Searchlights from the Scriptures

Audio The weather has been so unusual lately that strange things are happening. I stepped out my front door earlier this week and had a nice surprise – a snake in my front yard! Thankfully, it was a good snake, and by that I mean a dead snake! I’d venture to say that most people have never been bitten by a snake, and very few of us probably even know someone who has been bitten by a snake, but we don’t like them. There’s always one or two folks we know who like snakes, maybe who have them as pets, but we tend to think they are a bit strange, don’t we? Call it a prejudice if you will, I think perhaps it is more of a long-standing grudge. They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and one of the first impressions that humanity had of a serpent did not go so well. Chapter 3 of Genesis is an essential text of Scripture. W. H. Griffith-Thomas, the great Anglican preacher who died almost a century ago, said of this chapter, “This chapter is the pivot on which the whole Bible turns.”[1] He said, “if we take it away the rest of Scripture becomes meaningless. With the exception of the fact of Creation, we have here the record of the most important and far-reaching event in the world’s history—the entrance of sin.”[2] We find here in this passage of Scripture the foundation for answering many of life’s hard questions. Why is our nature so bent toward rebellion? Why do our relationships take a wrong turn so often? Why is our work so often feel unsatisfying and futile? Why do bad things happen to seemingly good people? Why do people die? The answers to all those questions and more begin to unfold from this very page of the Bible. It is the account of the ruin of humanity and the first announcement of humanity’s rescue. We have been ruined by sin, and the rescue comes from God in the act of redemption. And so in this passage, we will see the deceptive origin of sin, the devastating effects of it, and the divine response to it. I. The deceptive origin of sin (vv1-6) It is of interest that nowhere in this passage do we find specific mention of the devil or Satan. The adversary in Genesis 3 is simply introduced as “the serpent.” But it does not take long for us to realize that this is not just a generic garden variety snake. Remember that everything the Lord created in this world was called “good” when He made it, and nothing has happened thus far in the text to change that. This “good” creation included all the earth dwelling creatures: “cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth” (1:24-25). Additionally, of all that God created, only one living thing was blessed with the gift of speech: humanity. It is an aspect of being created in the image of God. God is a speaking God, and His image-bearers have the ability to speak to Him and to one another. But along comes this serpent, who has the ability to speak. That tells us that this is no ordinary snake. Verse 1 says that the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. I do not understand this to mean that snakes, in general, are more crafty than all the other animals. Instead, it seems that this particular serpent is in view. This one, the one who slithers in and speaks to Eve, is more crafty than any of the earth dwelling creatures that the Lord created. This particular serpent is set apart as unique and distinct from the rest of creation. And when it speaks, what the serpent says indicates that it is not part of God’s good creation in this world. Its origins are elsewhere. We have the privilege of the rest of Scripture to help us identify that this serpent is actually a manifestation of the devil, Satan. How Satan came to possess or occupy the physical body of this serpent is not disclosed to us, but the testimony of Scripture is clear and unambiguous. In Revelation 12:9, we read about “the great dragon, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan.” Who is Satan and where did he come from? Again, the passage before

Audio As we kick off a new year, we also kick off a new series of studies in God’s Word. In the past, we have devoted prolonged seasons of study to single books of Scripture, and I remain convinced that this is the best way to understand the Bible and to feed ourselves spiritually. However, I also believe that sometimes it is easy to “miss the forest for the trees,” and for that reason, I have felt inclined to “zoom out,” if you will, and take a broader look at Scripture over the next indefinite season of time. A number of years ago, I became acquainted with a Bible study plan called “The Essential 100” which covers 50 carefully selected passages of the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament which provide the grand overview of the entire metanarrative of Scripture, the “Big Picture,” you may say. And so we begin today with the first of these studies, and rightly so, we begin the series where the Bible itself begins, with the creation account in the book of Genesis. Today we will deal with the first two chapters of Genesis, but for time’s sake, I will only read a selection of verses from these chapters. So, if you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, I invite you to turn to Genesis 1 as we begin. This is the Word of God: Genesis 1:1 (NASB) 1  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:26-31 (NASB)26  Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27  God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28  God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29  Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30  and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. 31  God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 2:1-3 (NASB) 1  Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2  By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3  Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. Genesis 2:7-9 (NASB) 7  Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8  The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9  Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:15-25 (NASB) 15  Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16  The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17  but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." 18  Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." 19  Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, th

