Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Series: Misc. OT Sermons

  • True and False Worship

    True and False Worship

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 25, 1998.

    About this sermon

    The golden calf of Exodus 32 sets true worship against false, with Christ himself looming behind Moses’ own absence from the people in verse 1. Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 10 carries the same test forward into the New Testament church. The modern church’s worship is not exempt from that same possibility of falsification.

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    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we begin by reading from Exodus 32, beginning at verse 1. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, make us a God who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’

    And Aaron said to them, “‘Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives and your sons and your daughters and bring them to me.’ Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf. They said, ìThis is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.î When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, ìTomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.î So the next day they arose early and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.

    Then the Lord spoke to Moses, Go down at once, for your people, whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf and have worshipped it and have sacrificed to it and said, This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Then the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then, let me alone, that my anger may burn against them, and that I may destroy them, and I will make of you a great nation. beginning with verse 1.

    I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses into the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ.

    Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness. These things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things, as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. Let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents, or grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them as an example. They were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

    Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

    Spread again. Please strengthen us, O God, your people. It is not merely a matter of our weakness, but of the fact that we have no power at all except for you. Do you not then, by your Spirit and because of Christ, breathe upon your own? that they might be awakened from this death and this powerlessness.

    O God, by your word now, may you minister in our souls, even as you have ministered to your people throughout the ages. We thank you for your kind attention. We thank you, O that by your word we are sustained. And here this evening, may it be as if we are sustained afresh, and with the joy of those who receive your word even for the first time, may we rejoice in you. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    There have been, over the years, many messages from this pentate about the importance of And there have been just as many messages from this pulpit over the years about the nature, the character of worship. To say the least, worship is important to this Church. Not just that you do it. but how you do it.

    Some of you will recall, for instance, a few years back, the marvelous message preached by G.I. Williamson from this pulpit. He preached on John 4, and Jesus’ memorable words to the woman at the well concerning that worship which now the Father desires, worship in spirit and in truth. And how, in the course of that message, Mr. Williamson admonished us with regard to the nature of worship which is ours, that ours is a spiritual worship. and that it focuses upon those things that are invisible. And at the heart of this worship, then, is activity on our behalf that does not call attention to itself, but rather directs attention to God and glories in him, the one who is invisible, the one who communes with us, through His Word and Spirit. You note the simple surroundings. I trust that there is nothing here to distract you. That in your faith, and by means of the concentration of your soul, you may focus well upon him who is not seen.

    You might also remember from this past summer the remarkable sermon from an intern, Sanjay Patel, a sermon on the Ten Lepers. in which Sanjay sat before us as the center of that text, Where Shall We Worship?, and focused that for us by asking us the question, to what priest might these lepers go to show themselves after they were healed by Jesus?

    The resolution of a being, of course, in the figure of the Samaritan Leper, who returned to Jesus, prostrating himself before Jesus and thanking him. What priest might we go to? The one to whom the Samaritan Leper came, giving thanks. Jesus Christ is the one who stands at the center of our worship, even as he is the center of that story. My own messages from this pulpit have dealt with worship.

    Some have risen out of the messages on the book of Revelation, early on in the series on that book, in order to explain For instance, the indictment upon the Ephesian church, that famous indictment found in chapter 2 in Revelation verse 4, the indictment that read that she, the Ephesian congregation, had left her first love. How are we to understand that indictment? Is the indictment, as some have suggested, that the Ephesian church had lost its evangelistic zeal? Not at all. The indictment upon that church was that her worship had been corrupted.

    We also preached on worship, you will recall, in our message. about the heavenly character of worship presently for the Church as that worship is opened up for us in the images of the marchers standing upon the Crystal Sea in Revelation 15. The song of Moses and the song of the Lamb is not some future song to be sung on the other side of Jesus’ return, it is a song that is presently sung by the people of God. as their worship now is envisioned as heavenly and glorious. We have at one time considered the issue of proper worship against the background of the story of the Transfiguration, when Peter made his famous proposal concerning the three tabernacles to be built, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Christ. ignorantly moving the focus for worship into the realm of the shrines. Peter, as you will recall, in that context, was rebuked for his suggestion. Unfortunately, however, those who claim Peter as their spiritual head, who claim Peter as their original holy father, have ignored this very rebuke. and they have created a form of worship that abounds in shrines, in fact multiplies them. Ironic, isn’t it? Peter receives the rebuke, and the religion that especially claims Peter as its holy father multiplies shrines in deference to the rebuke.

    More recently, we have preached to the subject of worship from John chapter 20 and its story about the first Christian Sabbath, the story of Christ’s resurrection. And we have preached on worship from that text in order to ground the historic Christian practice of morning and evening worship in Scripture. As Jesus met Mary raised from the dead in the morning, so the Church of Christ gathers in the morning. And as Jesus met with the disciples in the upper room on the evening of that day, so the Church of Christ gathers in the evening. to worship the risen Lord. You begin the day, you end the day, with worship of the risen Christ.

