Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Matthew

  • The Salt of the Earth

    The Salt of the Earth

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 12, 1986.

    About this sermon

    Believers are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and Leviticus 2’s salt of the covenant shows what salt means. That calling requires humility. A church that loses its distinctiveness from the world is as worthless as salt that has lost its savor.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning our scripture reading is from Leviticus 2, beginning with verse 12 and reading to the end of this chapter. You’ll note that in the economy of Leviticus, this passage deals with the grain offerings. Verse 12, As for the oblation of the firstfruits, ye shall offer them unto the Lord, but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savor. and every oblation of thy meat offering thou shalt season with salt, neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering.

    With all thine offerings thou shalt offer it with salt.” And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the Lord, thou shalt offer for the meat offerings of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears, and thou shalt put oil on it and lay incense thereon. It is a meat offering.” and the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof. It is an offering made by fire unto the Lord.” We are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of men.”

    Let us pray together. Our Father, your word is our life, and we would live by that word. In fact, we would live in the word. And Lord, we would by this word see that you are our reward, that you are the very goal of our life and existence. our hope is for you, that you will be our habitation forever. So now, Father, as we consider your word, may we be built up in this knowledge, and Lord, may we be strengthened to live for you.

    For Jesus’ sake, amen. There is certainly the paradox of all that we have considered in our reflection upon the Beatitudes and the Jesus commentary to this point. We have noted the emphasis upon the life of the disciple of Jesus as that one who will experience and can expect persecution. opposition from the world. That seems to be guaranteed. That is what the people of God can expect.

    In the midst of all of this, however, there comes that note which reverberates in the hearing of all of the people of God that marvelous blessing. With the persecution, with the opposition of the world, we hear Jesus proclaim the blessing. And now, as we have come to consider Christ’s commentary on the Beatitudes, moving into verses 10 through 16, we are caught up in what might be called the crescendo of Christ’s acclaim. For here, not just that recurring note of blessedness toward Christ’s people, but as Jesus, in his words, exalting his people to a level that they can hardly imagine, describing them in ways that are utterly magnificent. Recall what we said last week about verses 10-12. and especially that 12th verse. You see how Jesus would have it.

    These who belong to him, even though they are the persecuted, verse 10, even though they are reviled, verse 11, persecuted, those who are spoken evil of, falsely, on account of Christ, Even though these things are true, they are to rejoice, and then Jesus undergirds their rejoicing with this affirmation.

    They are in the company of the prophets. No, even more directly, you are in the company of the prophets, and so seen by your Savior. You who are of the company of the prophets can then expect the prophets’ reward, and the prophets’ reward is nothing less than that reward of heaven. But this crescendo of Christ’s acclaim doesn’t end with just placing you in the company of the prophets, as glorious as that is.

    His directness has now overtaken his form of address, and it’s as if he is swept up in its cadence, and we with him as he progresses on, commenting on the Beatitudes as he does. And that cadence, sweeping you up as if you were in that chariot of fire that swept up Elijah. now tells you, in no uncertain terms, that after all, you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. You are a city set on a hill that can’t be hit. Here is no acclaim that is manufactured out of the earth, something that is invented and contrived by men.

    This is the very voice of God in Jesus Christ speaking to you, and that is why it is imperative for you to hear it and ring from it every ounce of confidence that you can, every ounce of comfort that that means for you. What is our habit in seeking self-esteem? Where do we turn to find the help to cope, the steel for our backbones, the power to continue on? Where do we look To find that proper assessment of ourselves, would we look to the earth, to those who would manufacture for us some sort of a claim that they then, in almost pontifical fashion, would visit upon us if we happened to conform to their expectations? or live in keeping with what they have expected. Our vision of ourselves is something that is conferred upon us in grace by this crescendo of Christ’s the very voice of God speaking to us, not as a voice as others arising out of the world, out of the earth, but a voice coming down out of the heavens to declare to us who we are after all.

    And magnificently, you see, the way in which Jesus addresses us us to prance through the world as if we were self-important, as if we were those who lived off of the resources of our own egos. The way in which Jesus speaks makes it clear that for us to receive from him the full benefit of this crescendo, we must then see ourselves in light of his word in such a way that we are maintained in our humility. No room for arrogance here when Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. For it is clear that it is only by our relationship to him that these things are so, that we can be described in this way.

    I have said it before and I will say it again. There are many places for you to go where you can find therapy for your egos. And all of us know quite well the pains and the sufferings of a wounded ego. We know what it’s like to be at the bottom of the valley, not thinking too highly of ourselves. At the same time, we know that experience of resolute defense defense of our importance in our own eyes, so that we rise to the peaks of the mountains. We know the rollercoaster experience of our emotions. We also realize that there are those who sell elixirs that are calculated, intended to heal those problems, distresses, those pains which we experience.

    But please, with the words of Christ, you are to be driven back to what he has said what he has declared, what he has acclaimed, that you are in the company of the prophets, regardless what the world might say. That you are, after all, the soul of the earth and the light of the world.

    What does it mean for us to be the salt of the earth? Well, to begin with, it means more than the fact that the world is bland without us. sort of tasteless. We have to see what Jesus says here about us as the salt of the earth, in keeping with what he goes on to say about us being the light of the world. Can we imagine a world without light? The force and power, therefore, of what Jesus is saying about the salt registers in what he says about the light. As indispensable as the light is to the world, so Jesus is suggesting the world equally must have salt.

    Now, this might not register with us. We have salt-free diets these days. Some of us can imagine a world without salt, but in the ancient world it wasn’t so. Salt was important to the ancient people, if you read their histories and their comments. was as important to the ancient world as was the sun.

    And that’s the force of Christ’s comment. You are the salt of the earth. You are indispensable to the world. The world cannot exist without you. Now, that’s why I read for you this morning chapter 2, that little portion about the grain or the meat offerings.

    You see, in ancient times, as God was establishing his administration with Israel, as he was articulating that sacrificial system for Moses and the children of Israel, He told them that they were not to bring their sacrifices before him without salt. Salt was indispensable to the sacrifice. And in the same fashion now, as Jesus reflects upon that Old Testament practice, he said, that we, the church of Jesus Christ, we who are disciples of the Lord, we who wait upon him, are indispensable to the world. Now, of course, in that sacrificial system, the offering of salt with the sacrifices had something to do with the acceptance of that sacrifice before God.

    How else is the earth to be accepted by God, save his people who are in the earth? It is by your presence. It is by virtue of the fact that you are the son of the earth, as Christ has declared, that the world, the earth after all, has its acceptance. You are indispensable to the survival of the earth, even though the earth doesn’t know it. Why do you think this ball goes around and around? Why do you think there are stars in the heavens? Why do you think there is a sun in the sky? Why do you think there is the cycle of the seasons? Why do you think things are as they are?

    All things are for your sake. You are the very center of God’s creating, redeeming activity. Now, I don’t know what kind of seminar or psychological seminar you can attend, but I dare say that you cannot find in the words of men today anything that can equal what Christ is saying to you here in this passage. You, then, as indispensable to the earth as salt, and as indispensable as salt was to the sacrifices that were offered in times past. There is literally no acceptance of the world before God without you.

    Do you believe that? Oh, maybe. Maybe if I had a good night’s sleep last night, I could believe it a little more. Stretch yourself. It’s as if Jesus is standing here before you right now and he’s telling you his truth. Does he want you to be assured? Does he want you to be encouraged? Does he want you to have strength in your heart as you face life?

    Every bit of that. Every bit of that. There’s a little more yet to Christ’s meaning here. For not only is he interested in telling you about your indispensability, he wants you to be sure to remember your distinctiveness. If you lose your saltiness You become worthless. And isn’t it the truth? Haven’t so many turned Christ’s words just… Haven’t so many turned Christ’s words inside out, turned them on their head? Invariably we are fooled.

    It’s our ability to get along. It’s our ability to blend in. It’s our ability to be like the community. It’s our ability to be like the world. But Jesus says just the opposite. Those who are saying we must be like the world, blend in. They are the ones who are saying that that’s our only hope, and that’s the world’s only hope. But Jesus is saying just the reverse. He’s saying the earth has no hope. except you be all that you are to be as the salt, and maintain your distinctiveness as servants of mine and followers of mine.”

    What is this accommodating spirit that has overtaken us? We of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we used to be known because we marched to the beat of a different drummer. As time goes by, you can’t distinguish us from any other evangelical church out there. Our message loses its impact.

    But even more importantly than just a small little denomination, in the United States of America, the Church of Jesus Christ the world around. What is the force and power that is now being visited upon the churches as they emerge in the third world, for instance?

    Isn’t it this? Either you comply with the policies of government and national aspirations, or you pay the price, friend. Let me tell you about Indonesia. There once was a strong, reformed church in Indonesia. Now that church has compromised with the World Council of Churches. Why? Because the state has said, if you don’t join the World Council of Churches, we will revoke your license to exist in our country. So what does the church in Indonesia do? It develops a magnificent program plan platform of accommodation so that it can survive.

    I read about Africa, and my heart leaps, because I see simple folk hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ and believing for the first time, and they are believing by the thousands. But what is happening in the African church? Just as much as my heart leaps, my heart is broken, because I see these little churches then be set upon by the powers of governments intent upon breaking them, and more often than not that is exactly what is happening.

    It has already happened here. Don’t you see it? Distinguish the churches from the community. Not possible, friend. Ministers mount pulpits as priests of culture, preaching to you the platforms of acceptability and respectability in the community. The salt loses its savor. And they preach as if their message was the hope of the world. What a lie. What a lie. Now you might lack courage to take your stand, to stand over against All I will do is repeat what Jesus has said. You are the salt of the earth.

    O Father, we ask that the full power and impact of these words would be ours so that we would take heart. We ask, Father, that as we see our indispensability to the world by your grace, we would also understand our distinctiveness and not compromise one bit. continually that salt. And in this fashion, Lord, be the world’s hope. Hear us, Lord, then. Hear us, we pray, as we now pray with all humility, realizing that who we are, has been conferred by the tremendous crescendo of Christ’s acclaim that found in him and only in him.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Warrior King’s Peace

    The Warrior King’s Peace

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 5, 1986.

    About this sermon

    Christ’s peace is inseparable from his righteousness and fidelity, secured, oddly, by a warrior King rather than by the absence of conflict. Several passages are drawn together to show believers already partaking of that peace now rather than merely awaiting it. Peace, in this second look at the seventh Beatitude, is a conquest rather than a truce.

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    Sermon transcript

    said, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” That’s great, Gary. Father, our confession has been built upon the Lord Jesus Christ as he has been revealed to us in your infallible word. Lord, in these days when there are many attacks upon the veracity of your word, we would stand with your servants in every age who have confessed without flinching. Your word is truth. Hear us, Father, therefore, as we pray to you now. that our assent would not be of the mind only, but that our hearts would be assenting, and Lord, we would be determined to live according to your word in everything that we do. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

    Well, for those of you who thought we would make a little progress this morning, I am sorry to disappoint you. Here we are once again in the seventh beatitude, the one about the peacemakers. We have spent a great deal of time on this beatitude. Already we have taken two stabs at penetrating it, and as we have backed up and charged forward, I believe we have in fact made some progress in distancing ourselves from certain approaches to this beatitude. We have distanced Jesus’ words and the meaning of them from those who have employed those words as a political motto. We have also endeavored to distance his words from those who have utilize this beatitude as an evangelistic motto.

    In the one instance you have those who have applied the beatitude to the political situations of the world, to those who are involved in diplomacy and bringing about peace among nations. Then, on the other hand, you have those who have tried to, what might we call it, spiritualize the Beatitude and transform it into an evangelistic mandate, so that the peacemakers are essentially those who are concerned with bringing the gospel of peace to those who do not know it. Now, this is not in any sense to put down those who have committed themselves to bringing peace amongst warring factions in the world, nor is it to say anything against those who have been called of Christ to preach the gospel of peace. and announce God’s reconciliation with sinners through the blood of his Son.

    But we have asked ourselves, what is it precisely that informs Jesus’ words here? Instead of the circumstances of nations as they are at each other’s throats, and even instead of the matter of preaching the gospel, and that somewhat narrowly conceived, declaring God’s glorious promise of salvation to sinners who turn from their sin to Him. Instead of these specific concerns, we have gone back into the Old Testament in order to try and understand out of that Old Testament what it is that informs our Savior as he speaks here. Our trip backward has convinced us of this.

    The notion of peace in the Old Testament is deeply religious. As we have surveyed passages out of the Old Testament, it has become clear to us that the peace of which Jesus speaks is inseparably tied to righteousness. You can see that easily enough if you merely survey the psalm that we read this morning in our responsive reading, Psalm 34. But you may also recall that our trip into the Old Testament has brought before our eyes that for Jesus, the idea, the notion, the reality of peace is inseparably tied as well to religious fidelity, faithfulness. And here we have cited a passage as glorious as there is in all of the Old Testament, Isaiah 26 verse 3, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.

    The establishment of peace, then, or the making for peace in Christ’s mind, is not some sort of notion containing its own morality. Peace for peace’s sake, peace being its own reason for existence, a virtue beyond all others, that that prize, the cost of which cannot be too great. Peace at any price? Peace devoid of righteousness? Peace abstracted from, distanced from, faithfulness and fidelity that is stamped upon the pages of the Scriptures, not in Jesus’ mind. The peacemakers of whom Jesus speaks have grit and integrity. and integrity that are measured not by the world’s standards or even its expectations, but by God Himself and His Word.

    But we have gone further than this. For we have suggested in the light of movements and ideas and concepts and programs that are sweeping the world as well as the Church, we have suggested that the peacemakers that Jesus has in mind are not concerned with the creation of some sort of inner world of psychological tranquility, as if in view were what we might call a personal or personalized piece.

    And this is so because as we have dug deeply into the Old Testament, we have realized that standing behind Jesus’ language was the image of the kingdom of God. And that image is something into which we ought to sink our teeth and can sink our teeth. The image is very real. That image, as we have studied it, arises then from the Old Testament literature in which we see the figure of the king, the king with his kingdom, or the conqueror. and that conqueror, that king, is recognized as the peacemaker. Quite ironic.

    The warrior is the peacemaker. The warrior king is the peacemaker. It is then the conquest by the Lord of his enemies that inaugurates peace. But in so doing, this conquering Lord, this King, in his kingdom becomes the guarantee of peace for his realm.

    By his power he is triumphed, and in his power he reigns and ensures The peace of the kingdom is sealed by the person of the king himself, and by his influence through his person, that peace extends throughout the entirety of his realm. That realm then becoming, under his rule, one that is anxiety-free and righteousness-filled.

    So then, we have concluded that from the Old Testament we might well say, peace, like the kingdom, is a place. It is a place in which the subjects of the But propounding such a doctrine is filled with great difficulty. First of all, as we look at the Old Testament, the kingdom to which peace was attached was one identified with the royal house of Israel and the land of Canaan.

