins, which means that animals had to be sacrificed, in order to cover them on a more permanent basis.

Do you realize that this is the only time in the Bible that God, by His own hand, shed the blood of animals?  The sacrifice of the animals was to cover the sin of the people, and later the people would begin a practice of animal sacrifice, and follow the example that God started in the very Garden of Eden.

The only other sacrifice Almighty God made on behalf of mankind was the sacrifice of His Son.  Jesus, who was God in the flesh, shed His blood to cover our sins.  Amazing.

I saw another example this week in my quiet time.  I was reading in Exodus, chapter 23.  God had just finished giving Moses the Ten Commandments in chapter 20.  There followed some other laws and practical explanations of the Law in chapters 21 and 22.  Then, right in the middle of Exodus 23 we find this passage:

See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard  you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.  Pay attention to him and listen to what he says.  Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him.  If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you.  My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. --Exodus 23:20-23

Many times in the Old Testament, there is a reference to the Angel of the Lord.  This Angel stood in the place of God, with the authority to forgive sin.  In another passage we will look at later in Zechariah chapter 3, we see the Angel of the Lord standing before God against the Accuser, with authority over Satan.

Who else could this be besides the pre-incarnate Christ?

Let's look closer at what God's instructions were regarding this Angel:

• He will bring you to the place I have prepared for you.
• Pay attention to him, and listen to him.
• Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion.
• My Name is in him.
• Listen to what he says, and do what I say.
• He will go before you against your enemies, and I will wipe them out.

I believe there is too much equivalency here for God to be talking about just a messenger, which is what the word "angel" means.  I think God did not introduce Him as "my Son" to the Israelites, because they might think that there were multiple gods; that would make Judaism no different than the pagan religions, which all had multiple deities.  Yet the very first name of God used in the Bible, Elohim, is a plural form of a proper noun.  In the beginning, God said, "Let us create man in our image."  Was he talking to the angels?  More likely, he was talking to The Angel of The Lord, who would later come as a baby born of a virgin and laid in a manger, who would grow to reveal himself as the Son of God.

Look at Zechariah 3.  Joshua the high priest was standing before God, with Satan on one side and the angel of the Lord on the other.  Satan accused him, pointing out his filthy garments from his just having come back from exile.  How could he effectively minister at the Temple?  But the angel of the Lord rebuked Satan, and forgave Joshua, and gave him a new covering.

We who were born after Christ came in the flesh often talk about being covered by the blood of the Lamb.  That is our covering now; it is what God sees when Satan accuses us.  The Blood that washes us white as snow, that blood that was shed as a sacrifice for me, represents the last time God shed blood on man's behalf.

Jesus fulfilled the words of King David

You who fear the Lord, praise Him!  All you descendants of Jacob, honor Him!  Revere Him, all you descendants of Israel!  For He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him, but has listened to his cry for help.  --Psalm 22:23-24

Last week we talked about the matchless grace of God as manifested through Jesus Christ.  We discussed the fulfillment of the Law through the Messiah.

That same Messiah, that same Jesus, has been the hope of the oppressed for over two millennia. Because Jesus humbled himself and became a man, he was subject to ridicule, persecution, and even death.  He identified with us and our sufferings, so that in our sufferings, we might identify with him.

In no other scripture is this more apparent than in the prophetic Psalm of David that we call Psalm 22.  In almost every line, we see a foretelling of what would happen to the ultimate heir of King David's throne.  It is almost impossible to believe that this psalm was written one thousand years before Christ's birth.

Today I want to go verse by verse, and show evidence in the life of Jesus that he was the fulfillment of this prophetic word.  Even though David was not known as a prophet, his writings showed remarkable prescience and foresight.  Let's look a bit closer.

Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

Matthew 27:46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me."

Jesus was hanging on the cross, his life slowly ebbing away.  For a period of about 3 hours the sun refused to shine, as the Bible says there was darkness over the whole land.  After 3 hours of hanging on the cross, Jesus uttered these words in Aramaic, the common language of the day, so that those nearby could hear and understand.  His message, however, may be lost in translation, as we look at the English words and think how could God forsake His only Son.  I believe the message given to those who heard him speak it, the religious leaders and experts in the Jewish law, was to point back to Psalm 22.  And, as we shall see, this was a Psalm of deliverance not disdain; it was one of victory, not defeat.

Psalm 22:3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.

Mark 1:23-24 Just then a man in the synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are--The Holy One of God!"

In this situation, Jesus was visiting the city of Capernaum.  On the Sabbath Day, Jesus went to the synagogue, and began teaching there.  A man was there who was known to be possessed by a demon.  The demon, obviously familiar with the spirit world, had known from the day of Creation who Jesus was.  He spoke through this man in the physical world, yet he spoke a spiritual truth:  Jesus is the Holy One of God.  This confession was probably lost on the rulers of the synagogue and experts in the Law.  They knew that the man was possessed.  They considered the source, and dismissed this statement as a lie from the Pit.  But James, the half-brother of Jesus, made this point in his letter to the churches (maybe even recalling this very incident): "You believe that there is one God.  Good!  Even the demons believe that--and shudder." (James 2:19).

Psalm 22:7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads.

Mark 15:29-30 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!"

Again, Jesus was hanging on a cross, taking on the sins of the world.  In excruciating physical pain, he was subject to mocking by those who came to watch.  He suffered emotional abuse by those who threw his own words back at him.  Of course, the mockers did not understand that when Jesus had spoken those words, He was speaking about His body. in 3 days, He would rise again.

Psalm 22:8 "He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him.  Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."

Matthew 27:41-43  In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him.  "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself!  He's the King of Israel!  Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.  He trusts in God.  Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God'."

I wonder if the priests and teachers and elders knew they were fulfilling prophetic scripture?  Somehow I doubt it.

Psalm 22: 16 Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.

John 20:24-25  Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"  But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

We all know the method of capital punishment used by the Romans was nailing an offender to a cross, nailing both hands and both feet.  This method of killing was unknown in David's time.  Yet David predicted that the One who would fulfill the Scriptures would be pierced in both hands and both feet.  After Jesus' resurrection, the one now known as Doubting Thomas knew how he would recognize Jesus:  by seeing and feeling the wounds He had endured on the cross.

Psalm 22:18 They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

Matthew 27:35  When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

The Roman soldiers were bored by all this.  This wasn't their first rodeo.  Although they may have been surprised at the crowds who came to watch this particular execution, they really couldn't have cared less.  To pass the time, they gambled for the possessions of those condemned to die.  Just as the Holy Spirit through King David had predicted a thousand years beforehand.  Simply amazing.

So with all this in mind, is there any question about whom David referred in the rest of his Psalm?

From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.  The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the Lord will praise Him--may your hearts live forever!  All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him, for dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations.  All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him--those who cannot keep themselves alive.  Posterity will serve Him; future generations will be told about the Lord.  They will proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn--for he has done it.   --Psalm 22: 26-31.

There is no difference between the rich and the poor before the Lord; He died for them all.  He will feed the poor, and the rich will feast, but all will worship.  No matter how rich men may become, they cannot buy immortality.  But in Christ, they will live forever in Him.  Their posterity will know of Him because of all the works of His hand, in the past, the present, and the future.

This is why we will praise the Lord all our days,even to those yet unborn.