    Now, through all of these messages on worship, You might get the idea that worship is important to this congregation. To all these messages on worship, I now add this evening’s message, with the suggestion that none may be as important or as serious.

    Before us is the story of the golden calf. You know the story, and the response to me as you hear it once more may be nothing too difficult here. You may even suggest that I would serve you well if I merely retold you the story, made appropriate references to the Second Commandment, challenged you not to make any golden calves for yourselves and sent you home. Simple enough. You may be happy if I would do that.

    But the tendency among reformed people They being the kind of people that are especially moved by appeals to the grammatical, historical method of biblical interpretation, is to set this story in its immediate context. While banking for application on the absolute, always binding character of the moral law, the Ten Commandments, the story’s relevance, then, is found in the fact that the law forbids making idols, therefore you shouldn’t make idols. With a few appropriate illustrations about present-day idol-making, how the tendency may be found within your own heart, we can then end the sermon, and as I said, I can send you on your way. But you’re thinking, that doesn’t sound much different from what you said before. How is the Reformed faith and the Reformed approach any better?

    We don’t seem to be making any progress here. But as is true for the relevance pandering messages from the modern pulpit, Reformed and otherwise, They simply fail to grasp the genuine relevance of a passage like this one, Exodus 32. Isn’t it interesting? Those who claim Peter ignore the rebuke that Peter received. Those who claim relevance are irrelevant when it comes to the true significance of the text. You see, if you look closely at Exodus 32 again, particularly verse 1, the true relevance of this text begins to open up for you.

    Let me read that verse one more time. Now, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, they assembled about Aaron and said to him, Come, make us a God who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. Now, I’m hoping, as that is read for you one more time, that in hearing this verse again, You catch something of its redemptive historical significance, something of its redemptive historical setting. If it is still a bit opaque for you, let me work it out for you. Moses, the mediator of the covenant at Sinai, and the one by whom the Lord was pleased to deliver Israel from Egypt, has gone up into the mountain to be with God, and is now hidden from you.”

    The people don’t see him. Sound familiar? Meanwhile, the people at the base of the mountain had become impatient with Moses’ absence, and in their impatience they had turned to Aaron, their priest, the ordained man among them, and demanded a god more to their liking. In this, my friends, you would do well to see the figure of the Lord Jesus Christ looming behind the figure of Moses.

    The mediator of the old covenant anticipates the mediator of the new covenant, the one who affects the greater exodus and leads his people out of a greater tyranny. But now, having become his people’s deliverer from sin and death, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, like Moses, has disappeared from you. This he has done by ascending into heaven in his resurrection body. Moses ascends Mount Sinai, Jesus ascends into the heavenly Mount Zion. And just as the children of Israel awaited Moses’ return, so the Church awaits Jesus’ return.

    There it is. It was all being preached in Exodus 32. The whole of it was being preached in Exodus 32. It was being telegraphed. You’re with me now, I hope. You know where we are going then with this text, do you not? And its importance and seriousness with regard to the whole matter of worship is beginning to settle in upon your conscience. And oh, how the Church today needs its conscience pricked. when it comes to worship.

    When the Israelites complain, then, as for this man Moses, we do not know what has become of him. They are forecasting the complaint rising from the Church with regard to Christ’s return. where is the promise of his coming? It is in this context that many in the Church have appealed to their ordained leaders. In the context of having raised this question, where is the promise of his coming, in that Many in the Church have appealed to their ordained leaders, like Israel appealed to Aaron. These ordained leaders being all too ready to accommodate the people’s desires through a proclamation of proper worship, that proper worship that belongs to the world. You are getting a preview of what is coming for the Church. You are getting a preview in Exodus 32 of the life of the Church presently, of where the Church is today. Talk about relevance. The point is clear.

    The apostasy of Israel at Sinai speaks to us about the Church herself as she waits for Christ to return from Zion. She, too, apostatizing by worshiping a God, even a Christ of her own making. And just as Israel in the midst of her sacraments here constructed and her festivals, surrounded herself with religious revelries, the Church presently does the same. What do you think is going on right now in the crisis in the Church over worship? We are not here dealing with innocent matters. We are dealing with the effects of apostasy and the creation of gods. after the people’s own likings.

    Here in Exodus 32, Israel’s worship now is as much marked by the conclusion of the sixth verse in this chapter as it is by the beginning. In the first part of that verse, the sacraments to which Israel’s desire for a God of her expresses itself now by the conclusion of this sixth verse in a form of worship that is anything but the reverent devotion the Lord expects and desires.

    And the people, says the text, sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to play. This is not extraneous to the worship in view, this is the worship in view. The worship has become play. In some churches, they put on plays. Worship has become entertainment. It has become a pandering to the people’s desires. It has become stimulating. It has become erotic. And most of you know that that’s true.