    But we take stock of both. Neither the throne nor the land, and it seems, despite God’s word, neither the throne nor the land seem very secure at all. The throne is toppled and the land is lost. What now of God’s word? What now of the peace in the kingdom.

    Of course, the answer to all of this is that the temporal rulers of Israel, be they even David or Solomon, the temporal rulers of Israel and that temporal inheritance of the land of Canaan are but the occasion for God to teach us, all of his people, about the eternal Canaan and the heavenly inheritance. The earthly administration in Israel was but a shadow of the heavenly.

    It is the peace of this latter realm, the eternal realm, and the great Prince of Peace, therefore, that become the focus of proper expectation. And after all, it has always been, even in Israel of old, It has always been the true nature of proper biblical faith to perceive the eternal beyond the temple, to see the eternal beyond the temple. And as a result, as all of this pertains to peacemakers, even as they arise out of the Old Testament, those then who make for peace in a true biblical sense have always operated in terms of a transcendent domain, a domain of glory, the domain of the heavens. And not only has this domain, this realm, this kingdom, been their orienting point, It has been the origin, the origin of the very peace they have attempted then to sow in the world. The peacemakers, blessed of Christ, make peace out of the peace of heaven.

    But this introduces us to another difficulty, for this doctrine of peace is a place like the kingdom. The realm of peace, the eternal kingdom of God, is above, in heaven. But I, I am below, in the earth. How is it possible for me to ascend the heavens in order to live in the kingdom of peace, and then, by some sort of reverse action, condescend to the plane of the world to sow peace in it?”

    Again, our eyes are directed to Christ. For by him, you see, we have been made partakers.” Take that word for all its worth. We have been made partakers. We are participants, partakers of participants in the heavenly realm by way of the work of Christ. He has died to the old order. He has died to that which is merely visible. He has died to sin and to the power of sin, and He has vanquished death. He has been raised and He has ascended.

    But we are told that we who have believed in Him have died as well To the old order we have been raised in newness of life, and not only that, we have ascended with him into the heavenly places, and there now we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in him.

    Am I speaking merely off the top of my head? Am I inventing this? Am I making it up? Read Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3. We have been translated out of the domain of darkness, the kingdom of darkness, and into the kingdom of God’s own dear Son. Am I making this up? Have I merely invented it so I have something to say to you on a Sunday morning? Am I spinning for you some sort of myth? Read Colossians 1. We no longer live in this present evil age, for we by Christ have been delivered out of it.

    Read Galatians 1.4. If any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. has it viewing a new world. Behold, the new things have come.”

    2 Corinthians 5.17.

    And once more I must mention to you in this connection the significance of your faith Because true faith not only perceives the eternal realm, which belongs to Christ, and rests in the certainty of its truth. Faith actually has the capacity to grasp. Faith has the capacity to grab hold of the reality of the unseen world. over which Christ reigns. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The substance of things hoped for. By our faith, then, we lay hold of things for whose sake we have been laid hold of by God in Christ. The very substance of heaven by our faith is in our hands.

    And now we who are the citizens of heaven, Philippians 3.20, We whose lives are hid with Christ in God, Colossians 3.3, become the very ministers of peace. That peace, I would say, which we have been privileged to enjoy above. We are peacemakers in the world in keeping with what we have been made to be in Christ and because of him. It is exactly at this point that a unique feature of the peace and the peacemaking of which Christ speaks comes in view.

    It is also at this point that we are confronted with yet another difficulty for our doctrine of peace as a place like the kingdom. You see, there was one before us who was in heaven, who came down who came down as the peacemaker, and in his condescension and in his message for peace, speaking as he did about the peace of the eternal realm, there came to him nothing less than persecution and abuse and the opposition of the world. The world is interested in peace, but it is not interested in the peace of heaven. It is interested in a peace of the world for itself, in its own interests.

    One of ourselves We, too, who have been exalted into the heavens with Christ, there perceive him and we see the grand marks of his humiliation. Seeing them as we do, by the Word, in the Spirit, we are constrained to be like him. Therefore we cannot content ourselves with a place beside the Savior in heaven. We, too, like him before us, must condescend. We must be lowered to the plane of the earth to live as he did among men. But to do that is to incur the wrath and hostility of the world. How ironic. The peacemakers actually generate war. And this war should not surprise us.

    It stands, you see. in the light of Christ Himself. Is it not obvious that the force of Jesus’ last three Beatitudes, now culminating in this one which we considered this morning, that the force of these last three Beatitudes is generated by the persecution envisioned in the first four Beatitudes? Even then, here in the seventh beatitude, blessing falls upon those who persist in making for peace despite the hostility and the hatred they endure as servants of Christ. This is not plain to us by this time, then. and all the Beatitudes have behind them not just the thoughts of Jesus, but the very life of Jesus.

    He was poor in spirit. He mourned. He was the meek, the humiliated one. the one who hungered and thirsted for God’s righteous rule. He was all of those things because of the opposition of the world to him, and yet in the midst of all of it, he persisted in showing mercy, demonstrating purity of heart, and being a peacemaker without equal.

    The Beatitudes preach Christ. The Beatitudes preach the Lord of the heavenly realm. The Beatitudes here speaking in the Seventh Beatitude about peacemakers make it plain that we are the ambassadors of the kingdom above. We are commissioned to sow peace in the world.

    Peace filled full of righteousness. Peace filled full of religious fidelity and loyalty and devotion to God. Peace that is beyond our comprehending. Let’s pray. We thank you, our Father, for the message that is given us by Christ, by the invitation that comes from his lips. by the wonderful experience of joy and delight that we find in Him, the One who reigns over the realm of heaven, and so rules over the realm of earth, that in our peacemaking, be opposed and abused and persecuted as he was, yet we shall gain the victory if, in fact, we persevere in peacemaking to the end. Lord, may it be plain to us that we are not here equipped with a peace that is of this world. Instead, Lord, we have within our grasp the very peace of heaven, and it is this peace which we minister in this world of strife, discord, and contention. Help us, our Father, to be resolute in our service to you.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Peace as a Place, Not a Feeling

    Peace as a Place, Not a Feeling

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 15, 1985.

    About this sermon

    Several Old Testament passages treat peace as a present blessing, and peace is a place, dwelling securely in God, more than a state of mind. The Prince of Peace has already come, so that place is already open. Feeling peaceful and dwelling in peace are two different things.

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    Sermon transcript

    are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” Let us pray. Father, is there a word upon which we can count? Is there a word that is true and faithful? Is there an infallible word, a word without error? Our Lord, we know that there is.

    And our confession that this is so is a work even now of your Holy Spirit in us. And surely, as we have confessed it, we must also live it. Lord, we ask for all of your purposes in us. to be made complete. We pray these things in Christ Jesus, our Savior’s name. Amen.

    What about peace? Certainly we hear a great deal about peace at this time of year. And as we look at the Beatitudes, it seems as if Jesus, in giving us these Beatitudes, has built to this final Beatitude this one that concerns itself with peace and the making for peace. But how are we to understand what Jesus speaks of here? Last week we pointed out that the specific word that is used here for peacemakers appears nowhere else in Scripture. There are passages that sound the note, the note of peacemaking, but the word itself is not used.

    In this connection, we looked at James 3, a passage well worth our time. And this morning we’ve read from Romans chapter 14. And if you take a look at the 17th and 19th verses of that 14th chapter of Romans, you see once more that the matter of peace is foremost prominent in the Apostle’s mind. And isn’t it foremost and prominent in our lives? Peace, our peace, the making of peace, these things for which our hearts long.

    But let’s understand peace and peacemaking as Jesus speaks of it in the Beatitude. And our habit hasn’t simply been to look at passages in the New Testament that parallel the thought of the Beatitude as Jesus expressed it. Rather, our habit has been to back up a bit, return to the Old Testament there in an effort to understand better what Jesus has in mind. A study of peace in the Old Testament may take forever. But let’s look at a few of the instances this morning in the Old Testament Scriptures where peace is spoken of. First of all, we can group some of these passages under the heading, Peace is a present blessing for the people of God. Peace is a present blessing for the people of God.

    Think, first of all, of those warrior kings, those heroes of Israel. How it was that through their exploits they brought about peace. We think of little David, his battle with the giant Goliath. And as a result of his victory, the Philistine armies are put to flight, and peace comes to Israel through this peacemaker. Think of the judges of Gideon in his battles against the Midianites. As the Lord raises him up and he is victorious, peace is the fruit. and especially of Joshua, that Old Testament Jesus. Joshua enters the land, and by him the armies of Israel triumph, and at the end of his life, if you look at Joshua 21, the latter part of that chapter, you have a marvelous description of what has been brought to pass because of the triumph of Joshua and the people of Israel through him.

    Indeed, Joshua is a peacemaker, and the children of Israel experience peace as they take up their dwellings in the land of Canaan. Peace is a present blessing for the people of God. It’s part of the territory. Belonging to God means then, in some fashion, that peace is a reality.

    It’s well for us also to take stock of how rulers in ancient times were considered. These ancient rulers, including the figures of David and Gideon and Joshua, warriors though they were, were seen as peacemakers. They were understood as those who brought by way of their conquests the fruit of that conquest, namely peace. and because of their greatness and because of their power, because of the immobility of their throne, they were seen also as guarantors of that peace which they had brought. If you were to turn, for instance, to the prophecy of Daniel and read that magnificent fourth chapter, the letter that Nebuchadnezzar distributes to all of his subjects about how he has been found of, or how he has found the Lord in his distress. His greeting goes like this to his subjects, “‘May your peace abound!’ The one who speaks from the throne extends to his subjects peace. He guarantees that peace in the power which his throne signifies.

    But in Israel, thinking of Israel specifically, peace is united to religious fidelity, spiritual loyalty to God and his cause. And therefore, we have that greatest, I think it’s the greatest, of Old Testament texts. Isaiah 26, verse 3, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. Just the speaking of it has an aura. In Israel, then, you see, peace is related, joined, inseparably to religious fidelity, spiritual loyalty. This proved by magnificent passages like Isaiah 26 verse 3. And that verse, is it not so wonderfully instructive? For it tells us that peace is the present blessing of those who keep God. foremost in their hearts. So precious is this piece, so valuable. Can anybody think of anything that can compare to it? So precious is this piece and so valuable that it takes second place to know.

    In the desires of men. The father is able to say. The thirty-fourth Psalm, the fourteenth verse. Seek peace. Among all those things that you might seek. Seek peace and pursue it. Now we have gathered together a number of texts in which peace is spoken of. Is there something even more basic that underlies these considerations, these passages, that should be kept in mind by us behind each of these texts? There stands a world, a world of concrete realities.

    Not as if peace were attached to ether, vapor, the air. As if peace were something that you couldn’t get your teeth into, hold on to, grab, hold What I mean here is that the peace in view, as the Old Testament speaks of it, is not some sort of ethereal world out there somewhere, or some kind of inner world of psychological tranquility, as if the Bible were offering to us a supercharged promise of mind health. Now please understand, this is not to say that the Bible isn’t interested in our psychic dispositions. However, I think you are well aware of the fact that much modern religion has become nothing more than a sort of clinical pietism. in which the chief objectives are coping with stress, finding true happiness, while developing our own personal sense of wholeness, stability, self-esteem, and even sanity. But as worthy as these goals are, and as desirable as these conditions of mind may be, they are not what the Scripture has in mind when it speaks about peace. The Scripture does not begin with these sorts of considerations. You see, behind the Bible’s talk of peace, Behind that Old Testament word, shalom, there stands the realistic image of the kingdom of God. And this kingdom must be understood in all of its power, in all of its strength. The kingdom is real, the kingdom is spatial, the kingdom is environmental, the kingdom is atmospheric. It is a reality.

    Joshua then, that Old Testament Jesus, secures a domain, a realm, in which God’s people come to dwell in peace. Those greetings of peace which Nebuchadnezzar extends to his subjects. Those greetings of peace were more than mere salutations. They were guarantees, for the ruler who extended that peace stood behind the greeting that he gave to ensure that peace would in fact be the reality for everyone who was within his realm. both the piece of Isaiah 26 and Psalm 34, has behind it that anxiety-free, righteousness-filled realm, domain where God rules. Speaking realistically, peace is a place first, according to the scriptures.

    But while the Old Testament portrays peace a present reality and a present blessing, and to be sure, that portrait is broad in dependence upon the imagery of the land of Canaan, still the peace of the Old Testament Now, that’s not to say that the peace is deceptive. But there is an illusive quality to the peace of the Old Testament.

    There are certainly a number of indications of this. On the personal level, there is the continual reminder of the stricken conscience, as the people must prepare to the temple, making sacrifices and offering up their peace offerings to God. In this light, we consider then the power and importance of the Book of Leviticus. and its relationship to the message of peace. But there’s more.

    We’ve said that peace is a place, and in the Old Testament, particularly attached to the land of Canaan. But now we also realize, as we move through the Old Testament, that that realm in which peace is to dwell is under continual threat. the realm can be lost, the kingdom destroyed, the blessings in the land can dissolve. But proving the point, the elusive character of peace, Old Testament peace, is underlined by the fact that there is the promise that comes to us out of the pages of the Old Testament. Promises concerning that idyllic state of existence, thoroughly, excruciatingly delightful in its blessedness and adorned with peace, a peace that shall never end.

    Look at Isaiah again. If you read from the fifteenth verse to the end, here you have the Prophet speaking of that environment, that atmosphere where peace dwells, never to be lost, never to be diminished, never to be destroyed, until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high, he says, and the wilderness becomes a fertile field. and the fertile field is considered a forest, then justice will dwell in the wilderness and righteousness will abide in the fertile field. The work of righteousness will be peace, and the service of righteousness—listen to me—isn’t this that for which you long? The service of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation and in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places.

    And the final verse of that chapter, how blessed will you be You who sowed beside all waters, who let out freely the ox and the ass.” He remembers a picture from Isaiah 11, a passage read at this time of year, regularly The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little boy will lead them. And the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and the nursing child will play on the whole of the cobra. and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. Then they will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountains, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

    And over this kingdom This kingdom, which was promised, of which the Old Testament kingdom was merely a shadow. Over this kingdom, there comes the promised Prince of Peace. He will reign. Isaiah 6, verses 6 and 7. And the peace of his realm will never end. And he, according to Isaiah 53, will gain this peace by the root of his own chastisement, his own sufferings, for our sake. What is it then that stands behind Jesus’ use of the word peacemakers in the seventh and last beatitude.

    It is an entire world, it is an entire domain which He inaugurates, over which He rules. His realm is a realm of peace, and this One who rules in peace and by peace, who has brought about peace through his ministrations as a servant, he then is making those who are of that kingdom like unto himself. They are patterned after his image.

