It is great joy for me to welcome you to this convocation service, this special academic year special because of the particular stewardship called to us in every generation and every year and for this school in every term. Even this morning, I was just because of something else, reminded of how precious the stewardship really is. What a joy it is, what a privilege it is to look around this room and know that here and even beyond this room, there are thousands of students studying here for the preparation for consecrated lives of ministry and service work in the world.
It’s a very special honor and privilege to be in such a place that anytime but by God’s mercy and sovereignty, it is a particular joy to be with you in this sacred place at this particular time, speaking of the times, my text morning is from Matthew chapter 16, just the opening four verses. By the Holy Spirit, Matthew writes,
“And the Pharisees and the Sadducees came and to test him, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them. When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red and in the morning it will be stormy today for the sky is red and threatening. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times and evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. So he left them and departed.”
It’s a short text in the gospel of Matthew. It’s one of those transitional texts in which it’s very clear that something is about to happen and part of the increased dynamism of what took place in the earthly ministry of Jesus, things are coming to a head. In this text, of course, it’s the Pharisees and the Sadducees who came and to test the Christ, they ask him to show a sign from heaven.
In verse three, Jesus responded to them by very clearly saying, you know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. He gave them a sign, the sign of Jonah, he left them and departed. It’s a very short text. It’s a lot for us to consider. First of all, we have to be clear about what in the world is going on here. I guess the foreground here could be the entirety of the work of God up until Matthew chapter 16 or the entirety of the gospel of Matthew up to chapter 16, but in particular, I want us just to think about chapters 14 and 15. I want us to think about two things, healings and feedings.
Let’s talk about the healings. In chapter 14, as you see at the end of that chapter, Jesus heals the sick in Gennesaret and when they crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment and as many as touched it were made well.
Chapter 14, in chapter 15, similarly we come to understand there was a healing. It comes in chapter 29:
“Jesus went on from there and walked beside the sea of Galilee and he went up on the mountain and sat there and great crowds came to him bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled in the mute and many others and they put them at his feet and he healed them so that the crowd wondered and they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking and the blind seeing, and they glorified the God of Israel.”
Just in these two chapters, two different passages of healings and then astoundingly two mass feedings, chapter 14, the feeding of the 5,000. Now when Jesus heard this in chapter 14, verse 13,
“Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself, but when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns and he when ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Now, when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, this is a desolate place and the day is now over, send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves. But Jesus said, they need not go away. You give them something to eat. They said to him, we have only five loaves here and two fish, and he said, bring them here to me. Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish. He looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves, gave them to his disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds and they all ate and were satisfied and they took up the 12 baskets of the broken pieces left over and those who ate were about 5,000 men besides women and children.”
Chapter 15, beginning in verse 32, the feeding of the 4,000. “Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me until now three days and have nothing to eat and I am unwilling to send them away hungry lest they faint on the way. And the disciples said to him, where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so greater crowd? He said to them, how many loaves do you have? They said, seven and a few small fish. And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground. He took the seven loaves and the fish and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds and they all ate and were satisfied and they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. Those who ate were 4,000 men besides women and children, and after sending away the crowds, he got into a boat and went to the region of Magadan.”
All that’s necessary in order to understand the arrogance of the scribes in this case, the Pharisees and the Sadducees who came to accost Jesus in the beginning of Matthew chapter 16, to test him, to test him, they ask him to show them a sign from heaven. Now obviously at this crucial turning point in the first gospel, we are to see those who go away from Jesus, those who demand signs as those who are rejecting both Christ and the gospel. There’s some patterns we find. One of those patterns is the phrase and the crowds came. And we also see some other interesting patterns. In verse 15, in chapter 15, verse one we hear, and the Pharisees and scribes came in chapter 16 verse one and the Pharisees and the Sadducees came, so the crowds came and the crowds went. The scribes did the Pharisees come. Then the Sadducees with the Pharisees come.
This is a tough crowd. This is a very tough crowd, whether it’s the Pharisees and the Sadducees or the Pharisees and the scribes, it’s double trouble both times. Put them together triple trouble. And so the difference is in these passages when the crowds come, signs are given, healings take place. Thousands are fed just from a few loaves and fishes. We’re talking about two subsequent chapters. It’s hard to imagine you wouldn’t get the point from the first feeding of the thousands. Here in the proximity of two chapters are two and the healings over and over and over again, off course, and in these two chapters, again, healings have just taken place. Astounding feedings have just taken place. Supernatural miracles have just taken place to such an extent that it is unbelievable arrogance. Then for the scribes and the Sadducees here to demand a sign.
