Sheepspeak: sermons, articles, and papers: October 2018

Saturday, October 27, 2018

1 Chronicles 13: Seeing about a House.

Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries, 28 October 2018 by Captain Michael Ramsay

This week is October 31st so I thought that it would be good to start off with an October 31st quiz today (answers at bottom):[1]

1) What event happened in Wittenberg on October 31 in 1517?

2) True or False: Ghosts are mentioned in the Bible.

3) True or False: A king of Israel went to a witch to speak with the spirit of a dead person

4) Bonus Marks name the King, the dead person, and the witch

5) How many people can you name who the Bible records God used to raise others from the dead?

6) The man possessed by so many demons that they called themselves Legion, where did he live?

7) True or False: Jesus tells a parable about a haunted house?

Luke 11:24-26: “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.” The house is haunted by more demons than it was in the first place. This is in the Parable of the Haunted House.

One Halloween I will inevitably preach on the parable of the haunted house. Today we will look at a different passage about a house: 1 Chronicles 17: The LORD, David, and Nathan have an interesting and very important discussion about this house. J. Barton Payne says of this discussion in chapter 13 that the heart of 1 Chronicles is to be found in this chapter.[2] Nupanga Weanzana calls it one of the most important in the presentation of the history of Israel in all of Chronicles.[3] Bruce Birch writes of the sister passage to this one, 2 Samuel 7: "this chapter is the most important theological text … perhaps the entire Deuteronomistic History.'[4] So this passage is significant.

The chapter starts off with King David sitting in his house and he is talking to one of the prophets, Nathan. And, he says Verse 1&2:

“Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the LORD is under a tent.”

Nathan replied to David, “Whatever you have in mind, do it, for God is with you.”

Have you ever said something without thinking? Made a joke and regretted immediately afterward or maybe you said someone else would do something without checking with them first or maybe you agreed to something that you really weren't listening to? Or maybe you just said something and thought afterwards…'why did I say that?' Have you ever said something thoughtless and then stayed awake all night worrying or thinking about it? I think this may be Nathan's position here because the very next verse says that night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan…

And this is kind of neat too for it sort of speaks of the closeness of Nathan to the Lord, I think. For God seems to be approaching Nathan in the way a wife may approach a husband who has just invited a bunch of friends over without asking her first or said something that she didn't want him to say. It is like something has come up with work or one of the children and Nathan has not dealt with it quite right. Nathan told David, without asking God first, that David could go and build a house for God and God is not happy to not have been asked first. God says to Nathan: You, Verses 4-10.

4 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. 5 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from one dwelling place to another. 6 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their leaders whom I commanded to shepherd my people, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’

7 “Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and [I] appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 8 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name like the names of the greatest men on earth. 9 And I will provide a place for my people Israel and [I] will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning 10 and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also subdue all your enemies.

I think that passage is quite neat. It speaks of both God's relationship to Nathan and of God's relationship to David. In this conversation here God is letting Nathan know that, yes, He is in charge and Nathan is not to forget that but God still loves Nathan enough to ask him to go and make his error right. God trusts Nathan still, even though he made the mistake of speaking without thinking or speaking for God before speaking to Him.

And the message that God gives Nathan here conveys as similar sentiment to David. God tells Nathan to tell David that He does not want anything in the way of a house from David. He has been quite fine without a house for all of this time why would He need one now? Not only that, God says in this context, why do I need you to do anything for me? Remember that it is I who has done all of these things for you; not the other way around. You need me, I don't need you. And He doesn't stop there God says, in essence; however, I love you and will continue to do good things for both you and my people Israel and I will make your name famous, as famous as anyone's and He does.

In these short two paragraph's God has both rebuked the prophet Nathan and the king David and He has also comforted them reminding them that He loves them. (I love my kids) In this way God reminds me of a good parent. You discipline your children but you let them know that you still love them more than you even thought you could. You still want to involve them in as much of your life as they can be involved in. This is what the story is about so far but then we get to the next paragraph and the next paragraph is among the most significant in the whole old testament.

God says to David, through Nathan, Verses 10-14:

“‘I declare to you that the LORD will build a house for you: 11 When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. 12 He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. 13 I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. 14 I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.’”