Audio There is something that just seems right about being here this morning to celebrate Christmas here in worship on Christmas Day. In fact, long before Christians began to celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25, Christians began gathering on Sunday to worship the Lord in commemoration of His resurrection, which was on a Sunday. It was several centuries before Christmas traditions began to arise, and nearly two millennia before observances such as we are accustomed to keeping began to develop. So, it is doubly fitting for us to gather together today for worship – first and foremost because it is the Lord’s Day, Sunday; and secondarily because this Lord’s Day happens to coincide with Christmas. If you are in the regular habit of being in a service like this on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, you are part of a very slight majority in America. A 2013 study by the Pew Forum reported that 54% of Americans do so. Meanwhile, the same study revealed that 86% of Americans gather with extended family or friends on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and the same percentage buy gifts for family and friends. It is reported that 79% of Americans put up a Christmas tree, and 65% send Christmas cards. If you wanted to be more creative in your Christmas celebrations, you could adopt some more unusual customs that are practiced elsewhere in the world. According to a 2010 article from Travel and Leisure’s website, in Guatemala, the devil is burned in effigy on a bonfire. In Japan, eating at KFC for Christmas is so popular that some locations require reservations. In Wales, friends go from home to home singing, accompanied by someone dressed up as a dead horse.[1] Or maybe you are like Ebenezer Scrooge, who sternly rebuked his gracious nephew, saying, “Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine!” To which his nephew said, “But you don’t keep it,” and Scrooge retorted, “Let me leave it alone then!” Undoubtedly your family has its own Christmas customs, as does mine. But if we really want to know how to celebrate Christmas, we need to look no further than the passage of Scripture which has just been read for us Luke 2:1-20. Here in the first Christmas, we find examples of the best ways for us to honor Christ and celebrate His birth in our Christmases! After the angel announced the good news of the Savior who had been born in Bethlehem, and the angelic host erupted in a song of cosmic praise, the shepherds, and those they encountered, celebrated the coming of Christ into the world in ways that we would do well to emulate! I. Come and behold Christ the Lord! (vv15-16) In the familiar song, “O Come All Ye Faithful,” we sing the familiar words, “Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels! O come let us adore Him, o come let us adore Him, o come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!” As we sing those words, we are giving voice to the ancient shepherds who heard the angelic announcement. While they were out in the fields with their flocks, the angel appeared and said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for youa Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you; you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” This was more than an announcement of good news, it was an invitation to come and meet this Child and behold Him for themselves. Notice what the shepherds did. They said to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehemthen, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” And we read that “they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as He lay in the manger.” How else should we respond to the good news, the Gospel, that a Savior has been born for us? We, who are separated from God by our sins, have been invited to come and meet the One who was born to take away our sins. The Christ of Christmas’s manger is the Christ of Easter’s cr

Audio Augustus Saint-Gaudens is one of America’s most famous sculptors. In Chicago’s Lincoln Park, his 12-foot tall statue of Abraham Lincoln stands, which is regarded the finest portrait statue in the United States. From the mid-1800s until his death in 1907, Gaudens sculpted some of the most notable figures in the world. But one of his lesser known works of a lesser known subject stands outside the Trinity Churchin Boston. Standing before a large cross, with one arm draped across a Bible on a pulpit, with the figure of Jesus behind him with His hand on his shoulder, the robust figure of Rev. Phillips Brooks stands with one arm raised high. The inscription reads, “Phillips Brooks: Preacher of the Word of God; Lover of Mankind; Born in Boston, AD 1835; Died in Boston, AD 1893; This Monument is Erected By His Fellow Citizens, AD 1910.” If you pass by that statue sometime, you might find a small group of people standing there singing, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which Brooks wrote in 1868.    In the Winter of 1865, while Brooks was serving as pastor of Philadelphia’s Holy Trinity Church, he traveled through the land of the Bible. During Christmas week, he wrote home to say, After an early dinner, we took our horses and rode to Bethlehem. It was only about two hours when we came to the town, situated on an eastern ridge of a range of hills, surrounded by its terraced gardens. It is a good-looking town, better built than any other we have seen in Palestine. . . . Before dark, we rode out of town to the field where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced piece of ground with a cave in it (all the Holy Places are caves here), in which, strangely enough, they put the shepherds. The story is absurd, but somewhere in those fields we rode through the shepherds must have been. . . . As we passed, the shepherds were still ‘keeping watch over their flocks or leading them home to fold.’ A few months later, the pastor wrote back to his church from Rome, reflecting on that Christmas Eve he spent in Bethlehem: I remember especially on Christmas Eve, when I was standing in the old church at Bethlehem, close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with the splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices that I knew well, telling each other of the ‘Wonderful Night’ of the Saviour's birth …. It was the memory of that Christmas in Bethlehem that prompted him to write the carol that we all know so well. At Christmastime, we turn our thoughts to Bethlehem and to the wondrous thing that happened there as God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ and dwelt among us. But it was not by accident that Bethlehem was the place where this miracle occurred. God orchestrated the events of history to bring all these things to pass in the little town of Bethlehem. It was a place of promise, a place of providence, and a place of provision. I. Bethlehemwas a little town of promise (Micah 5:2) Centuries before that night when Christ was born, God had announced through His prophet Micah that Bethlehem, the hometown of King David, would be the birthplace of another ruler. But this king who was coming would be no ordinary ruler. “From you [Bethlehem] One will go forth for Me [the LORD] to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.” With these words, God promises that the little town of Bethlehem is significant in His purposes, for from it, He will send forth One who will rule on His behalf. This One who is to be born in Bethlehemhas origins that predate His own birth. His goings forth are from eternity. Only God is eternal, and in the person of Jesus Christ, God became one of us. John says of Him in his gospel, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God, … and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.” Philippians 2:5-11 puts it this way, He “emptied Himself,

Audio A familiar song that is heard this time of year says, “The first noel the angel did say was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay.” That word noel comes to us from French, and it generally equates with “Christmas.” It comes into French from the Latin natalis, which relates to “birth.” So, in English we have the word natal, which comes from the same Latin word, and is probably most commonly associated with something like a neonatal unit at a hospital, where newborn babies receive care. But it is the French word noel that we often find occurring in Christmas songs and Christmas cards. And if we speak of “the first noel,” as the familiar song says, we tend to think of that one in the second chapter of Luke where the angels bring the good news of Christmas to the shepherds. This, however, is not “the first noel,” or first “Christmas message,” that we find in the Bible. Far from it, in fact. Prior to the coming of Christ into the world at that first Christmas, there were numerous prophecies and proclamations of the coming Messiah who would rescue His people from sin and establish His everlasting kingdom of peace and righteousness. If we want to find “the first noel,” we have to look further back in history from the one “the angel did say” unto “certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay.” The very first noelis the one that the Lord God did say unto a certain evil serpent in the Garden of Eden, and the first human beings to whom he lied. We find it in Genesis 3:15. Theologians refer to this verse as the protoevangelium – “the first Gospel” – for here, in the moments immediately following the first sin of the human race, we find the first promise of redemption that will save the human race from the curse of sin. Though this message may not often appear in Christmas cards and Christmas carols, it is as much a part of the Christmas story as the angels, the shepherds, and the magi. Genesis 3:15 is the seed from which the Christmas tree grows. And so, as we look at this, the first noel, we want to consider the reason for Christmas, the reality of Christmas, and the result of Christmas. I. The reason for Christmas Fill in the blank: “________________ is the reason for the season.” Now, if you said, “Jesus,” you are right, but that’s a Sunday School answer. You know what I mean about a Sunday School answer, don’t you? The story is told of a little boy in Sunday School; when the teacher said, “I’m thinking of something small and grey, has a fuzzy tail, likes to climb trees and eat acorns,” the kid said, “Well, it really sounds like you are talking about a squirrel, but the answer is probably Jesus.” So, let’s think about it for a moment, and move beyond the Sunday School answer and fill in the blank: “_____________ is the reason for the season.” There are probably many words, including Jesus, that will fill the blank correctly, but the one I’m thinking of is “Sin.” Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “There he goes again. He’s so hung up on preaching about sin that he’s gone and dragged it into Christmas now.” Well, no, I haven’t dragged it into Christmas. It was there from the beginning. In fact, apart from sin, there is no need for Christmas. First Timothy 1:15 says, “It is a trustworthy saying, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” So, in a very real sense, sin is the reason for the season. In the verses preceding our text, we find the serpent in the Garden of Eden. It is obvious that we are not merely talking about a reptile, but a spiritual, personal being. The serpent is referred to with personal pronouns, and is described as one with intelligence, speech, and knowledge that surpasses even that of the man and woman who were created in the image of God. The serpent has an awareness of the supernatural world.[1]And so, later on in Scripture, the identity of the serpent is made plain, but it was never in doubt. Revelation 12:9 speaks of “the great dragon … th