This is not a pattern that is passed. This is not just something from ancient biblical history. I think many of us have had conversations that have followed a similar kind of pattern, I would believe, but if I only saw, I would believe if I only observed, I would believe, and of course this pattern is found and is addressed. So honestly in the New Testament itself, Jesus himself would say to Thomas, blessed are those who do not see and believe. We’d like to think that if we saw it, we would recognize it for what it is. If we saw a miracle, we would recognize it for what it is. If the mute could speak and the bind could see, we’d like to think we would see it for what it was. If the lame can walk, we’d like to think, okay, we would see that for exactly what it is. If the dead are raised a life for crying out loud, we get the point. But with biblical humility, we have to wonder, we’d like to think that if Jesus were before us having performed these miracles, we would see him for who he is.
But the Pharisees and the Sadducees in verse one, as we begin this passage we’re told they came to test him. They ask him to show a sign, not just a sign, but a sign from heaven. He said, well, you guys know a lot. You’re asking for a sign from heaven. This may be distinct in some way from a miracle in terms of a heavenly message. When it’s evening, you look at the sky, if you see the sky is red, you say it will be fair weather. And in the morning you look at the sky and you say, it’ll be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening the difference between red, red and threatening, they know the difference. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky.
Now, there was a time when this was more important and it was still pretty much approximate. The Federal Aviation Administration just this week released a report, a post-incident report on a fatal crash of a private jet. The full investigation is not released, but one of the observations made in the FAA investigative report is that the skies were changing so fast that the conditions changed from when the pilots originally made the fight plan to when they were authorized to taxi and when they reached the altitude of only about 1400 feet, the weather had already changed again. That would represent quite a challenge to a pilot and the ancient world, it was often the Mariners who had the most at stake, and that’s one of the reasons why seafaring peoples gave a very different pattern of understanding the skies because there was so much at stake.
Farmers have to have some kind of indication, not that they have any control over what’s going to happen, but at least if there’s a storm coming or there’s bad weather coming, perhaps some preventative measures can be taken. I was a pastor in rural Kentucky, pastor of a farming community, and there were plenty of farmers, and farmers are not the most talkative people sometimes. And after a service they would all be standing out in front of the church and the men would be talking about any number of things, but most of them were closely related to the weather. And if you’re a farmer, you’re very concerned about the weather, particularly whether there will be rain to water the crops.
Now, we’re not confusing the Pharisees and the Sadducees with farmers, nor mariners sailors, they’re scribes as we see in one verse and here in chapter 16 verse one, they’re Pharisees and Sadducees. These aren’t farmers or sailors. These are religious folk, professional religious folk. Honestly, when I read this passage, I’m not sure they had to be too good about the sky. I mean, because after all, if you’re going to Pharisee or you’re going to Sadducee, the weather doesn’t matter all that much. Not exactly like getting on a ship, planting a crop.
Of course the theological context here is all important. Here you have this group of Pharisees and Sadducees and we know what they’re doing because Matthew tells us they came, but they didn’t come to worship him. They did not come to confess him. They did not come to follow him. They came to test him, and their test was this demand for a sign. He says, I’m not going to give you a sign. He does sort of give them a sign. He says, an evil and adulterous generation ask for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah, the sign of himself, the sign of three days if he would rise again.
But the focus of my attention is on the latter part of verse three. “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” I’m not sure how good we are at this either ,honestly. But before we think about this in a more elaborate way, let’s first of all put it in its New Testament kerygmatic context and understand the most important reference point here is the incarnation of the Christ and the assured coming of his kingdom and glory. This is not just about signs of the times as in understanding the politics and the foreign policy and all the rest. This has mostly to do with the fact that they were demanding a sign after all these signs had already been given. The signs were the indication, another demonstration in revelation of the fact this is the promised one, the Messiah, the Christ, and more.
Jesus says, you cannot interpret the signs of the times. This is a rebuke. It’s a severe rebuke. It’s a rebuke. Most importantly about the gospel. It’s a rebuke most importantly about the failure to recognize who he is. And the fact that they had come to test him, it’s another indication that the issue here is not one of ignorance, it is one of arrogance. There’s no reason to believe they don’t know everything that has just happened. There’s no reason to believe they don’t know about the feeding of the 5,000 in the feeding of the 4,000. There’s no reason to believe they don’t know about all the healings. They know about the healings. They know about the feedings, they know about the signs, but they want to test him. Jesus responds with this rebuke, but for the believing church, this rebuke also comes as a warning to us, lest we fail to interpret the signs of the times.