    And as his message of peace and his work of peace did not arise out of the earth or any kingdom of this world, but came down out of heaven, the very visions of peace above informing him. So now for us as well, the domain that is in our purview, the kingdom which we see, that which motivates us in our peacemaking, is not some kingdom of this world. But it is heaven itself, for by him we have seen into the realms of glory and understand that heaven is a place where there is no discord, where there is no complaint, where there is no distress, where there is no want. It is the realm of perfect tranquility. As such, it becomes the focal point of all our endeavors. It becomes foremost in our mind. It becomes our chief desire and delight. Our minds are focused on it, and we seek it above everything else. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, that kingdom which is filled with peace, and everything else shall be added unto you.”

    Now do you begin to understand why it is that the programs and vaccinations of this world are so useless in bringing about the peace of humanity? They start in the wrong place. You go to the clinic? Do you expect the clinic to give you peace? Is it your hope that they will teach you how to cope? Let me tell you, the best they can do is give you a piece of this world.

    Jesus tells you to start at a different point. And by grace, he gives it to you. He gives you heaven and he tells you that the reality of heaven is peace, and now, in that atmosphere, in that environment, you live. If you make that kingdom of peace first, everything else will be given to you. even the peace that you are trying to find at the clinic. Peace is a place. It is a place procured by the blood of Christ. It is a place in which you are privileged to live by grace.

    And living in it, you are called the sons of God. By faith now, Father, we confess that your kingdom is not of this world. That it is a kingdom, nevertheless, whose realities are filled, experienced here. And Lord, we who are yours, called sons of God. We, our Father, would know the fullness of that peace, that we might be informed by it and transformed by it, and from it live as we become the

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Pure in Heart, Not Moralistic

    Pure in Heart, Not Moralistic

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 8, 1985.

    About this sermon

    The fifth Beatitude brings a real shift in tone, and ‘pure in heart’ stands against the moralism that James 4:8 warns can set us against Christ. The modern church tends to trivialize the gospel. Purity of heart and niceness are two different things.

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    Sermon transcript

    It says, left it all to fear and heart, for they shall see God. That is clear. Father, your Word is our life. And we would not be without that Word, not for a moment. Therefore may we welcome it, and Lord may we embrace it. by which we will live, by which we are informed of all of our moments, our working, our laboring, our loving, truly our obedient, our complying with your will. See us, my Lord, as we pray together Now by now you know that my intention is this.

    The fifth through the seventh theology comes together. Now, if you have the Seventh in front of you, that means that verses seven through nine of Matthew 5 are to be viewed as a unit. Now, I’ll try to convince you of this by taking stock of the entirety of this passage, and I’ll tell you that the passage must be read through to verse 15.

    And doing that, we know certain features of the passage as a whole, and we’ve been over those particular points before. But in order to reinforce to that, now, That means a lot of the attitudes can exist. The attitudes 5 through 7. I want you to notice something specifically about the structure of the attitudes themselves. Take a look at the first four. Notice how they search for our frames here. So our frames are complex.

    And that is, in the first instance you have the blessing articulated and the change described. You have the love of human spirit, for instance. But then comes the contact. In the latter part of each of those first four Beatitudes, you have something that answers what you find in the first section of each of the humanities.

    For instance, the exhausted, those who are poor in spirit, are given the table. The powerful. The fearful, those who mourn, are comforted The humiliated or the weak, the disenfranchised, are the true heirs. And those who hunger and thirst, we are satisfied.

    So the emphasis is on contentment. The concluding theory, verses 7 through 9. Here, there is a shift. Not any longer contrast, but rather complement. So that the first part of the theodicy is matched with what we find in the latter part of the theodicy. So notice the first received measure, no contrast, The pure become witnesses of the purity of God. And these natures are trophies in God’s family of people. So that’s all fantastic.

    So if you needed more confirmation for my interpretation of the attitude, I offer this to you this morning to reinforce what I have been trying to say to you throughout this period. As long as three realities can hang together, you then will find an emphasis on complement, not contrast. Keep on moving.

    We know that we have observed already how these last three are set apart in terms of the flow of Jesus’ message. those who wait for God, who wait for the appearance of His Kingdom, if you will, the appearance of His righteous rule through His Messiah. And Jesus has identified these who wait for Him as the abused, the scorned, the appointed, Going towards the denial in this world are those things that might be expected to be there.

    And this is the fourth of the first four Beatitudes. Then coming to verse seven and that Beatitude about the merciful, we have observed here that there is a shift in tone. That shift in faith has in view the blessing upon those who, despite their abuse by the world, are reacting to the world’s opposition in a very remarkable way. A quite remarkable manner. So it is that if you take thought of the first four Beatitudes and you go to that fifth one, you observe that shift in tone in first message. Paying attention as he brought to the plight of the people of God, and the opening Beatitudes now, In these latter-day attitudes, Jesus places before the world the remarkable reactions of good people to that very abuse. Tons of people react to their condition as the poor experience, as those who are the mournful. as those who are beneath or belittled, as those who are hungry and thirsty.

    Despite the abuse, they persist in demonstrating mercy. And that mercy is qualified by the persecution which they have undergone. You see, it’s not just mercy directed towards those who are friends. Rather, it is meant to be directed towards those who are the preventers of the persecution. And you can just tell me then, that you wish to take up the fifth key attitude this morning. Blessed are the pure in heart.

    Now, we have looked into the compelling and self-empowering character of the Christian attitude, blessed are the merciful. We have spoken about that extensively. But we’ve learned that the attitudes are to be seen as a unit. And what we have absorbed with regard to the Christian attitude, we might expect to see with regard to the Christian.

    For this, as well as this is, we are confronted by the second character of Jesus’ birth. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. By that might, well to be heard not will come. And in reading the passage, he writes, this passage should fit it.

    And I might say as well, as we refer to the attitude that’s bound us to us, it may not be all that obvious exactly what the central character of Christ’s Word is. For example, We seldom feel the force of Jesus’ worship response because we are blind to the flow of his message. It really doesn’t double in.

    Remember what we’ve already said about the merciful. The merciful are those who persist in mercy in the midst of persecution and they persist in mercy towards those who are the persecutors. It is just in this way that we are free of the human heart. In other words, the human heart are destroyed as such because of their attitude in the face of the opposition that comes to them over social class.

    So for instance, it’s Psalm 11, verse 3. The psalmist, in fact, asks this question. If the foundation be destroyed, what will the righteous do? Well, at least in part, the answer to that question is, keep on being righteous, of course. But then it returns to purity of heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what will the pure heart be? Keep on being pure in heart, of course.

    This is just as it was for the merciful. But the merciful, in view by Jesus, has as its concept the abuse which the children of God suffered, so also has the human heart. Despite the persecution, despite the opposition, There is that other witness in the heart that he will continue to be healed.

    And there is another reason why we have difficulty recognizing the certain character of Jesus’ word here in this radical. And that is because of our tendency to understand this particular verse exclusively in moral terms, or in terms of morality. Not only do we read the theodicy about the pure in heart in this way, Our tendency is as well to read those Old Testament passages on which it is based in the same way.

    Passages like going back to Psalm 11 once more, that psalm is 7th verse. In Psalm 18, verse 26, to the pure, God hath said, Thyself pure. Verse 24, verses 3 and 4, we must stand before the Lord, we must stand in his holy place. He who has a clean, he who has clean hands and a pure heart. And for these Old Testament texts, we add that those from the New Testament, texts like 2 Timothy, Q. 73, plot any useful way, and pursue after righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call upon the Lord from a pure heart. to the pure, all things are pure.

    We take the fact and then we add to them the concept of the Beatitudes, We see in them and in this beatitude something that is referring exclusively to our moral character. While we are doing that, to be sure, we end up with a very plausible interpretation. And the pressures of the text drive us along this path. The strain of those pressures that come to us due to the opposition of the world may, in fact, lead us to desert the truth. They may, in fact, lead us along the road in which we will align ourselves with the world and against Christ. And this seems as in moral error.

    Why should I continue to stand this far? Why should I continue along this road of purity when all it brings me is persecution and unhappiness? Why don’t I just throw the whole thing over and go and live like the faggots? If my life as an example of Jesus Christ is like this, then what benefit is there in it? I might as well go out and live as the world will. Are people moving around? Why not me? Why not move? That seems to be the way of the world, isn’t it? Standing with Jesus benefits me in no way.

    This may well be thought to be a proof of what the psalmist said. in Psalm 73. Surely God is with you in perception of what you are taught. But as for me, it goes on. My feet almost slipped, but I was envious of the evidence. Then I crawled across the steps of the window. Now that is a very plausible approach to this passage. And on the surface of it, it is quite compelling to grab that, because I don’t know which can identify with it. He has known the cost of our discipleship was done.

    And the thought has passed through the mind of each one sitting here, this Christian stuff is not worth the pain. Much better live like a woman. But as possible as this approach is, it isn’t deep enough. It isn’t profound enough. It isn’t quite subtle enough. And that’s why we have to push deeper through.

    You see, the true force of Jesus’ words here, So, that’s far beyond the spirit of eroticism. You know what the brain of modern Christianity is? It’s eroticism. Real eroticism. I’m going to find a couple of words that satisfy those and go merrily along with it. We might have involved ourselves in many moral haggards. We might be caught in raging accidents.

    So the gain, as I said, of modern Christianity is morality, bare morality. I believe the Spirit isn’t an exponent of sin and morality telling you to do good and do good as if that’s all there was. Now, I know I’m going to insult. I’m going to insult people by saying, Jesus was never that shallow.

    And what gets me to this day and age are those who are running around after all these great and wondrous moral causes and declaring them as if they were the height of profanity. The true brilliance of the gospel is found here in the words of our teacher, in the attitude we are face-to-face with our God and face-to-face with our sin. And that’s what’s so special, for the mask of their morality is clear to God.

    Is there any text I believe in the New Testament that makes it as clear as James 4, and that’s why we read it this morning. Now, it may have been a little painful for you to go through that passage, but hang in there. Listen to it. Understand that James is here, especially if you make it to the eighth verse, and he speaks specifically about fury and horror. with his body’s worth and what James says there about fury and heart that should very so well be in sacrifice worth. Now, this verse appears in a section in which James speaks about divisions in the Church. Notice verse 1. The philosophy splits with what James calls friendship with the world. Verse 4. And this friendship is not to be seen as goodwill. This friendship is a will. It is nothing else than hostility to God. So it is that when we come to this eighth, it is this split in loyalty that concerns James in his waiting.

    Therefore, when he talks to you about purity of heart, it is answered by his heart. That Puritan heart is answered by its corollary indiverse, this corollary indiverse in which James speaks about double-mindedness, a division of loyalties within one’s heart. Those who are pure in heart are single in heart and in purpose and in intent.

    And that’s a greater concern than just doing the last. The human heart has a single aim. They have a single goal. Therefore, In the Sixth Beatitude, Jesus is not speaking about the veering or vanishing. He is talking about the singleness of our hearts. Our hearts are set upon one thing. What must be that one thing? The renovation of the world and making a better place for women. So that’s an adversary too.

    And I wouldn’t want the minimum. But that’s not what Jesus has in view. That’s not what’s in view in the New Testament. The goal and the aim of this theodicy is found in the declaration with which it concludes. Blessed are the pure of heart, for we shall be God. Now I don’t know what causes may be legitimate and worthy of worshiping. But let me tell you, there is no goal or aim like this. You know that you are going to see God.

    And if you keep that goal and aim in front of you with indolence of heart, You know how it is. Every decision is already made. Every problem is already decided. All that matters is that. The goal. The goal is that. And that is why preoccupation is more than one just in the tribute. In the other, he’s in it. He’s concerned with the goal and the aim that he has in view here. And I might just say, for instance, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting sick and tired of all this bullshitting that is going on around me.

    But when I hear this sort of thing coming into the Church, all they do is trivialize, all they do is trivialize the magnificent vision of an Apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ. And I’m supposed to compare that with the UN report that they show us that our church has traditions at the end of each year?

    This is ridiculous! It’s a trivial matter! Am I supposed to compare that with the goal that Jesus Christ had in front of him in which he set his faith like this, towards Jerusalem, to go and die for sin like you and me, and then be raised on the third day? Oh! Don’t be content, don’t be content with the foolishness and the foolishness that is overtaking the people of God in our time. Come back to the sixty-odd truth. Bring the Quranic Word just beyond the terrible hour, and hear what Jesus is saying.

    Father, we could ask that the full weight of this gratitude be on us, and that weighs no burden. For, Lord, we would not hesitate to accept the description of our Savior by grace, no less than you are at your time, when all you do is we will take ourselves into his world. For father, you will be reminded of that one who walks with you in heart, for you are in a place. Jesus our Savior. Through such resoluteness of spirit and determination, not turning to the right or to the left, kept his eye upon the glory of the kingdom and the honor of his Father. So, he saw you in the vindication of your righteousness, and we in him are now comforted in the knowledge that as we are in him and so described by the Father, we shall see God. There is no further contradiction to admit our promise that our ears have been opened to hear from Jesus Christ. I will follow you.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Blessing Inside the Persecution

    Blessing Inside the Persecution

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 10, 1985.

    About this sermon

    The Beatitudes work by irony, since blessing shows up in the midst of persecution because God is present with his people inside the difficulty. The fifth Beatitude finds that same presence in an unexpected place, the mercy believers show to others. God’s own mercy comes to people through that human mercy.

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    Sermon transcript

    said, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Let us pray. Our Father, your goodness is underlined by the fact that your word is ours. You have given it to us that by it we might come to you. Lord, at this time We ask for the full benediction of that word and the full implementation of those things we might expect from it. And Lord, may we be pleasing to you in that we render obedience to that word as is right, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

    We have been looking at the Beatitudes. We have divided the Beatitudes. You will recall taking a look at Matthew chapter 5. We have numbered the Beatitudes as being seven in number. We have then the division of the Beatitudes, four in the first section and then finally the last three. We have completed our study of those first four Beatitudes. That study has taken us through the Beatitude which says, “‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.’” The question we have before us this morning, before we go on to consider the next three Beatitudes, is this. Once more, what can we say the first four Beatitudes are all about?

    They are about this. Jesus is speaking to those who are looking expectantly for the coming of the kingdom. He speaks to those who look to him now. through whom that kingdom is being realized, and he speaks to them in such a way as to describe them as the object of the world’s scorn, abuse, and even hatred. Therefore, when Jesus speaks to those who are looking expectantly for the kingdom of heaven as being the poor in spirit, They are indeed the poor in spirit due to the fact that there are those in the world who are rich in spirit. In fact, those who are rich in spirit presently are the cause of the present poverty of those who are poor in spirit.

    Similarly, we can understand the second beatitude. it pertaining to those who mourn. Why do they mourn? Because of those who laugh. They then, being the ones described by Jesus as waiting for the appearance of the kingdom, as fighting with God and God’s kingdom, have become the object of the world’s ridicule. those then who mourn do so because of those presently who laugh. And what might we say about the meek? Those who are described as the meek are in fact meek because of those who are not. They are the victims of those who are not meek, those who in their spirit say, I want it all for myself, and I want it now.