Audio Have you ever “sought God’s will”? Have you ever prayed for God to show you or make known to you His will? It is a noble aim, for who among does not wish to live our lives in accordance with God’s will. A problem arises, however, when we come down to how we go about seeking God’s will, or how we expect God to make it known. Often times, we expect God to make His will known by some sign or some experience or emotion. At times, perhaps, we expect others to inform us of what God’s will is. It is as though we believe that God has hidden His will away from us, and expects us to go on some odyssean quest to find it, not unlike some mythological adventure to lay hands on the Holy Grail. What this amounts to, in fact, is a mistaken notion of who our God is. He is not hiding His will from us, but rather desires to guide us in the doing of His will. And this is why He has revealed Himself and His will to us plainly in His Word, the Bible. Everything that the Bible says “do,” it is God’s will for us to do. Everything that the Bible says, “do not do,” it is God’s will for us not to do it! Now let us not be like the rich young ruler, to whom Jesus said, “Keep the commandments,” and he responded, “Which ones?” When Jesus began to enumerate them, the young man said, “All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?” (Matt 19:16-22). If we say, “Well, I am waiting for God to let me know what His will is,” the answer is that He has told you in His Word. And if we say, “All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?”, then we lie to ourselves and to God. The fact of the matter is that we have our hands full with the doing and not doing of what is plainly stated in Scripture, and if we will but obey His Word, we will find ourselves actually doing His will as His providence directs our lives. Even if we reduce it down to the two greatest commandments of loving God and loving our neighbor, beyond this, we are free in Christ to follow the desires of our hearts. In 1 Thessalonians 5, we find a passage in which several aspects of God’s will for our lives are spelled out specifically. It includes encouraging one another, appreciating those who labor for the Lord, living in peace with one another. It also includes admonishing the unruly, helping the weak, and showing patience to all; not repaying evil with evil, but always seeking the good of others. In verses 16-17, Paul says, “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing.” And then in verse 18, he says, “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” His will encompasses all these things, and others which are set forth in Scripture, but today – on the Sunday preceding Thanksgiving – I want to focus our attention on this singular aspect of God’s will for His people: “In everything give thanks.” I. What does it mean to “give thanks”? One of the greatest demonstrations of thanksgiving in the Bible is found in Luke 17. There we read about ten lepers “who stood at a distance” as Jesus passed by. They cried out to Him, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” And Jesus did just that. He spoke, and they were healed of their disease. As they went away from Him, one “turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him.” Jesus said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine – where are they?” (Luke 17:11-19). We all find ourselves somewhere in that story. All of us are like those lepers. We have nothing in and of ourselves to commend ourselves to God or for which to boast before men. Anything and everything we have comes to us from God’s gracious hand. And so, we are ever recipients before Him. Moments ago in this service, we collected an offering. In that moment, perhaps you thought, “I am a giver. I am giving what is mine to God.” No, for what we give to God is but a portion of what He first has given to us. So we are always the receiver, even in our giving. Now, there are some who, like the one leper in the story, who r

Audio Philippians 2:14-15; 3:20 Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world … For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  So, I’ve been away for a little while. Did I miss anything important? Has there been anything significant happening in the news? Of course, I jest. You may recall that two Sundays ago, I said from this pulpit, “The next time I see you all, we will have a new President-elect.” I also said that either result will mean that we are living in a different day and age here in the United States of America. Just how different it will be remains to be seen. But today, I want to speak to the gathered church, with a charitable assumption that I am talking by-and-large to Christian people who are born-again by faith in Jesus Christ. And what I want to share with you is a gameplan for “Now What?” How shall we, as Christian people, live in this new day and age? In fact, as we look at this gameplan, we will discover that it is not a new gameplan, because no matter how things have changed or will change for us as Americans, there are a good number of things that will never change for us Christians. We believe in a sovereign God, we believe that we are first and foremost citizens of heaven, and we believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and that He reigns over an unshakable kingdom that will never end. No election result can ever change those matters. I began outlining this gameplan while I was lying in bed at my hotel on Tuesday morning before the first election returns began to come in. And as I thought about it, it occurred to me that the outcome of the election would not affect this gameplan. This is the way that we as Christians ought to live whether we live in Barack Obama’s America, Hillary Clinton’s America, or Donald Trump’s America. In fact, it is the same gameplan for our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in Putin’s Russia, in Kim John-un’s North Korea, or in King Abdullah’s Saudi Arabia. What varies from place to place is the cultural context in which we live out this gameplan, but the gameplan itself does not change. In the text that I just read from Philippians, we see the big picture. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.” I like how the NIV words that last phrase: “you will shine among them like stars in the sky.” And the reason we are able to do this is because our citizenship in Americais secondary at best. First and foremost, we are citizens of something bigger than America. As born-again believers in Christ, we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. So, we have the ability to shine the glory of heaven into the darkness of our culture like a lighthouse that beckons others to find their safe harbor in this everlasting kingdom, come what may in America. It should be obvious that America is a divided nation. The very fact that the race for governor in North Carolina is still too close to call is but one indication of that. Other examples of it can be seen in the calls to abandon the electoral college, in public demonstrations in the streets because one group’s candidate lost, and in the incessant and hollow assertions of those who now say they are moving to another country because they cannot stand the President-Elect. In 1858, at the Illinois Republican State Convention, Abraham Lincoln was chosen to be the candidate for Senate. By the way, in that election, Lincolnwon the popular vote and lost the election. But, back to the convention. His speech to that assembly has come to be known as the “House Divided” speech. In the opening lines, Lincolnsaid, “A house

Audio  We come now to the end of the Book of Habakkuk. I am sure I am not the only one who has been surprised at how timely this book of the Bible has been over the last several months that we have been studying it. And today as we come to the finale of the book, it becomes most relevant to American Christians who find ourselves in the most turbulent cultural context in the last half century at least, and as we stand on the brink of perhaps the most critical presidential election in our lifetimes. In order to set the stage for this text, let me recap as briefly as I can the entire book of Habakkuk thus far. The book begins with the prophet crying out to God about the immorality and injustice that is rampant in Judah. He asks God why He is not doing anything about it and how long it will endure. God’s answer is that He is doing something about it, although no one would believe it if they were told. He is raising up the Chaldeans – better known to us as the Babylonians – to invade Judah as a judgment from God Himself. God is disciplining His own people by using this pagan nation to come against them. Habakkuk then begins to argue with God this punishment is too severe, that it is out of character for God to do this, and inconsistent with His purposes. But Habakkuk also acknowledges that God may yet be able to show him how to see all this differently, so he says that he will go up to the watchtower and wait for God to respond and even rebuke him. Throughout Chapter 2, God began to elaborate on His purposes. While Judahmust face this judgment at the hands of the Babylonians, the Babylonians themselves would face a judgment of their own in due time. But God assured Habakkuk of three things: (1) the righteous would live by faith (2:4). That is, those who had faith in the promises of God would be justified, or made righteous before God, and by that same faith they would persevere through the hardships that were to come, even unto life everlasting. (2) The knowledge of the glory of the Lord would one day cover the earth as water covers the sea (2:14). That is, no matter how bad things get in this fallen world, there is a better day coming. Until that day, nothing in this world is as it should be. Sin has corrupted every person and indeed the entire planet. But one day, God’s glory will permeate the world under the rightful reign of King Jesus, and we must live with an eye toward that day. (3) The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him (2:20). This means that no matter how badly things seem to be spiraling out of control, God is still in control of it all and is accomplishing His purposes in the world in spite of how things appear. Therefore, we do not need to argue with Him or protest against His ways, but rather humble ourselves in silent submission to Him and yield ourselves to His word. With these things clarified now in his heart and mind, Habakkuk’s perspective is completely transformed. Chapter three consists of a psalm of praise, sung to the Lord as a hymn of celebration of all that God is, all that He has done, and all that He will do for His people who walk with Him by faith. He sings of how the Lord will come even as He has come to the aid of His people in the past. Those past events were foreshadowing the ultimate coming of the Lord, when He would come for the salvation of His people and the judgment of all nations. We have discussed in weeks past how Habakkuk could not distinguish between those aspects of the Lord’s coming which would take place in the first coming of Christ and those which will occur in His second coming. But we have a more complete revelation that enables us to see that distinction with great clarity. Now we come to what amounts to the final stanza of Habakkuk’s hymn. He has heard what God has spoken, and he has come to accept that there is no changing the situation. Bad things are coming – a day of distress, he calls it. But in the midst of this, the prophet exclaims tha