I can remember hearing a reference to this text as a pretext for strategic planning. That is not what we’re talking about, but we are called to understand the signs of the times. Most importantly for us, it is the time right now between the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ and his coming again in glory. It is the time right now when we are awaiting the kingdom in its fullness and the arrival of the king. It’s a time in which the church has been given a responsibility, commission, command. Many of these are direct continuation of commands given to the people of God and the Old Testament.
Now, in a gospel context, given with a new urgency, a new energy, a new gospel, a new eschatology for the people of God. I want to look at a different passage as well. This passage is less well known. It’s in 1 Chronicles chapter 12, and this is in the listing of David’s mighty men who joined him in Ziklag. It’s just one brief expression about one of the tribes Manasses, and then after that Issachar of the half tribe of Manasseh, 18,000 who were expressly named to come and make David King, what a thing to be said. Then in verse 32, “Of Issachar men who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs and all their kinsmen under their command.” You know, there are all kinds of things that could be said about the tribes and you see many things said here, and not only in this passage but in another Old Testament passages, amazing things said about the tribes and not much is actually said about Issachar. Issachar is not a tribe that is famous for us. If it was a jeopardy question, I think even a most Southern Baptists would fail the jeopardy test. Issachar is just not the first tribe that comes to mind, but Issachar is mentioned in such an interesting way here, and this is a description of honor. This is a description of respect. It’s carefully constructed. Men who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees are criticized for not knowing the times, not even seeing the signs of the times in contrast in a different context. Here, the sons of Issachar are praised for knowing the times, men who had understanding of the times and then the next words. Evidently this is really crucial to know what Israel ought to do. Well, the point of this message this morning is a word of encouragement and to learn from Matthew chapter 16 and also from this reference to 1 Chronicles chapter 12, that evidently we are to pay some attention to the times and to the signs of the times. Don’t worry, there’s no new amazing book of breathtaking prophecy about to come from my pen. I don’t have any marketing advice to offer. This is nothing about a rare opportunity right now because of market conditions to make an investment that will pay off for the rest of your life. I don’t have any such signs of any times.
I can’t tell you if the market’s going to go up or going to go down. I can tell you that I don’t think that’s what either of these texts is about. In Matthew, it’s very clearly kerygmatic related to the gospel here in one Chronicles chapter 12. It’s clearly within the context of the rise of David, the anointed king. But it does tell us something that Jesus pinpointed the fact that these Pharisees and Sadducees could read the skies, but they can’t read the times and they will not see what is right before them, what is obvious before them, and this is a different time now, the Messianic age has come and they don’t see it. They think they can see a thunderstorm coming, but the Messianic age, they miss or even worse, they deny. And evidently the interesting thing about the reference to the sons of Issachar is that this appears to have been a unique contribution from this tribe. So evidently out of all the tribes of Israel, only one of them is actually mentioned with this honorific: “they understood the times and knew what Israel ought to do.”
I just want to suggest to us that we better know the signs of the times, and we better have a pretty good idea of what God’s people ought to do. Well, we’re at the beginning of a term. That’s one time, and we recognize as I think about the times, there’s no bigger distinction in terms of the academic schedule. There’s no bigger distinction than the beginning of a term and the end of a term, and this is just part of the academic life. This is just a part of the way it works. It’s the difference between the books fresh to be read and at the end the tests looming to be taken. And at the beginning of a term, everything is concentrated on what are we going to do this term? The industry already starts to shift as you get down into the term. This is just a part of academic life. It’s just a part of the way schools work and it’s good that we gather together at the beginning of a term to say something important is happening here. And for Christians especially to understand we better know what we’re doing. We better know what we’re teaching. We better know what we’re believing and we better know what we’re doing because the time is short. The semester looks so long the first week of February and so short the last week of April.
So it is. I think we need to know our times and I think about this because I think we need to acknowledge our times are strange.
William Manchester wrote a book entitled The World Lit Only by Fire about the medieval era, and it’s an interesting read. The opening illustration is one that I’ve never been able to forget. When he talks about the dark ages, he explains that in some ways they were for much of Europe dark part of it was because Europe was at the time so forested. He begins with this interesting little anecdote that a squirrel could climb up a tree in Moscow and down a tree in Paris. The canopy of trees was so intact in Europe at the time, but about the passage of time Manchester just cites diaries and historical accounts through much of that long period, let’s just say a millennium. We now know that much did happen. We know that much did happen, but the amazing thing about all that time was that a son could pretty much expect to live the world his father had lived, his father had expected to live the world his father had lived and you could go back for a long way because no one’s expecting radical social change and frankly no one alive had even experienced it.