    And in their pursuit of the things of this world, they have made those who wait for the vindication of God’s kingdom the victims. Coming to the fourth beatitude, what is in view when Jesus speaks of those who are waiting for the kingdom as those who hunger and thirst? Those who hunger and thirst are awaiting God’s intervention. They are awaiting the fullness of His righteous reign. They wait, hungering and thirsting because of those in the world who neither hunger nor thirst, but presently are full and well satisfied. The focus, then, of these first four Beatitudes is the persecution of the world. Visited upon those who trust God and wait for him. Now, this certainly is in keeping with what we find elsewhere in the New Testament. You might know in Matthew chapter ten. as Jesus speaks to his disciples, as he sends them out to preach in the cities and towns of Israel.

    He tells them in verse twenty-two, And you will be hated by all on account of my name. But it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. You will be hated by all because of my name.” There’s that powerful passage in John’s Gospel, the fifteenth chapter. In the 18th verse of that chapter, Jesus speaks these words, “‘If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, I chose you out of the world. Therefore, the world hates you.

    Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they would keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake, because they do not know the The testimony continues.

    We turn to the fourteenth chapter of Acts, and Paul is on his first missionary journey. He has been stoned and thrown out of town by those who oppose the gospel. Then you have been making this magnificent statement in the twenty-second verse of that fourteen chapter of Acts, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith. Paul said, through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. once more, and the world’s opposition.

    But lest you think that this is a message for apostles and missionaries and preachers only, you can take a look at 2 Timothy 3.12. For there Paul says this, making reference to the condition of all who would follow Christ, and indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Referring, of course, to the opposition of the world today. I just lost my water. I’ll try not to run dry.

    The theme, then, of the first four Beatitudes, the opposition of the world to Christ, to the kingdom which he declares, and those who have found their repose in it. But these first four Beatitudes are magnificent in their scope. For in them, along with this message of opposition and suffering, there comes what we might call the beautiful irony of God’s saving For it’s precisely in the circumstance of affliction and suffering that Jesus pronounces the blessing, and that’s the magnificence of the beatitude. In the midst of the trial, in the midst of the pain, while the affliction is current, There comes this pronouncement, this declaration, this intrusion of God’s blessing to those who trust in Him. Here is the beautiful irony of God’s saving power, blessing in the midst of affliction.

    And what might that blessing be? What is its content? We can speak of the blessing, and this is substance, you say. We can voice the word and not comprehend what Jesus is speaking of here. What is the context of the blessing? Is it just a feeling of elation? Is it, as someone has recently suggested, a sort of giddy happiness? No. It’s so much grander than that.

    For the blessing which Jesus has in mind here is nothing less than the presence of God. You realize, I’m sure you understand, the significance of Matthew’s insistence that we see Jesus as humanity, God with us. In the midst of the extremities, there comes in an unprecedented way, more so than ever the very presence of God, and he in the midst of that distress sanctified unto us our deepest distress, agony, and pain. Now, in the Old Testament, there are a number of pictures of this wonderful, beautiful, presence of affliction, the people of God undergoing that affliction, and God pledging himself to be with them in it, that they might not be overcome, that they might be sustained, not in their own power, but by the one who has the power to sustain them in all things. Have you ever read and been overcome by the complexity of that passage. It’s one of the most bizarre of the Old Testament.

    You have a wonderful beginning in which it seems as if Abraham is vindicated because he believes and trusts God, and then we are told it was counted to him for righteousness. But then you go on in that chapter and you read of how Abraham then prepared to offer a sacrifice to God, and he lays out the pieces of the sacrifice on the ground and running through them to keep the birds away so that they don’t eat them.

    And as the night comes on, a deep sleep overtakes him, and he has this vision, and it’s a vision of a glowing furnace. But passing through the pieces of the sacrifice which Abraham has laid out and passing through that glowing furnace is a flaming torch. And this vision goes hand in hand with what God has just revealed to Abraham concerning his posterity, namely, the nation that comes forth from his loins will be in affliction. not to worry. Even though their affliction be as that glowing furnace, there’s the blazing torch, the presence of God himself in the midst of it, he identifying himself with his people that they might be sustained and brought through.

    And there you find Isn’t it interesting that when God goes to set his people free, and we read about his preparation for that great work of redemption in Exodus chapter 3, the whole thing begins with the burning bush, the bush that is ablaze but not consumed.

    What’s the meaning of the burning bush? It is the same as that glowing furnace and blazing torch. The bush itself is the people of God. And the bush is a picture of the affliction that the people of God are enduring. But out of the midst of the blazing bush there comes the voice of God, God present there, therefore the bush is not consumed.

    And so it is for all who are waiting, for all who have waited for the coming of the kingdom of God, all those now who are turning to Jesus Christ. They, even though they are the poor in spirit, even though they are the ones who are weeping, the meek, hungering and thirsting, in the midst of their affliction, they are sustained by the very presence of God in Jesus Christ. And because of that, they are not consumed. Let me tell you, the very gate of hell cannot prevail against the people of God. See how ironic it becomes as you go on to the parallel passage in Matthew’s Gospel, verses 10 through 12, those verses paralleling the first four Beatitudes. You see how ironic the whole thing becomes.

    In the midst of the affliction, because God is present with us there and we are promised we will not be concerned, Jesus says, Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Rejoice, earth, despite the pain and the distress. But is our suffering and our meditation upon the presence of God in Christ all that there is to our faith? Having run through the first four Beatitudes, have we arrived at the end? Jesus has three more for us. We’re not done until we’ve stayed the course of the whole seven.

    And this is as it should be, because what kind of religion is it that is preoccupied with its suffering, or merely meditate as if in a personal and exclusivistic way upon the presence of God? What kind of religion is produced by such a view of the faith? A tragic religion, to be sure, one that is full of paranoia, one that is filled with the martyr complex, one that is truly a turning in upon itself, a contemplation of itself The danger that stalks the persecuted Church is nothing less than this, that the Church then would refuse its mission and turn in upon itself.

    So here comes the fifth Beatitude. And the magnificence of this the attitude cannot be overestimated. Literally shatter. For you see what Jesus is doing is that he is setting up. The persecuted who have waited for God continue to trust in him, believe the gospel and embrace Rather than being turned in upon themselves, they, when they are abused and scorned and ridiculed, must turn outward. For it is in the circumstance of persecution that they are compelled to be merciful. And that’s so utterly contrary to the way of the world. Here’s the proof of the point. How do we know we stand within in the midst of the affliction that we find ourselves? Those who seek revenge. Those who wish to get even. Those who expect the pound of flesh. Were those even though we are suffering, are determined to be nothing less than what God has been Now, as I say, we cannot overestimate the significance of this reality. It is as if the very fullness of all that God expects of us is summed up in it.

    And that is why I read to you the fullness of that session in Luke’s Gospel this morning that parallels the Sermon on the Mount. What verse is it in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew that stands out above all others? What statement? Isn’t it the last verse of chapter Therefore, you are perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect. But did you notice the rendering that that verse gets in the Luke account? Chapter six, The parallel sentiment in Luke’s gospel reads this way. Be merciful, just as your Heavenly Father is merciful.

    So it would seem that the perfection that Jesus has in mind in Matthew 5.48 is the mercy that he speaks of in Luke six, verse thirty-six.

    This the attitude dealing with the merciful then cannot be overestimated in its importance by coming to this the attitude we have reached as it were the very heart of our religion. We, then, the persecuted, the afflicted, those who have stood with Christ despite all those things, as the world perpetrates these things and the attitudes and actions against us, are to persist in a spirit of mercy. And this is what makes our faith so thoroughly unique. One final word.

    We spoke about the presence of God with us as the substance of the blessing in the First that in the midst of our affliction, God is present with us. Now you see that as I move from those first four Beatitudes to this fifth Beatitude, the blessing of which Christ seeks is concurrent with the mercy that the Beatitude expresses. The presence of God is mediated in the mercy that finds its expression in me.

    Can there be blessing without mercy? Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Let’s pray. Challenges our Father with the fullness of our faith, though our lot be that of the persecuted Lord, we know we cannot draw in upon ourselves, but rather we must be turned outward even to those who are our persecutors. We must be merciful, determined to persist in that mercy which has been manifest by our God in Christ. Herein is the blessing of the presence of God apparent. It is also apparent that we belong to you, if we are merciful. Hear us, Lord. Constrain our hearts. Make us fresh and new in our obedience.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Hungering for God Himself

    Hungering for God Himself

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 3, 1985.

    About this sermon

    Christ gives seven Beatitudes, and in the Hebrew way of thinking seven marks a complete blessing. Verse 10 adds no eighth Beatitude, because 5:10-16 is Christ’s own commentary on the seven. The fourth Beatitude reaches for the righteousness of God’s rule and reign, and those who hunger and thirst after it hunger for God himself, in the heavenly tabernacle.

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    Sermon transcript

    Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Let’s pray. Though many things rise up, those things, Lord, never obscure our devotion to You. and our hunger and thirst for your kingdom. Lord, now may our hearts be willing, our wills pliable, our minds receptive, and Lord, may we be found obedient to your word for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

    Now, having come to the fourth Beatitude, we have reached a shifting point within the progression of these well-known statements of Christ. In order to make this clear once more for us, It might be well to take stock of the outline of the Beatitudes as we have endeavored to present them. Now, I have tried to give you the feel for the whole, and that is why I have insisted from the first to the sixteenth verses of this chapter in Matthew. That is, to put before you the suite of Christ’s statements.

    Now, we’ve asked, of course, how many Beatitudes are there? We run through the arguments. Some have suggested nine, others eight, but I said there were seven. That fits well with what we know about Matthew and about the workings of the Hebrew Mark. I don’t have to remind you that the number seven is the perfect number. the number of completion, so that in giving us seven Beatitudes, Jesus is giving us the whole thing. The complete blessing is outlined here. So I have run from the third verse, that first Beatitude, through verse nine, and identified blessed are the peacemakers as the last of the Beatitudes proper. That means that when we begin verse 10, we are not adding there another Beatitude by taking stock of the blessing that is pronounced there by Jesus, namely for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and noting that that is the same blessing that appears in the First Beatitude, I have suggested to you that Jesus has gone back to the beginning in order to start again.

    Now, this being true, and I’m banking on it, We have one of the most marvelous passages in the Bible, because what is true then, consequently, is that Jesus here in verses ten through sixteen, going back and starting again, Jesus here is giving up his own commentary. on the Beatitudes, which he is just pronounced.” That’s wonderful. Commentaries abound, but are there any inspired commentaries? Some might be inspiring, but here Jesus gives us, it would seem, an inspired commentary on the Beatitudes, which have been the focus of so much discussion through the history of the Church.

    And this means that if you are confused, if you’re having problems understanding the run of the seven in verses 3-9, all you need do is turn to verses 10-16. Now, you might recall the little exercise that I commended to you a while back. I told you, go home and write in parallel columns verses 3-9 and beside it verses 10-16, and then start matching things up.

    Now, there are other things that, of course, come to our attention if this outline holds. For as we read through 10-16, that being commentary, we notice that there is a definite shift in Christ’s words and sentiments. I think that that shift is easily identified. It occurs with verse 13. So you have verse 10 and then verses 11 and 12 hanging together as a unit, and then you have verse 13 marking the shift so that now Jesus is saying very directly, You are the salt of the earth, You are the light of the world, you are the city set on a hill. Now, if we have found a shift in the commentary, might we not then expect a shift in the text of which it is the commentary?

    And sure enough, In reading through the seven Beatitudes, we find a shift there as well. So you have the first four Beatitudes as a unit, and you can match those first four Beatitudes as a unit with what you find in verses 10 through 12. so that the emphasis of those first four Beatitudes is going to be persecution, oppression of the people of God because of their stand with God and for his truth. That means, then, that the last three Beatitudes, verses will correspond with what you find in verses 13 through 16. And as those verses in the commentary end in verse 16 with an emphasis upon letting your light shine, you will find that corresponding to the sentiment of those last three Beatitudes dealing with mercy, purity of heart, and making for peace.

    Now, we have arrived at the fourth beatitude, and this beatitude is of great importance. It stands, as I have suggested to you, as a mountain peak for the first four that we have surveyed. It is the apogee of Christ’s initial volley that he has released in his statement of blessing. And from this peak, now, we survey the terrain. Having arrived there we have come to that point where Jesus is most direct. Now, we’ve dealt with this also, because as we’ve read through the Beatitudes, at least the first three, there seems to be a certain indirection about them, a certain general quality about them. But Jesus now is becoming quite pointed in this fourth beatitude. He is becoming most direct, and it is here that he begins to lay bare the heart by addressing in this beatitude the most basic longings, cravings and appetites of his disciples.

    Coming to this point, then, we are impressed that there is an underlying discipline to the reality, an underlying constraint. For now, as I read them, I certainly read them as great God’s gifts, the pronouncement untold because of what Jesus Christ means, his appearance in this world. Yes, I read these Beatitudes as grace, as the grace of God, but yet underlining that grace is an inherent discipline that exerts a constraint upon me. And now that constraint is spoken of in terms of my hungering and thirsting. For me, then, to be this disciple of Jesus, I am the recipient of his graciousness. but I am also the recipient of the constraint of that graciousness, and that constraint is exerting itself in terms of my hungering and thirst here for righteousness.” Now, what might we say about this righteousness? We have already attempted to dispel certain thoughts concerning it, as proper as those thoughts are in other contexts.

    For instance, is Jesus here, as is ordinarily thought, speaking about my personal holiness? What I am to thirst after is my own sanctification. We know how sanctification is spoken of in the Word and also summarized by the Catechism, its renewal in the whole man after the image of God, so that we are enabled more and more to die to sin and to live for righteousness. But is Jesus here speaking about my personal fullness?

    From our last message, we directed your attention to those marvelous songs from a section of the Psalter that means so much to good old Presbyterians, because it’s a section that includes old hundreds, and there’s probably no better badge for Presbyterians than the singing of old hundreds together. section of the Psalter sweeps from the ninety-fifth through that hundredth psalm, and in it you find the declaration with regard to God, who is the incomparable King, bringing to pass his kingdom of righteousness and justice and equity, and that for the sake of his people. He comes to judge the earth, to judge his people with righteousness and the nations with equity. and that refrain of the righteousness of God is sound, as is the recurring refrain through those songs, so that you don’t miss the point. When Jesus speaks about hungering and thirsting for righteousness, he’s not speaking about my personal holiness, as important as that is. He is speaking about the intrusion of God’s righteous rule and reign for the sake of His people and the vindication of His name.

    That’s what’s in view. Here is the discipline for our hungering and thirsting. Oh, there are many things I crave, you see. There are many things I want, but the discipline that comes to us from Christ’s beatitude is that my craving, my wanting, would be discipled by His that those, after all, who are the blessed in the kingdom are the ones who have hungered and thirsted for God’s righteous rule, for his vindication and his reign. What do I want of all of us? The honor of God Is that what I want above everything else?