Who is this passage speaking about? Jesus. It is even quoted in the Gospels, in the NT. Luke 1:32, this is the very passage to which the angle Gabriel refers when he tells Mary that she is going to have the baby Jesus! (As a side note - this is interesting I think anyway - when David says he wants to build a house/palace for God, the Bible uses the exact same word when God declines and says that He will build a house/dynasty for David, which of course He does through Jesus)[5]

Somewhere along the lines either by accident or intent, this promise gets a little bit muddled in people's understanding of it. People, by accident or design start to think of the promise as fulfilled through David's descendants (plural) who will sit on the throne forever as a series of people rather than as one person (as Paul points out in Galatians 3:16)[6] and people begin to think of the temple that was to be built in Jerusalem as the House of God (John 4).

Some questions for you about the Temple: There were many temples: who ordered the first temple built on that spot? King Solomon. Do we know what famous building is on that same spot today? The Dome on the Rock. Do we know how many temples have actually been built on that same spot? 3 or 4 depending on how you count them. After Solomon's Temple was destroyed, Zerubbabel, the governor, had the second temple built in 516 BCE, and then years after it was destroyed, King Herod, who we know from the Christmas story, built the a temple that was destroyed in 70 CE, not that long after Jesus' death. And apparently too there was even another temple that was built in Samaria but the Jews destroyed that one themselves in 128 BCE before Herod ever built his temple[7] and, like we said, the mosque, the Dome on the Rock, sits on that spot today. There have been a lot of temples there built by people who don't seem to understand what the Gospel writers and the early church understood - that God's temple isn't a building. And the descendent of David who is actually going to build it is Jesus because the passage says that the one who builds it will be God's Son and his throne will last forever (Cf. Luke 1:32, Galatians 3:16).

This is important. After he establishes his throne by seeing his brothers killed and before he builds this massive palace for himself, King Solomon builds a temple in Jerusalem. There is then this big ceremony where it is dedicated and God Himself, in a cloud, enters the temple (2 Chronicles 5:14). From this point on many people make the mistake of thinking that God is actually contained in the temple.

This reminds me of a story I read somewhere:

There were some people in the US a while back who thought that they had discovered the oldest place in the universe. They then figured that if it is the oldest place in the universe then that must be where God lives – as it was the first place to exist. They then spend over $20 000.00 to build the necessary equipment to transmit electronic impulses or radio waves or something like that into space; they build a website and offer people the opportunity to talk to God on-line. To this day, apparently many people have sent messages into deep space thinking that that is where God is and that that is the only or best way He will hear them. God is not confined to a star in deep space or to a temple in Jerusalem. God is omnipresent and God loves us.

But many people from the time of Solomon on actually believed that the temple was God's home that He was confined to that building much like a genie is confined to a lamp and they may have began to almost treat God like that. They seemed to believe that they were invincible and could do whatever they wanted because God was all powerful and they had Him contained in this building in their city. God would thus never let the city, much less the temple be destroyed,. God is all powerful and they have him contained like Aladdin had the genie trapped in the lamp and He and all His power would always be theirs.

Then the unthinkable happened, in 586 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, after a long siege sacked the city, destroyed the temple and wiped out the Kingdom of Judah forever. People did not know what to do, their faith was shaken. They thought they were invincible. They thought God was contained in the Temple. They put their faith in this building instead of in God. When the Temple was destroyed they thought God was beaten. And then they were led off to captivity.

My question for us today is do we ever fall into the same trap? Do we put our faith in buildings - like church buildings (aren’t they called the 'House of God'?) or parliament buildings? Or do we put our faith in people - like pastors or politicians or relatives or friends or husbands or wives or church leaders or famous people? Do we put our faith in denominations or political parties? Do we put our faith in institutions or agencies? Do we ever put our faith in doctors or lawyers? Do we put our faith in our health or our strength or our good looks? Do we put our faith in systems like capitalism or democracy or our country or our province or our city? Or anything else? Or anyone else? Don't.

When we do this we are putting our faith in empty temples and deep space radio transmissions. People, systems, governments, denominations, politicians, church leaders, our friends and our family, even our good looks and our strength at some time will let us down. Our friends, our loved ones, and people we idolize will let us down. It is true and it is sad. Just like it was sad when the temple was destroyed and just like it was sad when Nathan carelessly answered David and said that yes he could go ahead and build one of these temples.