We understand that our times are very different. Without going into some kind of extended sociological analysis, we understand that we are experiencing what some call hypervelocity in the acceleration of culture now. Now it’s the opposite of Manchester’s depiction of the Middle Ages in Europe. Now, a father looking to his son assumes that son is going to know a very different world than he has known and maybe he himself will live long enough that he will be through two or three worlds of change. Just in the period that I’ve been associated with the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College, I can tell you the world’s changed two or three times.
Some of it is just dateable by technology. When I became president of this institution, we didn’t have a webpage and we didn’t know we didn’t have one. It would be years before we found out we didn’t have one. According to some internet researchers we’re the first theological seminary to have had one, and it is now found in an internet archive, our first webpage. It’s hilarious. It’s absolutely hilarious. The pixels are so big, it looks like a child did it with some kind of a marker board, but no, that was high technology at the time. And of course other things have happened. I mean when we talk about online offline, none of that existed. But in a far more fundamental sense, the world has changed. The word marriage has changed in terms of the cultural usage. The word marriage in 1993 meant one thing to everybody, and now we’re in a very different era. And you just go down the list. We’re living in very interesting times. The acceleration of the change around us and the fundamental nature of this change. We were living in a giant distortion field. It’s hard for us even to take account of how fast things are changing, and part of this is undoubtedly secularization. Even last night doing some research, I was just looking at some statistics in terms of church going for instance, Protestant church going and metropolitan areas in the United States, and this was just 1994, 1995. And you look at that, I go, that world doesn’t even exist anymore.
But the secularization of the society is not something that’s just sociological. We understand that theologically we’re just in a different place even in terms of people recognizing what we’re talking about. There’s just been this great shift in the way people think and the way people even feel and the way they intuit. And of course this revolution in morality is just reshaping everything. And even as right now we’re witnessing for example some pushback on T as in LGBTQ, the fact is that the LG, the B, in other words, the society believes it has actually just moved on from all that. The T may be a temporary blip. I think often about those who had taught in this institution in decades past and led this institution in decades past, and the people who taught me and the people who taught successive generations, I don’t know that I could explain the current situation to them. I am not sure they would even have the equipment to understand what I’m talking about, but this is the world we live in and frankly one of my concerns, and I think a concern shared very much by this faculty and by those who love this institution and support this institution is will the students here and the graduates of this institution be up to this challenge?
I’ve come to the conclusion that you will not be. You can stop and sing a hymn and go home. Not in yourselves. Not in yourselves. I don’t think even looking at these two biblical texts, I don’t think that any of us in this room, younger or older, has sufficient perception to see it all and know it all and understand it all to be able to be master of it all. There’s too much and it is coming too fast, but of this, I am confident that he who died and was buried and was raised from the dead, He who dwells within you, he is quite capable of seeing you through and me through whatever the age throws at us and we are given the indwelling Christ. We are given the Holy Spirit. We are given the text of scripture which we just read. We in ourselves are dead meat in terms of trying to figure all this out. But by God’s grace, we’re given all that we need through the ordinary means of grace and most importantly through the preaching of the word.
We look at this with a particular conception of history. If we’re trying to think of the signs of the times and trying to understand those times and try to understand what Israel should do or what we should do or the church of the Lord Jesus Christ should do. In those cultures that have a more cyclical view of history, everything has happening has already happened and will happen again and whatever happened before, after will come after the before again.
But the biblical worldview of history is not that at all. Instead, it’s Genesis, in the beginning and it’s eschaton, in the end and it’s a straight line in between. Which is to say you’re going into uncharted territory. I can’t tell you the times ahead, I can’t. It’s outside. My control is outside my analysis. It’s outside my conjecture. I do think I know this. The times ahead are not going to get easier than the times. Now, the challenges are not going to be lesser, almost assuredly, I think I can say the challenges are going to be greater, but Jesus Christ is Lord.