    Well, I don’t know how I can make this more dramatic, but I’m going to try. You see, in speaking about this hungering and thirsting for righteousness, Jesus yet is using a bit of indirection. In fact, we can say that as he speaks of the promises concerning the Kingdom of Heaven, that same kind of indirection is at play. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean that he is using a vocabulary here that sort of overlays that which is still more important.” Now you ask, what could be more important than the righteousness of God? What could be more important than the kingdom of heaven?

    Having set my heart upon those things, haven’t I reached the end? Now you see why you must run back into your Old Testament once more. Why you have to jump back into that falter with every bit of your energy? Why it’s necessary for your heart to be molded and shaped by the things you find there? It won’t be merely, then, those things of which you read in Psalm 95 through 100.

    Even more than that, if you now take back the covering, you see that behind the righteousness of God, or His righteous rule, or the kingdom of heaven, there is… Do you understand it? You are going right into the tabernacle of the Lord. You are entering into His temple, and now you are face-to-face with God Himself. As the heart panteth after the water broke, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

    Even more than the righteous rule of God, It is the coming of God that we are to see, understand, embrace in those psalms, 95 through 100. And that directs us back through a wealth of psalms, 42, 43, 63, 84, 91. Where do you stop? 145. of the servants of God, for God himself, for nothing less than God will satisfy your hunger and your thirst.

    This isn’t so as to make life easy for you in the world. This isn’t to give you all the things you want. Oh, how the church needs to stand up now and say that against all of these practitioners in religion who come along and promise you everything. run from them. They are liars, because they would deceive you with the veneer. Behind the veneer, you must push beyond that to the righteous reign of God and see in the righteous reign of God, God himself, for God is the one you truly hunger for and thirst after.

    There is a problem in the Psalms, however. Psalm 42, for instance, is magnificent. It is written during the times of captivity. The children of Israel are not in the homeland. So the psalmist tries out with the tabernacle, or rather the temple, that was in Jerusalem. But Israel was restored, you recall, and the temple was rebuilt. And still, despite the return of the people and the rebuilding of the temple, the hungering and thirsting persist so as to tell you that your satisfaction is not found in any city of this world or any temple of this creation, be it Jerusalem or the temple which is built for the service of Yahweh himself.” So that even here, as Jesus pronounces this blessing, by means of this root of indirection, forcing these people who hear him, who live in a land where Jerusalem stands and where the temple is being erected, he is forcing their direction beyond.

    For cities and temples of this world are lost. They are subject to decay. The true inheritance is above. And it is that inheritance which Jesus has procured for us, he willing himself to hunger and thirst on the cross, and having hungered and thirst in his identification with us, his people, he has now been catapulted by the resurrection into the age to come. where there is no hungering and there is no thirsting, only the fullness of God.

    And if you love him, he blesses you with that fullness today. Blessed are you though you may yet hunger and thirst, you shall be filled, this guaranteed unto you by the One who no longer hungers and thirsts, but has been filled to the very fullness of God, and is pleased to give that fullness to all who trust him. Don’t be satisfied with anything else. Don’t allow yourself to be satisfied with anything else than God.

    As Paul said, maybe the greatest verse in the New Testament Romans 8.17, you are heirs of God and joined with Christ, if in fact you suffer with him so that you might also be glorified with him.

    Let’s pray. Now it comes, Father, yes, the blessing, the gift, but yet the discipline as well. For our hearts are constrained, we hunger for you. And now confess, there is nothing in our lives that will satisfy us. as you will and presently do. We thank you, Lord, for the ministry of Christ. He shows us the way. By him we are filled. We pray these things through him. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Meek Already Possess It

    The Meek Already Possess It

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 25, 1985.

    About this sermon

    Christ’s own definition of ‘meek’ carries more force than the NAS’s ‘gentle’ allows. Psalm 37 supplies the background, a meekness that already possesses the inheritance while the wicked seem, for now, to enjoy it. Appearances and reality are two different things.

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    Sermon transcript

    Jesus said, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. I’m going to pray. Father, what a delight it is to be here today with your people, lifting praises to you and offering ourselves in service. Not to forget what we have sung or prayed or heard, that all of our moments might be lived for you. Your words would be treasured in our hearts, this word being our life. We pray these things through Christ. Amen.

    Now, when I mention the word meek, what comes to your mind? When I was younger, that word suggested any number of definitions, all of them bad in Meekness was the equivalent of cowardliness. The meek were spineless. They lacked nerve, breath. They were unable to care for themselves. The meek were weak.

    I’m going to send that one to Robert Shuler. When I grew older, I began to realize that the question wasn’t so much, what comes to mind when we mention the word meek? Now, I’m fully aware that in our culture, neatness cannot easily be associated with dirty hair. It’s more along the lines, in our culture at least, as we have viewed things, along the lines of the poor soul, Jackie Gleason’s old character, Charlie Chapman. But, of course, we are compelled to take all of our definitions to and from the Word.

    So in answer to the question of who, immediately there comes to mind Jesus. Jesus describes himself as There is that magnificent passage in the eleventh chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. You remember how that chapter concludes with Jesus speaking about the sovereign disposition of the Father in calling disciples out of the world. But then there is that magnificent overture wonderful invitation, come to me. All who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn of me, for I am weak and lowly in heart.”

    Reflecting on this, the Apostle Paul makes mention of this quality in Christ. 2 Corinthians 10, the first verse, Paul demonstrating with the Corinthians. He pleads with them. He says, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” And he goes on to present his case, and we are to interpret his case as one that is set forth by him in meekness as he imitates what he has found in the Savior. There are other passages in Paul that speak of this. He talks about his visit with the Corinthians, or at least give threatened visits to them in the first epistle. At the end of the fourth chapter, he says, What will you have? Shall I come to you in the spirit of meekness or with a rod? Meekness is not simply a quality for saviors and apostles. It is also a quality commended to saints.

    The Apostle lists the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5. In your mind you can run through those fruit of the Spirit, but in the 23rd verse of the 5th chapter of Galatians, Paul enumerates meekness, But what is it? When everything has been said and done, and we’ve listed all the passages What is it really about Jesus than about the Apostle Paul, also about those blessed by the Spirit, evidencing the fruit of the Spirit in their lives? What is it that is especially outstanding in the term meekness, in the use of the word meek? to define this word meek, its corollary meekness, with other words with which that word meek or the word meekness has been used, especially in the New Testament. So we run through a passage like Matthew 11, and we find there Jesus described as the one who is meek, and then we go on and we understand that meekness in terms of what follows, what is yoke to that meekness in that verse, namely lowliness or humility of heart.

    And that’s the way it is when we take another look at 2 Corinthians 10.1. We find meekness mentioned there, Paul making an appeal to these Christians at Corinth. them by the meekness of Christ and also the gentleness of Christ.

    Therefore, meekness equals gentleness, and it is precisely this idea which has triumphed in the New American Standard Bible’s version of the third beatitude. Well, if you have a New American Standard, take note. He is not the meek, but rather the gentle. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. But does this translation the meek as the gentle, truly focused, the ideal held within the embrace of that third, the attitude.

    The best we can say is that it may hit the target, but not the bullseye. Interpreting meekness as gentleness leaves us on barren ground, and such an understanding of meekness leaves biblical meekness without its true grit. In fact, we can go so far as to say that such a definition of meekness lacks the full-orbed content of the biblical notion. Now, having swept that all to one side, where do we go from here? How are we to understand The meek and meekness. Well, Jesus, you see, is speaking as he does, against the backdrop of his Old Testament. And if we are going to understand what Jesus means when he says, Blessed are the meek, we’re going to have to back up again.

    I believe that the most help for us in this regard comes from that psalm that we spend so much time on already this morning, Psalm 37. Now, I don’t know whether you like short psalms or long psalms. This is a long psalm. If you love poetry, if you can allow yourself to be swept up in the flow of this song, don’t settle for just one verse. Grab hold of the whole thing, and let the power move you along as you hear the words. It is a tremendous peace, if we were only to consider it literarily. But of course, because of its spiritual intent and power, its importance is magnified a thousandfold.

    It’s as if the entirety of life and all of life’s difficulties their proper focus have been compressed into forty verses, and our hope and the resolution of the difficulties that we face as servants of God is resolved within those forty verses. to you, possibly because you know that first verse–“flatten off thyself because of evildoers.”

    This psalm, then, is focusing upon the inequity that exists in the world, and we can say that that inequity is described in terms of the juxtaposition of the meek, on the one hand, and evildoers, on the other. This iniquity is seen most directly as it pertains to a central image.

    If you run through that psalm, you will see that the image that dominates is that of the land. Beautifully, the psalm begins because you see those first six verses concentrate upon images of crops and harvests. And then you come to verses 7-11, and the language now is turning directly to the theme not just of land itself, as if you need a place to raise your crops or plant your garden, but land in terms of inheritance. My inheritance, what is promised me. So it is, then. of inheritance begins to sound out throughout the psalm. And in this, you see, you are introduced to language that mirrors what you find later on in the third Beatitude of Jesus, and that even acts as a refrain throughout the psalm. You can run through the psalm and see it repeated again and again. Notice, for instance, verse 9.

    For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.” All right, hold that. Move a little further. A verse which in the King James is precisely what you find in the Third Beatitude. 11, but the meek will inherit the earth and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.” Once more, hold it in hand.

    Verse 9, verse 11. Then verse 22, “…for those blessed by him will inherit the land, but those cursed by him will be cut off.” Once more, verse 29, the righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever. And 34, wait for the Lord, think his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land when the wicked are cut off. You will see. Now, in order to understand Jesus’ meaning when he speaks about the meek, you have to take stock of the run of verses in Psalm 37. Who are the meek? Are they simply the gentle souls of the earth? But is that really what Jesus is concentrating on? Is that what he wants us to see?

    When he speaks of the meek and that against the background of what Psalm 37 says, take stock of the run of those verses. The meek are those, according to verse 9, the meek are those who wait for the Lord. These are those, then, that are described as the righteous, the ones who will be exalted. The foundational thought is that neatness equals waiting for God, waiting for the Lord. But if this is the content of meekness and the meaning of the meek, if this is the content, then what is the context of that waiting, the waiting by which meekness is defined?

    What is it precisely that demands that we wait? or make the wait problematic, difficult, or strange. Is it not, as the psalmist says as he begins that psalm, the temporary triumph and prosperity of those who oppose God and oppose his people? It is the fact that the wicked those who scheme and grab, those who seemingly have the inheritance in their hand, that they triumph while the righteous have nothing and actually suffer. You see, there is a problem of usurpation here, and as we deal with the context of waiting for God, it’s not enough to merely speak about that wait generally.

    We have to speak about it specifically. And you see, we wait because others who oppose God have sown for themselves the American which is not theirs. But there are magnificent illustrations of this throughout Scripture. I could turn to any number of passages and bring out this truth.

    It’s not just that the servants of God suffer because they belong to God, they love righteousness, they love His law and abide by it. They suffer also because of usurpation. The unrighteous actually grab what is not theirs.” is tremendously complex, magnificently difficult. Now, I’m not going to try and bring out all of the difficulties in it for you this morning, but just give you a feel for what Isaiah sees here.

    At the beginning of that chapter, he has in mind the triumph of God. and the song of the people of the Lord. We have a strong city, say the people. God has set up the walls and ramparts for our security, and then you have the voice of the righteous, those who have been redeemed of God. They cry out as they approach the city that has been established, built for them. Open the gate that the righteous may enter, the one that has remained faithful. You will keep him of steadfast purpose, in perfect peace, because he waits for you and he trusts in you.”

    And then the admonition, verse 4, “…trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord we have an everlasting And then these verses, For he hath brought low those who dwell on high, the unassailable cities. He lays it low, he lays it low to the ground, he casts it to the dust. The foot will trample it, the feet of the afflicted, the steps of the helpless.

    And there is the resolution. The image is remarkably powerful, because by the time you get to the end of that section, verses 5 and 6, you see that the people of God have come up to the wall of the city that belongs to them. And they can’t gain entrance, because inside that city are those who have deserted for themselves, and they stand as the weak, the helpless, and the afflicted at the base of the city wall, and it is God alone who takes their enemies and throws them over the wall.” And now they, trapped in their enemies, are afflicted as they march in to the city.

    Now, if you read Psalm 24, nothing less than that is being said in that psalm, or over time. The youths who have taken for themselves what is not theirs. Jesus tells us the need are those who wait for God. and from God comes their inheritance. In their waiting they are victims of the wicked who seize for themselves the inheritance that does not belong to them. The meek commit themselves out of trust to God. Their case and cause is in the hands of the wait for him, only him, to deliver. Jesus, the meek one, how so? He doesn’t speak a word. He doesn’t pretend to defend himself. He goes to the cross. And on the cross, he says, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” The meekness of Christ is then issued in exaltation. For that meek one now says, all power in heaven and in earth has been given unto me. They are mine.

    And what of all who trust him? You, the meek, shall not the same deserve you? What of the suffering, because you love Jesus? Already the blessed administration of Christ’s triumph has begun for you, because Christ is able to say to the meek, “‘Blessed are the meek.’” Right now, already, the wonderful benefit of your everlasting and eternal inheritance has begun for you in the Spirit. so that in every circumstance you are made more than conquerors through him who loved you and gave himself for you. And the resolution of your meekness and the reproach that it has brought upon you are guaranteed an end, because those things have already ended for Christ, and you are in him.” are you a new one. You shall indeed inherit the answer.

    Let’s pray. Thank you, Father, for the Beatitude. Lord, we thank you that you have shown us in Christ the meekness he commends to us there. Lord, we are in fact as he was, and Lord, he has communicated to us the blessings which fell out for us the end of our humiliation and the inauguration of our glory. Praise be to you and to your Son, our Savior. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Matthew’s Doubling

    Matthew’s Doubling

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. Matthew sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, June 23, 1985.

    About this sermon

    Application-heavy preaching misses Matthew’s literary habits, especially his repeated doubling. Two epochs, Christ in the flesh and Christ in the Spirit, structure the Gospel. The doubled calling of the first disciples in 4:18-21 describes the calling of the whole church.

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    Sermon transcript

    Walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in a boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them.” Father, we would receive from you that which you have delighted in giving, namely the word of life. May it come to us as bread for our nourishment, and by it may we be empowered so as to live for you, for Jesus said. Amen.

    What do you think I’m doing here? What kind of job description would you give for me? Now it’s become the habit of some to look at the pastor of a congregation as something like a corporate executive. His major task is to deal in coordination. His responsibility is to make sure that things are run efficiently. He is to oversee the various activities and programs of the Church Corporation, and to make sure that as few as possible are offended, and as few toes are stepped on as possible. Well, am I a corporate executive?