    This is then no innocent description of the people’s activities. But now as you look at the scene, possibly in somewhat a detached fashion, drawing back from it a bit, you might well respond, well, what’s so wrong, noting that sixth verse again, what’s so wrong with a meal? They sat down to eat and drink. What’s so wrong with a meal? What’s so wrong about rising up to celebrate? Isn’t celebration part of our worship? In fact, isn’t that what worship is all about?

    Later in this chapter, the celebration of The Israelites is described by Moses as singing, verse 18. As the narrative goes on in verse 19, it is described as dancing. Didn’t Miriam and the women of Israel at the Red Sea sing and dance with Timber and Anne, Exodus 15, 20 and 21, and later on in the days of the monarchy? Didn’t the Psalms commend not only singing, of course, but dancing as well? Psalm 149-3, Psalm 150 verse 4, “‘And did not David dance before the Lord when the ark of the covenant was brought from the house of Obed-Edom into Jerusalem?’

    2 Samuel 6.14.

    Doesn’t our own worship, especially our staid and predictable worship, that which is found In our run-of-the-mill Orthodox Presbyterian churches suffer from a lack of enthusiasm, zeal, and spontaneity. Don’t we need a new day here? Maybe you need a new worship leader. Wouldn’t we fare better if we moved away from our tired, boring style of worship and presented something much more interesting? In fact, doesn’t our own regulative principle of worship demand that we do so?

    For those of you who might have forgotten, that regulative principle states that whatsoever is not commanded by God in the Scripture for our worship is forbidden. Well, it would seem from the examples of Miriam and David and the injunctions of Psalms 149 and 150, the kind of celebration and worship we forbid is actually the kind of worship that is commanded.

    However, it is specifically now Exodus 32 that stops us in our tracks and makes us step back. It is marvelously positioned and intended. For we can’t simply leap now. as we are wont to do. We can’t simply leap now to our celebratory scenes in scripture as if our mere repetition of the activities described is immediately and always correct. Exodus 32 gives us pause, and it does so especially because of its redemptive historical setting, the redemptive historical setting of Israel’s apostasy, an apostasy which has as its center, before the mediators return, the falsification of worship.

    Does that bother you? Does that concern you? The falsification of worship? No, it doesn’t bother me. just go to whatever meeting happens to be scheduled, and I jump in with all my energy, and I’m just moving with the Lord, and the Spirit directs me as He will, and I just let loose. You are wrong.

    What our Church in this day is faced with monumentally is the falsification of worship. And what is threatening us is the uncritical involvement by so many in a false form a misguided form of worship. The redemptive historical setting of Israel’s apostasy, then an apostasy which has as its center, before the mediators return, the falsification of worship. We ourselves now, talking about relevance, drawn into the text in keeping with the divine intention. We are set in a context in which the mediator, by whom God’s people have been saved, has been taken away out of sight with the promise of his return.

    And in that context, the people of God, weary of the weight, and in the interest of their own gospel of relevance, enlist the clergy in creating for themselves a God more suited to their needs and a worship more to their liking. And that clergy, like Aaron previously, presents to the people a God as if that God were God. Now, when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before the calf. and Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow we shall have a feast to the Lord. They are worshiping a golden calf, and Aaron says, We will have a feast to the Lord. He is calling what is happening, worship and celebration, for the sake of any light of the Lord himself, where sacraments and festivities worship itself supposedly directed to the true God. As I said earlier, the advocates of the gospel of relevance miss the story’s true relevance. That relevance places them

    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.

  • Sinai, Law, and Grace

    Sinai, Law, and Grace

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 27, 1998.

    About this sermon

    Mount Sinai marks a real transitional point in redemptive history, and Paul’s own argument in Romans depends on it: law comes first, in chapter 7, before grace in chapter 8. God’s coming down at Sinai carries the weight of the end of the world itself, not merely a dramatic theophany. Paul’s ordering is deliberate, not incidental.

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    Sermon transcript

    Now, we aren’t reading Psalm 24 this evening, and I hope that that won’t discourage too many of you, but it’s not as if what we are reading isn’t related. You will recall that Psalm 24 speaks about the pillar of the Lord and asks the question, Who shall ascend it? makes the ringing affirmation in verse 5 concerning that one who does ascend the hill of the Lord, he shall receive the blessing of the Lord and receive righteousness from the God of his salvation.

    We are looking this evening at a hill of the Lord. We are looking at Sinai. And we are beginning our Scripture reading this evening in Exodus chapter 19. This is Exodus 19. We are reading at verse 16. This is the Word of God. So, it came about on the third day when it was morning. that there were thunder and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke. because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him with thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went Then turning over to Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 7, beginning at verse 1.

    Or do you not know, brethren, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.

    Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ. so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound. so that we serve in newness of the spirit and not in oldness of the letter. What shall we say, then?

    Is the law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, You shall not covet. But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

    I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. And this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me, for sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore, did that which is good become the cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather, it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

    For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing I do not understand, for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

    I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death?

    Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, on the one hand, I myself, with my mind, am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation. for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

    For what the law could not do, weak as it was, through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

    Father, in all of our days and through all of our experiences you have prepared us for hearing your word, and what a marvel, O God, by that word itself we are prepared. A word being itself seemingly a world in which we live. Lord, we delight in your word. and we love your law, and we meditate on it day and night. You are our strength, and you bless us with this privileged communication from glory, and that for our benefit. Truly, O God, this evening may we be benefited But may we be benefited with all of your people who profit from your word day by day. We ask it in Jesus’ name.

    Amen. to argue with you about the importance of Mount Sinai. This geographical landmark to which Israel was gathered after her deliverance from Egypt, to which and from which Israel received the law of God coming to that mountain Truly, this is the great mountain in the formulation of the religious consciousness of the people of God. But being a great and significant geographical landmark, Sinai is also an historical boundary. in the story of salvation.

    Before Sinai, life seems to be of one stripe. After Sinai, life seems to be, for the people of God, of another stripe altogether. Just one illustration of this for you this evening. Before Sinai, Israel’s murmuring in the wilderness go unpunished. After Sinai, Israel’s murmurings do not go unpunished. In fact, swift judgment comes. You will remember the chapters prior to the 19th in Exodus. Before Sinai, the setting, in Exodus 16, for example, we hear about Israel’s complaint because Israel has no need. Verses 2 and 3 of that 16th chapter.

    In the next chapter, Israel grumbles because she has no water. In both instances, prior to Sinai, God provides Israel what she wants without judgment, without censure for her in her complaint. But after Sinai, After Sinai, Israel voices similar complaints. In Numbers chapter 11, for instance, she again grumbles about her diet, complains about the men and her lack of meat. And in Numbers chapter 20, she again contends with God at a new Meribah for water.

    But unlike before Sinai, where Israel’s offenses were seemingly overlooked, now these same offenses bring God’s swift judgment. It is apparent then, is it not, before Sinai, Israel’s life was of one sort, but after Sinai, Israel’s life is of another. Sinai, we could say then, is a great transition point in the history of the Old Testament people of God. And the Apostle Paul, being of those people, racially, tersely speaks about the great transitional point. of Sinai.

    He describes that great transition in Romans 7 verse 9. He speaks of it in this terminology, when the commandment came. When the commandment came. Paul, in this verse, is not reflecting upon his own personal experience when he was 7 or 14 or 24, and he had an encounter with the commandments of God that laid him low.

    Rather, Paul in this verse is reflecting upon that great transition of Sinai in the history of the people of God past. He is reflecting upon the great transition of Sinai in the most powerfully personal terms. He speaks in this context in the first person singular pronoun. He speaks as if experiencing the transition himself, as if he were part of it. We find him then interjecting himself into the pre-Sinai period in this very same verse.

    He says, I was once alive apart from the law. as if he were living in that period prior to Sinai. And do you see, then, how this statement from Paul in this ninth verse, now couched in the most personal terms by Paul, describes what we have already observed about the time before Sinai, when Israel grumbled, yet was not judged. I, with Israel, was once alive apart from the law, or before the law.”

    But then Paul continues in the verse. When the commandment came, you see, he sees himself at Sinai. Paul speaks here, then, as or the corporate Jew, and concludes that with Sinai and the advent of the commandment, sin came to life and he died. The remainder of the verse.

    With the latter part of that ninth verse, Paul means, again speaking as that corporate Jew, to summarize now Israel’s post-Sinai experience, when Israel grumbled and was judged. And here is Israel’s life ever since. Once more captured by Paul in the most compelling fashion, with the most compelling language, he is speaking in the first-person singular and encapsulating the entirety of Israel’s struggle since the commandment came. As the King James Version puts it so succinctly, “‘For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.’” To be sure, Paul with Israel has experienced the great deliverance of the Exodus from Egypt.

    Only now, in this Old Testament shadow world, to be delivered at Sinai into what Paul calls the captivity of the law of sin. Free, he is still bound. delivered if he is still in bondage. But is this the fault of Sinai? Is this the fault of the law given upon Sinai?

    In keeping with the questions now that Paul is putting to us in the seventh chapter, is the law evil because it brings to light such evil in me? asks Paul. Or is the law bad because it brings death upon me? Paul asks. And as is his custom when he sets before us these rhetorical questions, God forbid! Quite to the contrary, the law is holy and the commandment is holy, just and good, verse 12 of the seventh chapter. we asking our own question now.

    Wasn’t Israel better off without the law? Having been alive at one point without the law and apart from the law, wasn’t Israel better off indeed? Wasn’t Israel alive once apart from the law, just as Paul says? But that life You see, apart from the law and before Sinai, was not that life for which the children of God were predestined. you see where we’re going. Romans 7 will pull us into Romans 8. Now, it’s very important that you grasp this point That life, apart from the law, before Sinai, in the experience of Israel, was not the life for which the children of God were predestined. As nice in some ways as it was, why, we can grumble and get away with it. We can complain. God says nothing. In fact, he doesn’t judge us. He blesses us. This is wonderful.