Audio “They say Aslan is on the move – perhaps already landed.” The line is from C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and it concerns the main character from the entire Chronicles of Narnia series: Aslan, the great and powerful lion! This line, spoken by Mr. Beaver, is the first time his name is mentioned, and it is said that he is on the move. Lewis writes, “And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don't understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning - either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside.” When the children later ask Mr. Beaver who Aslan is, they are told, “Why, don’t you know? He’s the King. He’s the Lord of the whole wood.” And then the children are told an old rhyme about Aslan, the Lion-King: “Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight  / At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more / When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death / And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.” Mr. Beaver says, “You'll understand when you see him.” Upon discovering that this Aslan is a lion and not a man, the children inquire as to whether or not it will be safe to encounter him. They are told, “if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly. … Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”[1] In the Narnia stories, Aslan of course represents Christ – at least in a very elementary way. Lewis would not want us pressing the point too deeply, but it is there. But I want to go back to two things that he wrote in the section I just shared from: first, the statement that Aslan is on the move; second, the effect that this statement had on those who heard it. “Each of the children felt something jump in its inside.” There was that numinous sense that these words bore “enormous meaning,” and uncertainty as to whether it was terrifying or lovely. I suggest that this is how we are supposed to be struck by the words in verse 12 of our text: “You marched through the earth.” The eternal God of the universe, the Holy and everlasting One, the One who is described in verses 3 and 4 as covering the heavens with His splendor and filling the earth with His praise, whose radiance is like the sunlight with rays flashing from His hand – this One is depicted here as being on the march. He is marching through the earth. In the previous section, Habakkuk saw Him coming, and in verse 6, he said that the Lord stood and surveyed the earth, measuring it up, as it were, for judgment. Now in verse 8 He begins to march forward. The setting is in the future – a day and time of which Jesus Himself said that no one can know. The English verb tenses are set in the past, but that’s not how the Hebrew is written. Hebrew verbs do not have a past, present, and future tense per se. Those features have to be determined by context. But these Hebrew verbs are, for the most part, in what is called the perfect tense. When the prophets use this tense, it is often like this, where future actions are depicted as being so certain that they can be spoken of in the past or present. And that is how Habakkuk is depicting the Lord’s march through the earth at the end of all things. Habakkuk is speaking to a nation under siege. The Babylonian army has been raised up by God Himself to be agents of discipline and judgment against Judahfor her sins. Habakkuk and oth

Audio Come with me to the city of Kathmandu, Nepal. As we stand there in the midst of this bustling urban center, we gaze off to the North and we see the majestic peaks of the Himalayas. They are at once inviting and foreboding. They appear to be just beyond the outskirts of the city, so let’s set off and go to them. We drive for hours – and hours – and hours, and they are still far off in the distance. We come to a town alongside a river and stare upward to realize that we have come near to the base of the first of those peaks. And the second peak we now realize is another whole day’s drive away. When we were in the city, the mountains looked so close to where we were, and even closer to one another. But as we covered the distance between, we realized just how far off they were, and how far apart from one another they are. This is how the prophets of the Bible saw the future. The events revealed to them by the Lord appeared to be great mountain peaks standing side by side in the distance. But what they often could not see were the great valleys that stood between them. For example, in Luke 4 when Jesus came to the synagogue in Nazareth, He read from the scroll of Isaiah, Chapter 61. The words He read were as follows: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” Then Luke says that Jesus “closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; … And He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’” (Lk 4:18-21). But did you realize that Jesus did not read the entire passage? In fact, He stopped in the middle of a sentence. The entirety of that final line of Isaiah 61:2 says, “To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God.” Jesus left that last part out. Why? Because the first part of the passage was being fulfilled in their midst in His coming into the world. The second part of the passage is not yet fulfilled, but will be when He returns. Isaiah did not see that between these two mountain peaks of the season of the Lord’s favor and the day of His vengeance, there was a great valley of time. We see it now because we live in that valley. The prophets saw, for the most part, only that the Lord was coming. The exact circumstances were often hidden from view. Thus Peter says in 1 Peter 1:10-11, “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time (the words here might be better translated, “what times or circumstances”) the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.”The prophets had much revealed to them from the Lord, but there was also a lot that was not revealed to them. We who live in the valley of the present understand that the coming of Christ into the world is a two-fold event. He came first for salvation, and He will come again for judgment at the end of all things. This understanding of how the prophets viewed the future is essential for us to understand what the prophet Habakkuk is saying – or better, singing– here in this text. You may recall that last week we observed how the third chapter is composed as a psalm or hymn of praise. In the first two verses, we observed the three-fold prayer of the prophet, as he asked God to perform the work He had revealed, to make His word and His will known to the people, and that in the midst of His wrath, He would remember mercy. In the verses before us today, Habakkuk sings from a posture of faith of his own confidence that the Lord will hear and answer that prayer. He is confident that the Lord will complete the work He has begun – the work of using the Babylonians to bring judgment upon Judahfor its sins. He is confident