    Some of you who know me well laugh There is another approach to the pastor, however. I wouldn’t have thought that we needed to consider this within an Orthodox Presbyterian Church until recently I heard an Orthodox Presbyterian minister speak of the pastorate in these terms. He saw the pastorate for the minister in the pastorate in athletic terms. The pastor in his mind was a coach.

    And he was to get the best team out on the field. Extending the image of it, it seems as if the coach has multiple tasks. not just running the show, organizing the team, but he is also the primary cheerleader. It’s as if he was conducting a pep rally and his job was to convince you that you really can win. and to motivate you to do nothing less. Am I a corporate executive, a coach, a tutor leader?

    My job is to preach and teach the word of God, so that you might understand that word as best as you can, so that you might understand your place in that work. There is a variation on this approach to the pastor and the ministry that is worth taking note Many in their definition would start exactly as I have. But the pastor’s job is to preach and to teach the word of God so that you might understand it as best as you are able.

    But then, as they go on, there’s a subtle shift. They say, in conclusion, that the purpose of this preaching and teaching is in order that you might know how to apply the word of God to your life. Now, it’s a subtle shift, but I want you to feel the significance and weight of that shift.

    For the latter definition suggests to you that there is an inherent deficiency in the word. In other words, the word cannot be applied without my expertise. There is an application, you see, inherent in the word itself. And that’s why I said to you that my task is to preach and to teach the word of God, so that you might understand it as best as you are able, and might understand your place in the word. For the sufficiency and adequacy is in the word, and the word is not sufficient. One wins. My task, then, is to point you to that word in which you find your life. and out of which you must live. In order to fulfill my calling to do what I’m supposed to do.

    I am committed to the Word of God and a specific understanding and approach to it. And therefore, you see, when I come to the Word, I come to it as if it were a gold mine. And the task before me is to go down into that mine and dig gold, to bring that gold out and to present it before you, to show you just how marvelous the riches are in that Word for yourselves.

    This means that we can never be content with a mere superficial reading of the Bible. We have to dig deeply to pull out of this word all those precious gems, all that precious metal that is there for us. Now let’s take a simple passage, a passage like the one we have in front of us this morning, one that You’ve known since you were a child.

    Jesus calling two brothers, Peter and Andrew, and then, in a repeat performance, calling two more, James and John. But even here, there is a will. Even here, there is a mind to enter and treasure to be done. in looking at the test. You notice something about this passage. The two stories told are so similar. There is a mention of two brothers in each. So you have two in the first instance, Peter and Andrew two in the second, James and John, then you have the two stories themselves, as if the same story were being told all over again. It’s a multiplication of twos. It’s as if two is cubed, two times two times two. Why this multiplication of twos? If you will, why this doubling within the text?

    Now, we might not be struck by this feature of the text if it weren’t for other passages in Matthew’s gospel in which we can observe a similar phenomenon. For instance, if you were to turn to the end of the eighth chapter, the twenty-eighth verse, You will notice there a story of Jesus as he casts out demons.

    But as you read through that story, you may be struck that this doesn’t sound exactly the way I remember it. You may have in mind the recording of these events as they come to you from Mark chapter five. And in Mark chapter five, you hear about a single demoniac possessed, living amongst the tombs, Jesus comes to him and asks him what his name is, and the man responds with the voice of the demons themselves, My name is Legion.

    And then Jesus heals him. But then, returning to Matthew chapter eight, as you start that passage, You remember, you recall, you take note of the fact that here Matthew mentions not one demoniac, but two. This isn’t an isolated instance. If you go to the 9th chapter, the 27th verse, you find there Jesus not dealing with one blind man, but dealing with two blind men.

    And then in chapter 20, verse 30, the same thing occurs. In the twentieth chapter, you see a story once more, one quite familiar to us, the story of Christ’s sojourn in Jericho before he ascends up into Jerusalem to face crucifixion. In Luke, chapter 18, you find out that there is a blind man in Jericho by the name of Bartimaeus, and Jesus heals him. But then, when you turn to Matthew 20, you read that there are two blind men, and they aren’t named. There is an obvious, deliberate doubling by Matthew in his gospel.

    He deals with things in terms of truths and personages in terms of truths. Now, what does this doubling mean? Now, we’re going into the mind, and it isn’t easy to go down in the mind. So I want you to hang with me as we work through this problem. What is the intent of Matthew’s doubling? In order to understand it better, we need to take stock of another way in which Matthew presents to us his doubling intent. And he does that in terms of two individuals.

    First, John the Baptist, and then Jesus. Thinking about John the Baptist as he is treated in Matthew’s gospel, first of all, you know how he appears on the scene, you know how his ministry progresses, you know of how he is arrested and finally executed. But there is an assessment of John the Baptist by Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, and that occurs in the eleventh chapter. You may want to take a look at that. In that eleventh chapter, Jesus is rehearsing the ministry of John, and it is obvious from the eleventh verse of that eleventh chapter that John the Baptist is looked upon as one who has a restricted function.

    He is one who, yes, Amongst those born of women, there is none greater.” But then Jesus goes on to say, at the conclusion of that eleventh verse, that he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. And in this fashion, Jesus calls attention to the restricted function of John the Baptist. and positions John, as he truly was, as an Old Testament figure, the last of the Old Testament figures, the last of the prophets who should herald the coming of the kingdom. So that causes us to conclude that on the one hand we have John appearing in an Old Testament context as part of the Old Testament age and epoch. But there is a doubling, for having considered John from that vantage point is hardly adequate, and that is proved by what we read in verses twelve and thirteen of that eleventh chapter.

    Jesus goes on to say, and from the days of John the Baptist until now, The kingdom of God is exerting itself, and determined men are taking hold of it. So it is that John the Baptist is seen not simply as an Old Testament figure, but he is actually seen as the one in whom the New Testament age is inaugurated. It’s as if, then, the doubling is with regard to epoch. John the Baptist, straddling both, seen as an Old Testament figure, but then also as a New Testament figure. That this interpretation is correct is borne out by what we read in verse thirteen.

    For all the prophets and the law prophesied unto John and from John. From the time of John on, the kingdom has been manifest in itself. Now, that’s the doubling with regard to John the Baptist in terms of the epochs of salvation, the times of God’s dealings with his people. Now, I said as well that there’s a doubling with regard to Christ also.

    Maybe you recall a sermon preached around Christmas time on the genealogy of Jesus. He turned to the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel. You remember the opening of that gospel, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham? From verses two through sixteen, you have three tables of names for this genealogy.

    The first one running from Abraham to David, the second from David to the captivity, and the third from the captivity to the birth of Christ. Now, at the end, in verse seventeen, you are told this. But from the time of Abraham to David, there were fourteen generations, and so it goes. From the time of David to the deportation to Babylon, there were fourteen generations. And from the time of the deportation to Babylon to the time of Christ, there are fourteen generations.

    Well, then you decide to do a little bit of figuring on your own. So you go back and you count names. And sure enough, if you read through that first section, you get fourteen names to read through the second section, you get fourteen names. You come to the last section and there are only thirteen. Now, you’ve heard me say this before or ask the question. Couldn’t Matthew count? No, you see. You see that last name. becomes the double generation. He becomes two generations at once.

    For you see, in him there is first of all a generation which he himself is, namely the generation commensurate with his life in the flesh. That time in which he lived here as the son of Mary and Joseph. that time in which he ministered, he healed and taught, that time in which he suffered, in which he was interrogated, in which he was crucified, and then was raised from the dead. There is that time. But then, as you run on to the conclusion of the gospel, you hear Jesus say, as his departing words to his disciples, and Jesus is also as much present in this epoch, the one in which we live, as He was in the epoch when He was present in His flesh and in His body.

    Jesus stands both. There is a doubling. First of all, with regard to John the Baptist He being an Old Testament figure, a New Testament figure, now with regard to Jesus, he’s spending the time, first of all, with regard to his ministry, his death and resurrection, and secondly, with regard to the time in which his church lives. You could say it like this. Jesus spends the time of his life in the flesh and also his life in the spirit. And we live in the time of Christ’s life in spirit.

    Now we have to go back and ask ourselves a question. What is the intent of Matthew’s judgment? When there are two demoniacs, when there are two blind Matthew wants you to see in those two, not just one who is there when Jesus was in the flesh, but another who is there when Jesus is in the Spirit. He wants you to see yourself in the past. You are present and being administered to. by Jesus as much as that demoniac, as much as that blind man.

    The two men then represent two epochs, the epoch of Christ’s time in the flesh and the epoch of Christ’s time in the spirit, or the age of the Church. in which you live. But what do we do with Matthew four. Here we have a compounding of two. Two times two times two. Let’s look at the past. In terms of the things we learn. Who are the first two Specifically addressed here by Jesus, the address absent when he comes to the second two.

    Who are the first two brothers to whom he says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men? In these men you are to see all who are ordained, called to draw the nations just as men draw nets to boats. having left them down for a catch of fish. Not just those who were called when Jesus was in the flesh, but a doubling, those who are called when Jesus is in the Spirit, so that you might understand that in whatever epoch you find yourself, it is the sovereign power of God through Christ who calls his disciples to himself, those who will make the disciples of the nation. But why the other two? Let me ask you this. Is this passage only about preachers? Is it only about fishermen and those who are sent to catch fish?

    The second two, James and John, become indicative of disciples. In the first instance, Peter and Andrew, you have disciples, those who are disciples. In the second two, you have the disciples. Once more, a doubling. Not just those disciples when Christ was here in the flesh, but those who are disciples when Christ is in the Spirit also. You see, the whole of the Church of Christ is in this text, in this passage. Whether they were the called to preach during the time of Christ, or those called to preach in the time of the Spirit, whether they were discipled by Jesus when Jesus was here on earth, or discipled now, as you are being discipled presently.

    You are in the passage. This is a passage as much about you as it is about Jesus. It is a passage as much about you as it is about Peter and James. To what intent? For what purpose? to confirm me in the knowledge that finally my call is from Christ. And in your case, what? That when everything has been said and done, It is the Lord Jesus who, in his sovereign, electing power, has chosen you and drawn you to himself.

    Now, what confidence is yours? What encouragement becomes yours? for you are as called as James and John, and as beloved. And Jesus is as much present with you now in the Spirit as he was with them in the flesh. In fact, your experience in Christ is much better than even theirs was. And as that experience is much better, so also should be the certainties and the assurances that are yours. This is the source of your buoyancy and your confidence. This is the source of your direction and acclimation and orientation towards life. You don’t need a corporate executive standing up here. You don’t need a coach who’s going to put out the best team on the field. You don’t need a cheerleader.

    What you need is the Bible. and someone who will tell you just how wonderful it is, and how wonderful your life is in light of that word, and someone who will tell you that this Bible is about you. Father in heaven, may we have the word of God of life.

    Father, may we see the riches that are here them out, and may we delight in what we find. May we dote upon your word, rehearse it in our hearts. May we find it to be all that you have declared it to be, the source of our life and nourishment. And Father, may we know that being fed by this word which is none other than the word of Christ, we shall never die, but rather live. Father, we pray that we might be disciples indeed, who observe all that you have commanded, in the knowledge that it has been your sovereign call that has brought us to yourself, and

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • A Prophetic Voice: Repent

    A Prophetic Voice: Repent

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. Matthew sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 17, 1977.

    About this sermon

    Mysticism creeping into the modern church gets a direct rebuke here, answered by recovering the church’s own prophetic mission: a call to repent rather than a call to feeling. John the Baptist, Christ, and Calvin are read together on what repentance actually means, resisting easy sentimentalized versions of the word. A separatist church, in this sense, is simply one still willing to say it.

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    Sermon transcript

    Let’s pray briefly. Father, we again acknowledge the great power of your word. Lord, we know that Jesus has told us that the word is life and spirit. Lord, we ask that in our lives that we have with Jesus Christ that we might be refreshed continually by hearing your word and understanding its intention. Let us not go from this place this morning, our God, without being confronted with the knowledge of Jesus Christ as he is revealed in that word. And may we hold on to him, our God, as that which is dear to us. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

    Today we see Occidental civilization tottering. We see intellectual activity declining with unexampled speed over a large part of the globe. We see a sensational revival of such pseudo-sciences as astrology, neo-gnosticism, racial mysticism, We see scientific methods and discoveries judged by Marxist and racist gauges instead of the independent scientific standards. In short, we are in a world which is largely like the Greco-Roman world of the first century B.C. We need reawakening of faith in the God of the majestic Theophany of Mount Sinai, in the God of Elijah’s vision at Horeb, in the God of the Jewish exiles in Babylonia, in the God of the agony at Gethsemane. We no longer know how to live. And that’s the assessment made by William Foxwell Albright, the great scholar of John Hopkins University, thirty years ago. We today see Occidental civilization tottering. We live in an age of disintegration. But what happens when those of us who say we see and understand, those of us who say we have an answer, begin to totter ourselves?

    There probably isn’t a more germane question that we can be asking ourselves right now than this. Why do we exist? And I’m talking about the church, this church, in this community. Why is it that we’re here? What are we doing? What are we trying to kill? I mean, we have part of your whole house this morning. And there are churches down the street that are packed to the gills. What are we doing here?

    Now the title of this message doesn’t appear in the bulletin, but I’d like to give it to you anyway. The Prophetic Voice and the Separatist Church is the name of this thing. And my concern has been generated by events that have happened in the past month, and what I will call my Philadelphia connection. I spent some time on the telephone, and my wife would stand there pacing, Hang up! Hang up! The bill! Well, I’ve been in contact with my Philadelphia connection.

    And the word that’s coming, it seems to me, increasingly, from the Vatican, is this. We don’t know what we’re about anymore. There are no longer those clearly defined lines that we once had in the 30s. And the reasons for our existence seem to diminish by the moment.

    Is there actually a reason for the existence of this Church and for the Separatist Church in America and in the world? Is there actually a reason for us to continue to exist? Do we have a mission? Is it legitimate? Or has the time come for us to close up shop, disband the congregation, sell the property, and march in mass down the street and rejoin the mainline churches?

    I want to analyze then for you this morning the Separatist Church in terms of what I consider her mission to be in this day, and why she exists and why she must exist if we are to have any direction in this age of disintegration. What is the Separatist Church first of all? Why did you come here? The true Separatist Church has, for Biblical reasons and in what it considers Biblical ways, separated itself from the modern ecclesiastical movement, whether it be Roman Catholic or Protestant.

    And by so doing, it has made a statement to the Church, to the world. to those who are called by Christ’s name. It is saying, you see, that the assessment of the Reformers in the 16th and 17th century was correct, that Catholicism has essentially gone bad. Yes, it says that, but it says more. It says, also, that Protestantism itself has also gone bad. and no longer can provide us with the direction that we need in understanding God’s purpose in this day.

    It’s important then for us to understand the mission of the Separatist Church in our generation, and her mission is inseparably united to the message of the prophetic word that comes to us out of the scriptures itself. It’s not something that we can invent. It’s not something that we can generate. It’s not something that we can manufacture. If we’re not upon the scriptures taking our place, if we’re not taking our foundation, setting our foundations there, we certainly don’t have any reason to exist. The mission, the ministry, of the Separatist Church in our day is the prophetic voice.