    But you see, Even in this state for Israel, prior to Sinai and apart from the over-condemnation of Israel’s sin, the children of God were losing from life to life, from a life which was inherently lower to a life that was inherently higher. They were moving from a life in which even the desperate nature of their condition yet remained somewhat obscure to them, and the true nature of their hope somewhat dimly perceived. Moving from that life to a life that Paul can describe in no other way than life in the Spirit. The movement, then, will be from that life, as advantageous as it may appear, that that life presently is, from a life which is under the dominion of the flesh to a life that is of the Spirit. That life that is of the Spirit, because it comes from the Spirit and belongs to the realm and the order of the Spirit.

    That realm in which the children of God then finally and fully come into possession of their true inheritance. which is nothing other than God himself, and into the final full freedom of that glory that belongs to them because they are the sons of God.

    But now for the wisdom of God. How, you might ask, how if Paul, together with Israel, was once alive apart from the law? How if Paul, together with Israel, was once alive in that pre-Sinai world? in which there appears to be no judgment for sin, will Paul and Israel with him ever be brought to see themselves for what they are, or be made to long with all the intensity of their soul for that true life in the Spirit to which the sons of God are predestined?” How would it happen? God has an answer.

    Only by the law. Only by Sinai. Sinai becomes a necessity. What happens at Sinai? Open your eyes. Read it again. Read Exodus 19. What happens at Sinai? Set yourself there, if you will. I know you’re no Jew. You’re not of the tribe of Paul. But set yourself there momentarily. What transpires at Sinai, see it again.

    When God comes to Sinai bringing his law with him, it is as if the end of the world has come. It’s pure apocalypse. thunder, lightning, earthquake, fire, the fierce fire of a furnace, it’s the end of the world. It is like the coming of the Last Judgment and the administration of that scrutinizing through which the Paul of Israel must pass in order to enter glory. Sinai is a preliminary end of the world.

    It is the judgment in miniature, in it that to which Paul and all Israel are liable is now opened up before their eyes. If they are seeing things aright, if they are seeing things truly, and in this revelation, what do they see? Paul, in speaking for Israel now, is made to see in the coming of Allah the complete and utter impossibility of life in and from himself, of that life for which the children of God were predestined. He is made to see, if he reads Sinai and the law rightly, his own vile wretchedness, his flesh captive to the body of death, bound over to God’s everlasting judgment. When God comes to Sinai, bringing his law with him, is revealed and in Paul’s own language, sin becomes utterly sinful. Something happens to sin itself. Now you see it. Now you see it. And you remember the reaction of the people? And would you have responded any differently?

    Could you? whatever self-serving, lazy self-sufficiency, self-righteousness, whatever complacency, resides in Paul or in Israelites, is now shattered. Now, because of Sinai, the life of the people of God will be a life lived perpetually in the final judgment. under the law, in the judgment itself, as if that judgment were so long stretched out now, moving from Sinai throughout the entirety of Israel’s subsequent life. Or, as Paul himself so magnificently expresses it, compressed into the life of one single Jewish man, Paul himself, who speaks so comprehensively and conclusively about his own condemnation. But where now are matters left for Paul? Is he left and all Israel with him, exclaiming his total vile wretchedness, crying out to be set free from the body of this death, facing only condemnation under the law, forever barred from the true life of the Spirit, to which the sons of God are predestined. Not at all.

    And aren’t you relieved God came to Sinai bringing the Last Judgment, but he also comes in Jesus Christ. God comes to Sinai, but God also comes to Calvary, and by way of resurrection in his Son to Mount Zion itself, bringing to the unworthy, but thanks, cries out Paul.

    But thanks, Paul exclaims, be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The last judgment has come in the law, but eternal life in glory has come in Jesus Christ. The law brings condemnation, but you know there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.

    The monumental transformation signaled for Israel in Sinai gives way to the even more significant transformation resident in Christ and in his work. And the Apostle who, as it were, leads Israel in a corporate confession of condemnation, he speaking in the first person singular pronoun, now leads us, Christ’s own, as it were, in a corporate explosion of praise for God’s grace in Christ. This explosion of praise, the result of a new personal participation, not in Sinai, but in Calvary and in the empty tomb. we are crucified with Christ, and we are raised up with him, made alive in him and through him. And the result of that?

    Just the continuation of life in this world under the domination of the flesh? but introduction into the life of glory to which the sons of God are predestined.” The marvelous wisdom of God. Still, that wisdom continues to amaze us, and Paul gives intimation of the ways in which it amazes us, even here in the seventh chapter of Romans, as he speaks about our deliverance from Sinai and the law. For in this context, he will also speak very well and highly of the law.

    You must not think, therefore, that Sinai itself is devoid of the semblance of glory. Surely the ascent of Moses up that mountain means something. Does it forecast another ascent yet coming? I say it again, you must not think Sinai itself devoid of the semblance of glory and even the intimations of the gospel. Jesus will say, Moses spoke of me.