But the Good News is this. God loves Nathan and God loves David and God loves you and God loves me and He has provided for us all. And He has provided for us not an empty temple or a star in outer space but He has raised up Jesus; and God is His Father and Jesus is His Son. And Jesus sits on God's throne forever and He will never take His love away from Him.

And as we serve Jesus, we have access to that all-encompassing, everlasting love of God who will never leave us nor forsake us. So today, with that in mind - there are serious troubles in our world and serious troubles sometimes in our lives - I encourage us as this is the case, not to put our faith in systems or people or traditions or ourselves to save us for we can't. But no matter how difficult our circumstance there is one who can save us. There is one will walk with us through all of our difficulties. There is one who loves and protects us and that one is Jesus and He is able more than able to handle what concerns us today and tomorrow and for ever more for our salvation comes from Christ and Christ alone.

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Plague Pops - Salvation only comes from God (Exodus 7-12)

Presented to Maple Creek Corps of The Salvation Army, 10 August, 2014 and Swift Current Saskatchewan, 17 August 2014,by Sarah-Grace Ramsay (Junior Soldier, Swift Current Corps) and to Alberni Valley Ministries in Port Alberni BC on 21 October 2018

Click here to read the original sermon: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2014/08/plague-pops-salvation-only-comes-from.html

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Sunday, October 14, 2018

Exodus 7:8-13: EDSS Snakes Reunion!

Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries, Port Alberni BC, 14 October 2018 and Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 29 June 2014 by Captain Michael Ramsay.

This is the 2018 version. To read the 2014 version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2014/06/exodus-78-13-cane-snake.html

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.

There are a number of items and ideas that jump out at one as we read through this sign that God performs for Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron.

1) We notice that not only can God do this sign but so can wise men, sorcerers and even Egyptian magicians. They can all turn their staffs into snakes.

2) Aaron’s staff snake eats and swallows the others

3) Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he won’t let them go.

First let us get a bit of an image in our mind of the scene painted before us in Exodus 7:8-13. Aaron and Moses are coming into Pharaoh’s palace.[3] This must be like an old homecoming of sorts for Moses. It would be like a High School Reunion. Apparently our MP, Gord Johns, and I graduated from MT Doug in Victoria. I don’t recall ever meeting him before I moved here and though I may have gone to my 10th Grade 12 Grad reunion I know I didn’t go to my 20th, 25th, or 30th or any others. I do know that many people tell stories about what happens when they do go to reunions. They notice who has lost hair and they notice who has gained weight; they notice who has children and who has even grandchildren; they notice who has become rich or famous; they notice who is divorced or never married. They also notice how much the school has changed or remained the same. Anyone here every gone to a school reunion? Think of your old school and your old friends; when you see them the old stories and feelings come flooding back.

Moses in our story today is returning to a palace that he would have spent some time in and around – at least as a teenager or young adult (Exodus 2:5-10) - and a pharaoh who is probably in some way related to him: a step or foster brother or cousin, someone he may have even known as a teenager or a young man, or this pharaoh may even be the child or grandchild of someone he may have grown up with. Moses in our story today is eighty years old and his brother Aaron is eighty-three (Exodus 7:7). It has been a long time since he left the Egyptian District Secondary School (had their been one, of course!). Picture yourself as an 80 year-old returning to your high school for the first time or visiting the old family home that you haven’t seen since before you got married. This is what it may have been like for Moses as he stands before Pharaoh - who is probably a relative of his foster mom or a step-relative of some kind who he hasn’t seen since he was a young man. Now Moses is eighty, standing in the halls of this building he once knew so well, talking to types people he used to know so well and challenging these people like maybe he used to do sixty or seventy years ago in this very building. This is the scene before us today: an 80 year-old at a school and/or a family reunion.