    And what does that prophetic voice say? First of all, I want to speak a word of encouragement to you in terms of that prophetic voice, and I see here that this is the heart of the epistles that Paul wrote to the churches. His intention was to edify, to build up those congregations to which he wrote, because he essentially saw those people as living in a way that was responsive to the Word of God. And if they were called into account, they would repent, turn around, and do what was commanded and asked of them by the Apostle. First of all, the prophetic voice says this, as you have received Christ Jesus for Lord, so walk in him. It is a word of encouragement then to the saints who are open to the word of God. and who desire to live in obedience to what God is saying.

    But that’s not all. There’s a second part, and this is the part that I want to deal with principally this morning. The prophetic voice is a definite call to repentance to the saints to those who are called by Christ’s name, who are not themselves submitting to the word and living in obedience to him.” Now, it’s very unfortunate that we do not understand what repentance means, for the And the reason we don’t understand it generally in the ecclesiastical scene today is because we allow ourselves to understand things generally in a Greek fashion. There’s a Greek word used in the New Testament for repentance. It’s the word metanoia. And if you literally translate that word, it comes out to something like this, change of mind.

    I used to like oranges, but now I like apples. I didn’t like spinach, but now I do. I’ve changed my mind about that. The inane quality of the illustrations that I have just given you gives you the flavor of what repentance has become today, simply a change of mind with regard to taste. I used to be a liberal Democrat, now I’m a raving, raving conservative Republican. I used to be Socratic in my philosophy, but now I’ve become an Aristotelian. I’ve changed my mind.

    And that’s the transition that goes in us, on in us, and we think by these transitions we understand what repentance is, but that’s basically a Greek concept of what repentance is. And we don’t really, seriously, think that we can apply those kind of general conceptions to the thought of repentance in the Bible, do we? The background of the scriptures is not Greek philosophy or even Greek vocabulary. The background of the scriptures is a Hebrew mindset. And if we’re going to understand what repentance is, we have to begin to conceive of it in terms of the Hebrew mind.

    We will get an idea of what it means to repent when we look at the ministry of John the Baptist. Here’s the prophetic voice speaking with regard to repentance. And what does he mean? Simply a change of mind? You used to think this about the Kingdom of God, now I want you to think this. You used to think this about your sins, now I want you to think this.

    No. John is in the wilderness for a reason. John is at the Jordan for a purpose. He is there because the Jordan and the wilderness are important in the history of mankind. And when John calls Israel to repent, he says to them, return, go back, go back to the place from which you came and start again all over again.

    That’s what repentance is. It’s a forsaking. It’s a forsaking of that world that has become so important to you. It’s going back to the wilderness where you’re stripped bare, and there’s nothing left to lean on anymore, and you’re cast completely upon God. Here he is, clothed in a garment of camel’s hair.

    Here he is, surviving on a diet of wild honey and locusts. What’s the meaning of all of that? It’s an eloquent sermon to all of Israel that true repentance means the forsaking of all of those things upon which you have become dependent, and a returning. to the origin of your faith, and starting all over again with God, completely dependent upon him, Jesus Christ is going to go out into the wilderness, and there he is going to be tempted by Satan. And he will respond to the temptations of Satan by saying, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

    Now there’s some characteristics, you see, of this repentance. It’s a forsaking. Forsaking of sin. A forsaking of that world that has become so important to you. Here is Israel living within the shelter of the Roman Empire. Oh, there was dissension. No one likes to be oppressed by political superiors. But for the most part, it was a period of tranquility and even prosperity for the people. The temple had been rebuilt. What else could you ask for? Even the religious order of things was in gear and in proper perspective in life.

    And here’s John the Baptist in all his audacity, standing out there on the periphery of the culture and the cult and calling the people to forsake it all, to leave it behind and to go out to him in the wilderness and to start all over again. lifestyle won’t save you. Why is John saying this?

    He’s saying this because you see, God through him is telling all of Israel, the temple ain’t going to save you. And neither is the tranquility and prosperity that you have come to depend on so much. There is an unquenchable fire. And this temple which you trust in so much, Jesus Christ himself will say, they will not be left one stone standing upon the other.

    The call, you see, is to the covenant people of God. It isn’t a matter simply of just isolated automatons coming down to the waters of the Jordan separately to experience John’s baptism. It’s a call to all of Israel, all of those who are called by God’s name to come out The context and the scope of it all is the covenant perspective, the dimensions of the entire people of God called upon to respond to this prophetic voice. And what have we done to repentance today? What has repentance become in our culture, in our church, in the religious life of this generation?

    There is no catharsis. There is no crisis. There is no return to the historical roots acknowledging sinfulness. There is no going back and forsaking. There is no call to the people that you must leave behind all the things that you’ve come to lean on so dependently. There’s no call to a new lifestyle, a transformation entirely.

    What do we do to them? We get them coming down one by one in our crusades. We get them coming down in all of our evangelistic services. And then we tell them, after they’ve made their profession and signed their names on the dotted line, go back into your churches.

    Doesn’t matter. that your church is part of the problem. It doesn’t matter that when you go back there, you’re going to have to sit on your ministry when you talk, that there are errors in God’s Word, and that Jesus Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross is appealing. that the resurrection is not a fact of history, but an experience in the mind. And the most important role that the Church can play in our generation is the role of priests of the culture. giving the establishment the religious sanction that they need to do what they need to do. That’s what repentance has become.

    And repentance, you see, because of this has no covenantal dimensions. It’s not thought of in terms of the whole people of God anymore. It is an atomistic experience. And something that basically happens individually and internally, something inside your mind between you and God alone, when you begin to reassess your attitudes towards the woman who happens to live next door, when you begin to reassess your attitudes towards your income tax upon which you just budged, And that becomes the scope of it. And that’s all it ever does. It’s not a comprehensive call to the people of God to forsake the world and the life to which they’ve become accustomed, the things that they take for granted, and to return and to begin all over again, forsaking sin, turning to God. The Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is not that anymore. And things continue to go on as they have been going on. And nothing does seem to be any different.

    But you have repented! And how do I know? Because you’re sitting here this morning. You’ve taken your stand. And you have gone back to start again. Now, we can compare the calls to repentance throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. The prophets of the Old Testament were calling upon Israel to return, to go back to the God of Sinai, to meet him once more and to proceed from that point. living in righteousness and not in unrighteousness anymore. And we have the call of Jesus Christ himself declared to us through John, who writes the book of the Revelation, the second chapter. You have it recorded for you there.

    Jesus is speaking to the church at Ephesus, that church in Asia Minor. He says to them, I have something against you because you have forsaken, you have left your first love. Therefore repent. What does he mean? He means go back to your first love and start again. That’s the essence of the call to repentance of Christ himself as he speaks to the Church at Ephesus. Go back and start again. And is that not the essence of the reformational call to repentance to the entire people of God?

    They spoke to the Church that they loved. They didn’t want to leave. Calvin wrote his Institutes to Francis I, the King, the Catholic King of France. begging him, entreating him to listen to him. The overture was simply this, return, return to the church of the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Forsake the traditions that have become so important, the incredible structure of civilization that is decaying around your ear. The fact that people have placed so much in so little that is of any consequence at all.

    Now that reformational call, you see, was a decision on the part of the reformers with regard to the state of the Church in its day. And the prophetic call was the call of repentance to all the people of God, the Israel of God, if you were, to return to their origin. acknowledging Jesus Christ and the Word of God as being sole authority.

    And that’s precisely what’s happening in our own generation. In this century, the century in which you live now, that precise thing has taken place. It’s happened all over again. But our eyes now are not directed towards the medieval church. Our eyes are directed towards the 20th century Protestant establishment. And our declaration is this. Repent. Come out from among them. Be separate. Go back, return, start again. For only this is life.

    Our call is a call to return to all of God’s people. Our call is a call that they might renounce the cult and the culture upon which they themselves have become so dependent Their budgets have grown, and the adorning of their churches and sanctuaries, the structures have increased and expanded. They are part of the world. Our mission then, our mission in the Separatist Church is this prophetic voice and call to repentance and a return on the part of all of those called by God’s name in our generation.

    We can’t return to embrace the medieval church Why is it that we cannot return to Rome as some are encouraging us to do? Why is it? We can’t do that, you see, because there hasn’t been any repentance. They haven’t returned. Our call to repentance in our own generation cannot be stilled, and we cannot walk back that road. We can’t go down Beaver Road here and rejoin the main churches until there is repentance.

    That’s our might. If we forsake it, we’re dead. There’s no reason left for our existence at all until They hear the voice, and respond, and repent themselves, and return to the God they claim to worship. I’m not overstating the case, and I know that there are even many within my own denomination that would say to you this morning that I am overstating the case. But the day is gone.

    The thirties are over. Now the opportunity has come for us to walk down the roads and to join hands once more with those people who have not acknowledged the error of their communions. They threw a man out of their church unjustly, his name was Machen, and they’ve never to this day, not a one of them repented of that. They threw Calvin and Luther out of their church, and to this day, even though they might sing Luther’s hymns in their church services, they have not repented and returned themselves that medieval church.

    As long as there’s no repentance, we cannot go back, and you might think that that’s hard-hearted. That’s not hard-hearted. That’s an act of concrete love. If you believe that repentance is unto life, apart from that repentance there awaits only unquenchable fire for those who do not. We, with love in our hearts, must go begging and constraining these people whom we love ourselves, and we know it’s true because they’re members of our own families, to come out and to repent because they are entrenched in a system that is under God’s judgment.

    And if we forsake this prophetic voice in our day, what prophetic voice is left? And what opportunity for life remains for those who are going down with the ship? None. No. How do I know the inevitable result of the unwillingness to repent? The Ephesian church was a strong church when Paul wrote to it his letter. By the time John addressed to them his word in the book of Revelation, that church was in decline. Go to Asia Minor today. Do you think you can find a church at Ephesus? It’s not there. It’s not there. And that is a lesson to every one of us. of the sureness of God’s judgment.

    1536. John Calvin is a young scholar. He stayed at Geneva because of the pleadings of Pharrell. Words come from Lausanne. that a group of Roman Catholic monks want to debate the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, the doctrine of the Mass. Pharrell responds, and he takes young Calvin with him, and the debate continues for days, and Calvin sits and says nothing. Occasionally he writes a word here and there, takes a note, But he’s silent, he says nothing.

    And after many days, one of the monks arrives and he makes an impassioned plea, claiming Augustine as his authority for the doctrine of the Mass and the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Mass, but that was actually Augustine’s position. It was an impassioned plea to be sure, a great sermon. But when it was done, Calvin arose. And it appeared that all of those nights without sleep and all of that time that he spent passing by his meals in order to study and cram his mind with the facts of the early Church fathers was certainly beneficial. He was a mastermind, to be sure, but he was certainly interested in the truth, and he stood in the midst of that assembly and began to speak quotation after quotation, not just alluding to quotations, but actually giving the quotations in their entirety, one after another, right out of Augustine, piled on top of one another, a true avalanche, and the monk was buried underneath of it all. because he could not stand that it was evident at the conclusion that Calvin had demonstrated that Augustine had never held to the doctrine of transubstantiation in the mass. The effect of it all, you see, was not upon that monk himself, but one Roman Catholic preacher who was standing on the periphery of it all, a man respected among them, who had strongly supported the Church against the Reformers.

    He arose with tears in his eyes. He was drained by what he had heard. He walked into the midst of the assembly, and there, casting his eyes to the ground, not even able to look up, he said to those people, I repent.

    I thought that my church was right. And what it told me was right. It’s wrong. And I know it. For such days as that, we all can pray. When people we love so dearly, themselves will stand in front of us, or even among us, and say, I repent. I was wrong. And you were right. God help us.

    Our Father in Heaven, we would not ever claim to stand because we are some sort of special people who have a corner on the truth. But only our God, as we have accepted the prophetic word ourselves and repented, and gone back to begin again, building upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Forgive us, our Father, in not allowing that clear voice of repentance to be heard today. Father, encourage us when we have contact with those who as yet do not see the issue. May we have patience and love, but may we be unbending with regard to the truth. This is our message and our mission. We are calling all of the people of God, all the Israel of God, everyone called by the name of Jesus Christ, to return, to begin again, this time solidly based upon the foundation of the word of God. Will you help us so that we will not compromise?

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Poor in Spirit, Following Christ

    Poor in Spirit, Following Christ

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 4, 1975.

    About this sermon

    The Beatitudes describe believers already on a journey toward heaven, and they begin with a poverty of spirit that Christ himself lived out literally. ‘Poor in spirit’ carries several layers of meaning beyond the obvious one. Following Christ means sharing his poverty before sharing his glory.

    More sermons from Matthew · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Our scripture reading this morning is first of all taken from Isaiah chapter 35. Isaiah chapter 35. I’m reading from the King James. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. We together? shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy in singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God. Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not, behold your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense. and he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

    Then shall the lame man leap at the heart and the tongue of the dumb sing. For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the habitations of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those, the wayfaring men, though fool shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor ravenous beast shall go up thereon. It shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

    And then from the New Testament, Matthew 4, beginning in verse 23. And Jesus was going about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among them. And the news about him went out into all Syria, and they brought to him all those who were ill, taken with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them. And great multitudes followed him from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. And when he saw the multitudes, he went up to the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth, and he began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

    Father, it is not always that we come to your Word seeking what your will is, or the determination that no matter what it is, you will do it. But Father, the beauty of your Word is that it comes to us in the light of day, and it is promised to us in which Saul and Sinai are captivated. Tears even now come to our eyes in expectation. We’ve got to understand, Lord, that it is not our position to be those who pity ourselves, but it is our position, Father, that we are infertile beings, and we are afflictions, that we receive the blessings of God. So, Father, we receive that blessing today that is meant for us in His Word. Coming, laying aside all those hindrances that bar our way to the Word, There are certainly degrees of light that penetrate us in our walks in this life.

    And possibly one of those rays of light struck you the first time you read this passage of scripture from the New Testament. You were in a predicament, you were in a situation, you were depressed, possibly you were looking for some answers, you were longing for something, and you turned to your Bible. And providentially you came to this passage which was so constraining that you weren’t able to stop reading until you had completely finished three chapters, possibly chapters five through seven. One verse just pulled you on to the next and whet your appetite a little bit more. You weren’t used to reading so much of the scriptures at one time, but by the time you were done, you had not even realized that so much time had gone by.

    And your reaction was exactly that of those who heard the sermon when it was first preached. This is the sermon on the mountain. And the sermon was preached to people who responded And they responded in the way that is recorded at the end of the sermon, the last part of Matthew 7. When Jesus was done, they were all amazed, and they marveled, and they were overwhelmed, because this one Jesus spoke as having authority, and not as one of the scribes.