    In its own way, then, Sinai, the law, communicates life. The positive rings out, even communicates, speaks of that life to which the people of God are predestined. The law is, after all, as Paul says, spiritual. He connects the law with the life in the Spirit by that very statement, and in this poem means then that the law finally promotes the life in the Spirit, the life of glory, eternal life with God, for it too preaches Christ in its own way, in a way appropriate to itself. But in this respect, remember, as Paul finishes out his argument, sets it before you, yes, while serving that movement from life to life, from life in this age to life in the age to come, the law remains old.

    It is made old by the new. And it becomes powerless, utterly powerless, in light of the power that is now manifest in the Gospel, and specifically in God’s transaction on behalf of sinners, whereby he forgives sinners their sins and grants to them eternal life through the resurrection of his Son. When all is said and done, you see, the law remains preliminary, anticipatory.

    It remains shadow. It remains, in Paul’s language, an administration of the letter, while what comes in Christ is newness of life in the spirit, to which the administration of the law itself portrays. Appropriately then, Sinai as that geographical landmark is lost. No one presently can positively identify it. They can only guess where it was.

    And this, you see, not outside the providence of God, as that old mountain fades, in the interests of the new, in itself finding its significance only in light of God’s new mountain, in which righteousness, liberty, and life No, even God himself is enjoyed by all of God’s true sons. A marvelous final contrast, for while the people of God at Sinai remain at the foot of the mountain, in the new administration, all of God’s children ascend the mountain and see God. Are you among the sons of God, who even now, by faith, see Him? And are you able to confess that about yourself, truly?

    I hope so. Let’s pray. We thank you, our God, and praise you for the work of your law. And Lord, even in our narrow consideration of that law, we are delighted to meditate on it. And Lord, we do that even as we meditate upon the full and complete compost of your word, the entirety of it. But bless us, Father, with proper eyes, good heart, to see things rightly, even as the Apostle Paul saw them. We might delight in what has transpired in that according to your ordination, that by root of your dealings with Israel and now with your church, your sons, through Christ, are brought to that predestined end, namely, life in the Spirit with you in glory. Truly, thanks be to our God, to our Lord Jesus Christ, for now the condemnation that had come upon Israel And if on Israel, then upon all men has been removed. And we, Lord, are delighted in your vindication, which has come to us through the just.

    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 Lord, Mighty in Battle

    The Lord, Mighty in Battle

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 6, 1998.

    About this sermon

    Readers take Psalm 24 in several ways, and the right reading sees God becoming victorious Lord first in creation, then in redemption. The psalm answers the hostile voice that asks ‘who is this King of glory’ in verses 8 and 10. Creation and redemption form one continuous act of the same Lord.

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    Sermon transcript

    The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn defeatfully. he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

    This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.” Who is this King of Glory? The war of strong and mighty, the war of mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.” Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts. He is the King of Glory.

    Psalm 24 has been called, perhaps, the most challenging and thought-provoking of the Psalms. For that reason alone, I’m drawn to it. One reason why this is described as the most challenging and thought-provoking of the Psalms is because of its explicit dramatic quality. And you note that, accented for us at the conclusion of the psalm, the antiphonal structure of this psalm, the voices back and forth. at the conclusion of this psalm. But another reason why this has been described as the most challenging and thought-provoking of psalms is what people perceive immediately upon hearing it or reading it.

    That is, its overt disjointedness. or what J. A. Alexander described as its unconnected parts. But even here there have been arguments. Just how many unconnected parts are there? Some, such as Alexander, say two, verses 1 through 6, and then verses 7 through 10. Others, however, say three unconnected parts, verses 1 and 2, verses 3 through 6, and then verses 7 through 10.

    Those dividing the psalm this way have noted the radical disjunctions between verses 2 and 3, where one moment We’re talking about creation and the next moment we’re talking about who will ascend God’s holy hill. But as well, these who divide the psalm note the disjunction between verses 3 through 6 and 7 through 10. In the former verses, it is man who ascends the holy hill. In the latter verses, it is God who ascends the holy hill.

    But there is also the spectrum of opinion about these parts themselves. Are these divisions actually entirely different psalms, composed even centuries apart, then pasted together for liturgical use? as the liberals, or many liberals, have contended.

    Or is there an integrality to this song? An integrality which, despite the apparent unconnected parts, rises from a common hand and a unified vision? If we go in the direction of the common hand and the unified vision, What might we conclude is that unified vision, that consistent theme woven throughout? It has been suggested that the unifying theme in Psalm 24 comes from specific historical events in the life of Israel as a nation. In view, so it is thought, is a yearly enthronement festival in which Israel’s king was regularly honored as a figure whose ascension to the throne provided a picture for God’s triumph over all his enemies.

    The problem with this interpretation is not the central theological point which those responsible for it discern in the psalm. Rather, the difficulties are the lengths to which a number of these interpreters have gone to ground this psalm in ancient pagan myths, which the Hebrews have borrowed from their unbelieving neighbors. And, as well, the annoying little fact that there is not the least shred of evidence that Israel ever commemorated in regular festival style the ascension of their present king to the throne. But if a yearly infirmament festival does not provide a unifying theme, what about something more redemptively historically sensitive?