Now this 80 year-old Moses and his 83 year-old brother throw his cane –that’s what a staff is – this octogenarian throws his cane to the ground, it turns into a snake and then – I guess – while this snake is moving along the ground, Pharaoh sends messengers out to find wise men, sorcerers, and even some magicians. I doubt they were all in the palace. They probably weren’t even all in the city. Pharaoh’s men would have had to go find them. I don’t know what they did in the interim whether Moses and Aaron picked up the snake staff and waited outside or whether they all just stood there and looked at this snake. At any rate these wise men, sorcerers and even magicians finally arrive and this brings us to our first observation for today:

1) Not only can God, Moses and Aaron do this sign but also all these wise men, sorcerers and even the Egyptian magicians. They all turn their staffs into snakes.

Does anybody else find this interesting? I can’t turn a staff into a snake. Now some people have suggested that all of these wise men, sorcerers, and magicians somehow hypnotised some snakes so that they would stand rigid for a long time and disguised them as canes and then as soon as they throw them to the ground they snap out of it and wriggle along the floor.[4] That would be a neat trick – unlikely – but a neat trick nonetheless. Now some other people have suggested that all of these wise men, sorcerers, and magicians had somehow simply done a slight of hand merely creating the illusion of making the staff a snake but there is a problem or two with that idea as well: the main one being that the Bible doesn’t pretend that they were tricking.[5] It simply says that they could do this just like Moses and Aaron could do this. And as you read through the other sign that Moses and Aaron perform for Pharaoh at the commencement of the plagues – turning the Nile to blood – the magicians can do that too and even the subsequent plague; the Bible records that the magicians – on command - conjured up frogs to further devastate their own lands. This seems to be more than a slight of hand. At any rate,

Observation 1: this turning of an eighty year-old gentleman’s cane into a snake doesn’t seem to impress everyone and it appears that anyone in this field of work was able to do this same thing. [6]

In the end, this miracle, this sign, seems to be something that the magicians, the politicians (the officials) and Pharaoh himself can simply write off as an insignificant trick that many people can do. And this brings us to observation #2.

2) Aaron’s snake staff swallows up the others.

Again let us picture this scene together. This could possibly be a very packed room with Pharaoh, his officials and possibly a whole bunch of wise men, sorcerers and even magicians here (cf. 2 Timothy 3:8).[7] It may even be like us in this room today. Imagine that Pharaoh is sitting or standing up by me here. Imagine that these two men in their 80’s throw this staff on the ground in front of us here and it becomes a snake and then either one-by-one or all-at-once the person beside you and everyone around you - these many wise men, sorcerers and even magicians - they throw their canes on the ground and there are all of a sudden all these snakes crawling everywhere. This is what it would be like.

Now imagine that this snake up here sees all of the others down there and one-by-one goes and fights and eats those 20, 30, 40, 10 or however many other snakes there are sliding around on the ground.[8] That is the visual image of this first sign for Pharaoh. We’ve been in a snake pit or two before (they have this amazing one in Manitoba) I can’t say that I would necessarily be so eager to watch these duals.

Picture this further with me. When Pharaoh and everyone see that anyone in the room can seemingly throw her cane on the ground and have it become a snake, they are probably thinking that it is no big deal and maybe they are feeling a little bit smug too. Pharaoh probably thinks that Moses thought that he had come up with this impressive feat so he calls together this room full of people to show Moses up: “Look Moses. What’s the big deal? You thought you could convince us to do what you want by doing this? We can all do it!” Now we can imagine Pharaoh or one of his officials or a magician, a sorcerer or two start giggling or laughing to themselves that someone dares make demands of Pharaoh when he can’t do anything more special than any of the rest of the wise men, sorcerers or even magicians. How can Moses think he is so special? They are possibly enjoying the humour of the moment when someone notices – and then the next person sees – and then someone else watches as Aaron’s rod, Moses’ staff, this older gentleman’s snake cane is not only attacking but is actually eating, swallowing up all of the other snake canes. Can you picture that?

You can picture how the mood would change in a moment, right? One minute they are enjoying their illusion of victory probably laughing in celebration; the next they are shocked, embarrassed and maybe even the object of scorn themselves as their canes are eaten by Moses’ or Aaron’s staff. In one moment, they believe they have proved they are superior, in the next minute God shows them that He has defeated them. Their defeat has been swallowed up in His victory.

3) Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he wouldn’t let them go.