So I have a couple of concrete suggestions about how you and we should think about understanding the times. First, just know your time, where we are in history, and by that I don’t mean just the year you were born. We’re in gospel time. That’s the most important thing. We’re in preaching of the gospel time we’re in taking of the gospel to the nation’s time. We are in faithfulness time for the church in this in-between time, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to redeem sinners, his ascension to heaven and his coming again. And in this in-between time, we are given a lot to do. So that’s a great security to believers. We begin with knowing our times. We are in the gospel time, we’re in the church age. We got a job to do.
Secondly, we must pay heed to the signs of the times because this does have to do with how we are faithful and the degree to which we are faithful. We do have to pay attention to what’s going on around us. It would not be a strength to the church to be ignorant of, for example, the subversion of marriage and the effects of that in the society around us and the confusion just think of that one example. I mean just we have to be attentive to these things when we use the word marriage. Now we have to define what we mean biblical terms because we don’t assume everyone’s going to understand or share a common definition, just one example.
But third, it’s not enough to know the signs of the times, we have to know what Israel ought to do. And this is one of the most crucial issues. What I hope and pray is that especially the students, both the seminary and the college, that you’ll be a gift of Christ church in such a way that you’ll know what Israel ought to do. That you’ll know what the church of the Lord Jesus Christ must do. You’ll know how to lead and how to live in faithfulness so that whatever the world throws at you, whatever redefinition of any term, no matter what great challenge the world throws at you, you will know what the church of the Lord Jesus Christ ought to do. I guess I just want to urge on you and on all of us, the urgency of well, understanding that responsibility in this sense, we all must be the sons and daughters of Issachar to know what Israel ought to do.
Fourth, Okay, the simplest thing I could say is obey Christ. So that’s where we begin. Obey all that he has commanded us even as he is with us always. And fifth then is derivative from that. Preach the gospel, teach the scriptures. Those are commands given to Christ church under all conditions at all times. In that case, we don’t need the sons of Issachar to tell us what to do because Christ himself and the apostles have told us what to do similarly, sixth, love and serve the church.
The confusion is always that we will see the passing thing as permanent and see the permanent thing as passing. The most important thing for us to understand is that the church is eternal. It’s not just permanent, it is eternal. We are to serve the church and love the church. Seventh, the biblical admonition deeply rooted in the people of God and the Old Testament. And in the new we’re to grow in grace, in knowledge, in wisdom. That’s why you’re here, and unapologetically so, that’s why this faculty’s here unapologetically so. It is so that together we may grow in grace, grow in knowledge, grow in wisdom to serve the church, to be faithful to Christ.
Okay, let me get personal. Eighth, show the glory of God in marriage.
Now, I want to state very clearly that the scripture says that there are those who are to be honored, who are given the gift of celibacy for service to the church and to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we need to call out and celebrate and honor those who are given that gift. At least judged by the history of the Christian Church, very few of you have been given that gift. Alright, so with that in mind, if you have not been given that gift, get busy. Yes, this is about as counter-cultural going to hear. I don’t know of any other president of any similar institution who would say it so strongly. One of the biggest ways you can push back in faithfulness is to be married to the glory of God early if the Lord allows and long, okay, if that one was controversial, the next one’s going to be worse.
Have babies, lots and lots of them through the glory of God. As I often concede when you look at the cultural challenge, we may not be able to outmaneuver them. We may not be able to out strategize them, but we can clearly outbreed them and that is to the glory of God. I want to tell you one of the happiest things when I see a gospel church, is just seeing babies, children, all this to the glory of God. And I just wanted to encourage college students, I know, I know, I know how young you are ,and I know how distant some of this can seem, but you need to grow up fast. And there’s a timeline that the Lord will allow in which all these things can happen. I just want to tell you, seize the good things God has given us and defy the wisdom of the world. Show the glory of God even in the institutions of creation. Order to God be the glory.
Tenth, finally, know that we are called to a long faithfulness, but the time is short. Sounds like a contradiction, perhaps even an oxymoron. We’re called to a long faithfulness, but the time is short. But long faithfulness means that living it, it’s long, but at the end of the day, the time is very short. So somehow we have to put those two things together. The age is short. The faithfulness is to be long. And of course, by God’s grace that faithfulness is not just in this life, but for Christ’s people glorified in the age to come. We’re not there yet, but Jesus is coming. May he when he comes, find his church faithful. And may that faithfulness begin in us renewed even today by the word of Scripture. Let’s pray. Father, we are so thankful for all you’ve given us in your word. We pray that to your glory, we will live that our faithfulness by your grace may be long even as the time is short. Even so, Lord consecrate this term, maximize our faithfulness. And even so, Lord, come quickly. Amen.
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