    What about grounding this psalm in 2 Samuel 6? and its account of the movement of the Ark of the Covenant from the house of Abinadab to the house of Obed-Edom, and then to Jerusalem where it finally rested. But even at this point, as attractive as this approach is, it lacks unanimity among exegetes and remains still, at best, a conjecture. It may be of interest to you that neither Augustine nor Calvin mention the history of the Ark of the Covenant, its ascent of God’s holy hill, or its approach to Jerusalem’s gates in their exegesis.

    Calvin, for instance, moves his interpretation away from the specific event of the Ark’s ascent to the more general history of the movement from tabernacle-centered worship to temple-centered worship in Israel’s history. Calvin’s point being that God has now intensified the emblem of his presence among his people, moving from tabernacle to temple. As God makes it plain that although he is the creator and governor of all mankind, he has chosen the children of Abraham, among whom are those who fear him in sincerity and are prepared to receive the blessings of his greater visitation.” That is, the greater visitation now made evident in the establishment of the temple. Calvin says the movement reflected in the psalm replicates the movement from the tabernacle era to the temple era. but that this movement itself anticipates a greater movement still, out of the shadows of the Old Testament administration as a whole, into the even more scrutinizing and glorious administration of Christ and his Church.

    Calvin ends his exposition of Psalm 24 on this sobering note. The God who has come to us in Christ through the word and sacraments of the Church cannot but at length utterly withdraw himself from us if we, in our detestable pride, despise his means of grace. But while Calvin may point us to the patient development in the Old Testament itself, And then, through the patient development from the Old Testament to the New Testament, Augustine cuts directly to the chase.

    Augustine picks up on the Septuagint superscription for this psalm, which says that this psalm was, quote, for the first day of the week, unquote. The Jewish rabbis, in working off of this superscription, connected the psalm specifically to the creation of the world, mentioned in verses 1 and 2. The first day of the week, of course, being the beginning of creation. But Augustine would see in this superscription nothing other than a reference to Christ’s resurrection.

    In this psalm, therefore, Augustine sees David touching the resurrection of our world, which took place on the first day of the week, now called the Lord’s Day. The earth, mentioned at the beginning of this psalm, now belonging to the Lord, is the realm of the risen Lord’s universal reign in his Church. The ascent of the hill of the Lord, spoken of beginning in verse 3, is then access into the Church.

    The gates of obstruction, spoken of beginning in verse 7, are those temporarily belonging to the earth’s rulers and spiritual powers who would block the believer’s access to eternal life and the blessings of conversion. These, indeed, are powers in the administration of this world,” concludes Augustine. But the Lord of powers, he is the King of Glory.

    Well, as you can see, this Psalm, Psalm 24, has generated great discussion and diverse opinion. And to those that we have already mentioned, we might well add the poetical interpretation of Cecil Francis Alexander, whose hymn we sang this morning, hymn number 214, which applies Psalm 24 to not the resurrection of Christ, but to his ascension. But where does all of this leave us?

    You may have found yourself even momentarily resonating to the approach which saw as central to this psalm the enthronement of the King of Israel, minus, of course, you being of conservative stripe, any dependence upon pagan festival cycles, because, again, given your conservative predilections the profound messianic reach of these words into the New Testament unit itself to proclaim to you Christ and his service. At the same time, you may have been drawn to the hypothesis concerning the arts movement from the House of Abinadab to Jerusalem. You may have even been more impressed by the direction of Calvin’s comments and then found yourself hardly prepared to dismiss Augustine’s perspective. In the midst of all of this then, you may be asking yourself, am I able to come to a settled position on this form at all?

    A perspective on the unifying theme of this portion of scripture. Is it possible? You might well ask further. to draw together the valuable insights of all of these approaches. Can I coordinate them somehow? Can I bring them together into a cohesive whole?

    Maybe what would be more helpful for you would be something of a clearing of the board. To this end, let me lay aside the various suggestions I have made this evening. In fact, let me be bold and say that Psalm 24 is not in the first place about the festivities surrounding the sacral kingship of Israel, but neither is it in the first place about Israel’s king, nor is it to begin with about the movement of the Ark of the Covenant from place to place. or the movement from tabernacle administration to temple administration, or even in fine prophetic style, about the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus Christ. Now, I know what you’re thinking. This whole thing appears to be a hopeless muddle. So many conflicting opinions, so many attitudes, so many approaches.

    What are we to do? It may well seem that, first of all, I’m suggesting to you that you draw together all the approaches that you’ve heard this evening, but then I go on and ask you to discard them all. Well, which is it? Do we incorporate them all, or do we discard them all? Well, actually, it’s both.

    What I want from you initially is a clearing of the table, and then a rebuilding appreciative of the various suggestions that you’ve heard. a rebuilding appreciative, that is, to the extent that the text itself will allow. So what is left for us when we clear the table? What is left for us when we clear the table?