Now we can understand how Pharaoh would not be so happy, seeing defeat snatched from the jaws of victory in this way as the work of his magicians, sorcerers, and wise men is gobbled up before his very eyes. You can understand how he would be more than a little upset. Now this upsettedness is further exasperated. Have you ever seen those Egyptian headdresses? Picture King Tut – he’s a famous pharaoh. What does his headdress – his hat – what does it look like?

– A Snake, a Cobra. Pharaoh has just not only seen all these snakes eaten by the staff of this guy who was run out of the kingdom decades ago but he has also seen this powerful symbol of his family, this powerful symbol of himself, and this powerful symbol of his whole country mocked and devoured before his eyes. It would be like if we went to visit any president of the United States and suddenly chopped up and burned an American flag right in front of him; what would he do? At the very least he would have us arrested; if we did it in a very public fashion like Moses and Aaron did here, they would probably do even worse to us. Just ask Noriega, Wikileaks, or others who have spent decades without charge in an American prison or elsewhere for threatening to embarrass today’s equivalent of Pharaoh, the US President - regardless of party.[9]

Pharaoh has just been shown up and Pharaoh’s heart is hard and it is going to get hardened either again or even further many times until he finally does concede God’s victory. At this stage however Pharaoh hasn’t learned his lesson but what lessons can we learn from this first sign, the sign of the staff that turned into a snake and devoured Pharaohs’?

I think it is this: Pharaoh thought that he was master of his own destiny. Pharaoh probably didn’t care too much about the disparate religious beliefs represented before him in our pericope today. He thought anything that either God could do or that people thought that God could do, Pharaoh seemed confident that he could find someone else who could do the very same thing. He probably saw the miraculous as mundane and explainable, at least he saw them as duplicate-able. He then errs by trying to copy the work of God, instead of submitting to God.

Pharaoh tried to do in his own strength what can only really be accomplished in God’s strength. In Pharaoh’s time of trouble, the LORD wanted Pharaoh to turn to Him but he trusted in himself and turned to magicians rather than turning to God.

How many times in our own lives when we are faced with a crisis like Pharaoh was, do we act exactly the same way? Do we really believe that God is the one who can deliver us? Do we acknowledge the signs He is doing right in front of our eyes, right now, in our lives, or do we try to conjure up snakes of our own fancy? When we can’t pay the bills do we go to God in prayer and meditation and reading our Bible to see how He is transforming us like Aaron’s staff or do we try to make our own snakes and answers? Do we try to make our own miracles by trying find money on our own, or borrowing money, or gambling, or taking out a loan, or selling something, or conjuring up any other magician’s snake instead of seeking God? If something tragic happens in our lives, if something desperate happens in our lives, do we follow the signs of God’s snake cane or do we try to do the work of God all on our own?

Make no mistake my friends, if we oppose God, working against Him by trying to do things on our own instead of seeking Him, those snakes of self-reliance will be shown to be as useless as Pharaoh’s magicians’ snakes - but there is good news and the good news is this: Jesus, the Son of God Himself, provides a very real deliverance from whatever problems we face in this world. Numbers 21:4-9 records that when Moses lifted up a bronze snake in the dessert, all who cast their eyes upon him, even those who were dying were saved and John 3:14 records, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up;” Jesus is like Moses’ bronze snake in that – even today - any of us who cast our eyes upon him will be saved for now and forever,

So I encourage all of us today, to cast aside all those inferior magicians’ snakes of our text today. They can’t save us and they will not survive. Let us not miss the sign; instead let us look upon Jesus, who was lifted up, lived, died, and raised again. Let us look upon Jesus and let us live for now and forever more in his loving embrace.

Let us pray

Daily blogs at

https://salvogesis.blogspot.ca/

Sheepspeak: sermons, articles, and papers

Saturday, October 27, 2018

1 Chronicles 13: Seeing about a House.

Plague Pops - Salvation only comes from God (Exodus 7-12)

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Exodus 7:8-13: EDSS Snakes Reunion!

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Sheepspeak: sermons, articles, and papers

Saturday, October 27, 2018

1 Chronicles 13: Seeing about a House.

Plague Pops - Salvation only comes from God (Exodus 7-12)

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Exodus 7:8-13: EDSS Snakes Reunion!

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