    This was a bit of a light that came to you, but it wasn’t light that gave you a full understanding of everything that was in the sermon, because you certainly didn’t have that. There were certainly degrees of darkness, and there were many things in the sermon that you didn’t understand. You couldn’t comprehend. But its attractiveness was overwhelming. It almost constrained you. and years have gone by, possibly since that day. Though you might not have returned to read the whole sermon in one sitting, you certainly have remembered some of the passages that struck you that day, and then so much do.

    Preaching on the Sermon on the Mount is a very difficult thing. For even though we can appreciate the authority of Jesus Christ, there is a measure in which we do not have that authority. And I think that authority pertains not only to the attitude with which Jesus Christ presented this message, but also the clarity in his own mind that he had about the ideas that he was presenting. Jesus understood exactly what he was saying, even though I might not. I think this degree of might in the understanding of the Sermon on the Mount was something that was quite evident.

    When I boldly tried to handle the Beatitudes in a prayer meeting last winter, it was one of the most confusing. One of the most painful, one of the most upsetting experiences that I have had in my ministry, trying to get at the heart of what Jesus was saying in the Beatitudes. And if I was confused, you can imagine how the people felt that were there. Many of them stuck with it, they held out to the end, they persevered themselves, and Though there was only a measure, a degree of blessing, and I have to admit it was minimal, possibly we do have a leg up on understanding what’s going on when Jesus speaks the way he does in the Beatitudes.

    Talk about the night, and then you have to talk about the dawn’s early light. And I guess it’s like the sunrise, you know, it doesn’t happen all at once. It comes in degrees. And the light shines more and more. And I hope that as we grow and mature in our own thinking, that we can say, in the later days of our own lives, that we understand more now than what we did before. I say this because I feel that this is exactly the pattern of what Jesus Christ is painting for us.

    There is no other image in the Bible that is more important than the ill image of a journeyman. That journey has more life at its end than it does at its beginning. And you ought to be able to perceive that in your journey. I mean, you should know more today than you did when you first believed. And if you don’t, something’s wrong. You’re not going anywhere.

    The pattern of what Jesus is saying here is laid in himself. What he is actually talking about here is pilgrims on a journey. And he has become a pilgrim for us. He has taken upon himself flesh and blood, identified himself with his people who were on a journey to the heavenly city. And the foreign spirit is pertaining to them. Now I might digress for a moment and try to fill in some spaces.

    There are some arguments about the interpretation of the Beatitudes. There are some very hot arguments about the interpretation of the first Beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And it’s certainly possible, and I cannot deny it, to get into all kinds of fascinating economic discussions about the character and the nature of the poor. But I think, first of all, we have to set the stage and gain an appreciation for what Jesus Christ is speaking about here. For as popular as the interpretation is, that is, interpreting the poor in spirit along economic lines, so it also is popular to completely interpret the poor in spirit along spiritual lines, exclusively. The interpretation usually goes like this among conservative commentators on the Scriptures.

    They see that what Jesus is talking about here is a pre-conversion situation or condition. You are pouring Spirit before you are converted, but after you are converted, you leave this poverty behind and go on to something else. You’re no longer poor. You are poor no longer.

    They usually interpret it along the lines of a man coming to the end of his rope. A man recognizing and realizing that he is spiritually bankrupt. He has no resources with which he can save himself. He is now put in the position of having to turn to God in repentance and in faith. The poor in spirit are those who, prior to their conversion, realize that they are spiritually bankrupt. They have no resources left. and now they must repent of their sins in deep humility, turn from them in faith to Jesus Christ, receive him and rest upon him alone as he is offered in the gospel.”

    Now, everything I’ve said about our condition prior to conversion is true. That is exactly what happens to us. We recognize that we have reached the end of our road, that we are going down the wrong road. We are headed in the wrong direction. And not only are we headed in the wrong direction, we have no resources left. We are bankrupt. And therefore, the only way to reclaim the situation is to turn from our sin, that is, the direction in which we are headed. towards God, making Him the new destination, and receiving Christ alone by faith as the way to the destination that we desire.

    Now that’s true, that is certainly true, but that’s not what Jesus is talking about here. He is not talking about your condition prior to conversion. He is not encouraging those to whom he spoke to repent and believe. He’s speaking to these people as if they already believed and as if they had already repented. He’s talking not about the beginning of the trip, he’s talking about you in the midst of the trip.

    You’re on your way now, and what characterizes you on your way? What characterizes you on your way is that you are poor in spirit. Being poor in spirit is not something that you experience once in your life and then you can forget about it and get on to the riches, to the reward. No. Poverty of spirit is a way of life.

    For all the wayfaring men that we read about in Isaiah 35, who are on a journey to the heavenly garden, to heaven’s path, their destination is the sun, and the only way to walk that road is through a full experience. It’s important that you hear this, because so often we are told that all the unfortunate things, all the distasteful things of Christianity are over with our conversion. That we can leave those things behind, we can forget about them. What does Jesus tell us in Matthew 24? I believe it’s verse 28, if I’m not mistaken. No, it’s verse 13. He tells us that he who endures to the end shall be saved. He who endures to the end, only he shall be saved. And what is the character of those who endure to the end? Poverty and stupidity.

    How do I know this? What makes me the expert? All right, let’s look at the pattern. The pattern is already laid in Jesus Christ, for, in effect, Jesus Christ, in his baptism, is experiencing something that is similar to our conversion. As baptism is that which occurs at the beginning of our faith, So it is that which begins Christ’s ministry. For Jesus Christ, who has identified himself with his people in baptism, in effect experiencing a conversion himself—I don’t mean that literally, only figuratively—is now working out that conversion by walking in the spirit with which he has been baptized. He comes up out of the water, he receives the Spirit, that’s what happens to us in conversion, and now he proceeds to walk in the Spirit. He is driven out into the wilderness by the Spirit himself, we are told, in verse 1 of chapter 4.

    The pattern is laid in Christ. You begin, but you don’t stay there. You see, you go somewhere. You don’t run in place, you do something. Then we go on. Read quickly, skim those verses at the end of chapter 4, 18 through 25. There’s a word that repeatedly occurs there. Can you pick out that word? It’s a verb. It’s a verb. What is that word? It’s the word, or the verb, follow.

    See, Jesus has come to the disciples. He’s come to Peter and Andrew beside the Sea of Galilee. He calls him. That’s conversion. And now he encourages them to follow him, you see. Christ, who has been baptized in the Spirit, walks in the Spirit. Now he calls Peter and Andrew in the Spirit and commands them to follow him in the Spirit. That word is repeated four times.

    In verse 20 it says, they immediately left their nets and followed him. After, after, in verse 19, he had commanded them to follow him. Then we have the scene repeated, but this time with John and James. We see in verse 22 that immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.

    The journey has begun, conversion is behind, they have already believed. And what happens with the multitudes? The same pattern occurs. Jesus is calling them. He is preaching, proclaiming, heralding the gospel of the kingdom in verse 23. And the effects of that kingdom are manifest. But then we see in verse 25, the great multitude follow him. The pattern is the same.

    Those who have been called, those who have encountered Christ, those who have pleaded and repented of their sins, must now follow. And it is these, now, that Jesus sits down and teaches, on top of the mountain. Those who have followed, he teaches. And there is a special sense in which his teaching is only for those who follow, and he’s going to explain to you what you’re doing. And truly, what kind of people you are not, who are on the road. You are poor, poor in spirit.

    All right, that’s how I know that what I am saying is right. I also know because of the structure of the Beatitudes themselves. I know it because each one of these Beatitudes are describing a continuing experience, not a once-for-all thing that you have at the beginning of your experience with Christ and then you can forget about. It’s something that characterizes you from the initiation of your faith to the time in which you are received in the resurrection into your destination. Notice what it says.

    Not only are these the poor in spirit who are on this road, but they are those who mourn. They are the humble or the gentle. Is gentleness a once-for-all thing? They are those who hunger and thirst. Is that a once-for-all thing? No, it’s something that characterizes our journey.

    You see, we are always hungering and thirsting until we arrive. We are always humble until we arrive. We are always mourning until we arrive. We are always poor in spirit until we arrive. And we are always merciful in verse 7. And we are always to be pure in heart. And we are always to be peacemakers. And we are always persecuted. The light’s gone on in the room, and we’re content to sit in the corner, with our face to the wall. We’ve got to turn around, stand up, face the light, and walk.

    Also you see this pattern that Jesus is painting here for us. It’s a pattern that’s already been demonstrated in the Old Testament. For in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and in the Prophets, you have these words that come to the poor, such words as we read this morning in Isaiah 35, that are repeated again and again, promises that are given especially to the poor. For in Isaiah 61, we are told that the poor will have the good news that is the gospel preached to them. In the Psalms 72 and 137, We are again told of the blessings of God that are meant for those, meant for those who are first of all his people, but now because they are his people, have experienced this poverty, this affliction, this oppression. But you see, they are already the people of God, and they are already on the journey, and it is in the journey that they experience this poverty of spirit. which always characterizes them on their trip. If you want to know whether you are on the road or not, you should examine yourself to see whether you are a foreign spirit. Who are the foreign spirits?

    There’s no way that we can get around it. The literal poor stand behind this image of Christ. Those who are actually destitute and economically deprived. And this provides a great and powerful pattern for Christ’s ministry himself. For Jesus Christ is one who has experienced poverty. He has nowhere to lay his head. In contrast, even with the foxes and the birds, who have nests and dens. Jesus Christ is poor. He is literally poor.

    Jesus has a message about poverty. He says for us that we are not to lay up for ourselves treasures on earth, and we cannot serve God and money. The literal poor are in mind. He also has an encounter with a rich young ruler, where he tells this young man that what is necessary for him to enter into eternal life, to reach the destination, is for him to sell all that he has given to the poor and beg for and follow Jesus.

    The disciples are examples of that poverty. For here the disciples who have been called at the end of Matthew 4 have left all, they left their boats, their occupations, they left their father, in order to follow Christ. Nothing is as important as Jesus Christ and his call. Peter confesses this fact in Matthew 19, verse 27. For he speaks to Jesus and says, we have left all for your sake, to follow you. We are the literal poor of the earth. In the Old Testament, the same pattern is discernible. It is the literal poor who are in line.

    Israel was not a rich nation. Israel was the poorest nation, the most obscure, the hated nation, the nation that all the rest of the nations used to trample over on their way to war. They used to steal all their grain, harvest all their crops, take them with them to feed their armies and their horses. They were the afflicted, they were the poor, and they were doubly poor as the economic distinctions began to rise within the nation of Israel itself. And you saw the remnant losing out, having nothing, and the rulers getting more and more and taking more for themselves, building more barns, building palaces, building houses, taking their ease. But the poor were forgotten.

    And the prophets always come back upon the rich and say to them, look, it is the poor that the Lord loves. Special kind of poor. The poor who have put their trust and confidence in God. The poor who are not remorseful, who are not bitter, who are not upset at the fact that they are poor. Who aren’t on a crusade themselves. but who are waiting for their reward in heaven. The literal poor are behind the image that Christ uses. We cannot close up our hearts against the literal poor. As a matter of fact, the poor provide us with a living parable.

    A continual parable, because Christ says, the poor you have with you always. They’re always there, you can always see them. They’re a constant reminder to you of what you should be, not placing your hope in this world at all, and not laying up for yourselves treasures here. But seeing that your heart is where your treasure is, and that your heart must be set upon the treasure of heaven and the riches of God’s grace.

    The literal poor stand behind what is being said here. But there’s a deeper sense to all of this, and I’m sure you’re aware of it. For these literal poor provide us a picture for the afflicted poor, who contrast the comfortable in their spirituality, the afflicted poor. who in the world’s estimation are the weak, the powerless, who have no visible means of support, the unimportant, the meaningless, who are completely deserving of our disdain, who deserve to be overlooked and to be forgotten.

    That is what the true Church of Jesus Christ is. The forgotten entity of the world that is truly the salt of the earth. Do you know what it means to be the salt of the earth? It means to be the preserver of the earth. The world survives because of the Church, and the world doesn’t have to die.

    But the Church can’t exalt themselves in the face of the world. They must receive their poverty and their obscurity, gladly and joyfully, as any Christian must. We’re not on an ego trip. We’re not out to show the world that we’re better than they are. We’re not out to show the world that we can do everything better than they can. That Christians automatically have success. how to win friends and influence people, that is not what Christianity is and that is not what Christ is all about. He is not a shortcut to a better income.

    He does not spell instant success for you in any way, for your life is characterized by poverty. by what the world considers to be meaningless and unimportant, weak, powerless, with no visible means of support. But we’ve got an invisible means of support, what the world can’t see.

    In the eyes of God, here is God’s estimation of the poor. We are the exhausted, we are the feeble, we are those who have a palpitating heart, who continually need the correction and the encouragement of the preaching of God’s Word. That’s why Isaiah preaches. That’s why I preach. We are the poor, who are near point of exhaustion because our spirits are about to give out. Our spirits are weak. And that’s why we come to hear the preaching of the Word, in order that we might be encouraged on our journey, and that we might not sin.

    That’s why Isaiah preached, that’s why he spoke in Isaiah 35 the way he did. Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong and fear not, behold your God is coming.” That’s what preaching is. How will you be able to get to the point of not seeing God’s face in your walking? Not to change, not to give up. It’s repeatedly reported that that’s my state. I’m setting that fire again, planning to fan the flames. It’s a glowing flame. They can come to service on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, visiting service.

    You are adding to claims and saying that you might not be able to and that you might not be able to fly. If you have not experienced exhaustion and you want to fly, then you are not able to do it. You are not there. And if the preaching of the Word does not stand the praise of your zeal for God and your expectation, then you are not faithful.

    Because that’s what teaching is. That’s what being young is. And that’s what being 18 is. You need the encouragement. Of course, the final point here is that these poor in spirit are blessed. How ironic. The poor in spirit are the ones that are blessed, not the ones that have all the money. And when you get the money, that’s not the same as your death.

    It might not have anything to do with God at all, and you know that. are blessed of God, and they can receive that blessing now, and that blessing that they receive now is a guarantee to them that they shall reach their destination. You’ve got the blessing, you’ve got the joy and the richness of poverty, you’ve got the blessing and the richness of life. The major benefits to you today are for your concern that you might be assured that you are able to reach your destination. You have the wherewithal to make it.

    You’re not going to run out of money. You’re not going to run out of strength. You’re not going to die beside the road. You’re not going to be left behind. You’re going to make it. And you’re going to make it. God bless you. Our Father in Heaven, we thank you for this word and this ministry of Christ. He understood what you’re saying.

    We pray your forgiveness because in the hardness of our hearts and in our own sin, we have not understood. And I have not understood. And therefore, wrestling with these passions has been a very painful thing for me. And I am asking you, Father, that for myself and for these Lord’s people, we might all attend to your words and understand more perfectly now what it means to be poor and sick, and that we might endure to the end. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.