    Simply this. is about God. The psalm is about God. It is not about festivals. It is not even about the King of Israel. It is not about the movement of the the movement from tabernacle to temple administration, the movement from Old Testament to New. It is not about Christ’s resurrection and ascension.

    First of all, it is about God Himself. Psalm 24 is about God becoming the victorious Lord. In the first place, it is about God becoming the victorious Lord in the creation of the world, and then, for his people’s sake, asserting his regained Lordship in his gracious accomplishment of redemption on their behalf. Psalm 24 is about God becoming the victorious Lord in the creation of the world, and then, for His people’s sake, asserting His regained Lordship in His gracious accomplishment of redemption on behalf of His elect. In a brief overview, then, which we will unpack in future messages, we see God in verses 1 and 2 triumphing at the creation over the chaotic seas and brooding floods.

    God has gone to war, so to speak, against And in his activity, he has become Lord now in a sense in which he was not Lord previously. The movement is in the Lord himself. The movement is in God himself. The earth and its contents, the world and all who dwell in it, belong to him because he has become Lord by his triumph over opposing forces.” He has become Lord over opposing forces, and that’s specifically focused in the creation. Verses 1 and 2.

    But now, while all in the world belong to him, and the world in its entirety, who then will be judged worthy to stand in the presence of this awesome King?” The language that is introduced to us here in verses 3-6 is reflective of Israel’s legal relationship to God, her relationship to the Lord via the law, and the hope she has with respect to her own integrity. But implied here is her failure. a failure which becomes the opportunity for the Lord to gain again his Lordship, this time by a voluntary condescension to his people’s level, that he, on their behalf, might ascend the hill of holiness for them. This time, to claim his Lordship, even establish it, to have it proclaimed, not in reference but in open defiance of hostile, doomed spiritual powers claiming lordship for themselves.”

    Verses 7 through 10. If you have not caught it in the way in which I read the psalm, I will make it explicit for you now. When you get to the conclusion of this psalm, verses 7 through 10, the voice that comes from behind the gates, behind the doors, is not a friendly voice. It is a hostile voice. Who is this King of Glory? It is a voice of utter contempt, challenging the right of the one who has made himself water-fresh to enter into that which is his. You see, then, the direction that we are going with our interpretation of this psalm, and how this is going to work itself out in terms of the statement of a marvelous drama that sweeps the span of the entire biblical story.

    And now, having cleared the table, we are ready to appreciate and appropriate even the place of Israel’s king, his significance, what significance does he have? The movement of the ark from one place to another, the transition from tabernacle administration to temple administration, even the transition from Old Testament to New. We are able in light of this to appreciate now the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus Christ. the scope presented in this psalm, there is presented to us the whole of the drama. And now all the features that we have spoken of this evening have their place and reveal their meaning.

    The God who became more than creation, then circumstance for his people’s sake, asserts his regained lordship in his gracious accomplishment of their redemption.” This is Psalm 24, and what a blessing it will be for us to explore the riches of this song together. Let us pray. our God, the greatness of your word, the reach of it, we are carried by it, Lord, beyond points that we would have imagined were impossible for us. Even as your word and this psalm in particular give expression to the full range of your revelatory and redemptive intention. Wrapped up, O God, in ten brief verses, a declaration of the entirety of the biblical drama from creation to redemption.

    And that, Lord, even as we are brought to the gates of heaven and to that position to which our God himself has come for us, that we might ascend, sinners that we are, the fill of the O God, not only how glorious, but how comforting that we, Lord, are considered by you, and because of your great love for us, you have become as we are. You have made yourself one of us, that we, through the perfections of your obedience and through the regaining of your Lordship, might enjoy the glories of heaven. Bless us, O Father, your children, as we approach the table now and partake in your name.

    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 Day the Lord Has Made

    The Day the Lord Has Made

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, August 24, 1997.

    About this sermon

    ‘This is the day the Lord has made’ in verse 24 takes its full meaning from Malachi 4:3’s day of the Lord, far beyond a general call to daily gratitude. Religion is an event before it is an idea, something that happened before anyone believed it. Israel’s deliverance is the pattern for reading ours.

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    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we are reading for our scripture Psalm 118. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his lovingkindness is everlasting. O, let Israel say, His lovingkindness is everlasting! O, let the house of Aaron say, His lovingkindness is everlasting! O, let those who fear the Lord say, His lovingkindness is everlasting!

    From my distress I called upon the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me in a large place. The Lord is for me. I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is for me among those who help me. Therefore I will work with satisfaction on those who hate me.” It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.

    All nations surrounded me. In the name of the Lord, I will surely cut them off. They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me. In the name of the Lord, I will surely cut them off. They surrounded me like bees. They were extinguished. as a fire of thorns. In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off.

    You pushed me violently so that I was falling, but the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation.” The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tense of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.

    I will not die, but live and tell of the works of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness. I shall enter through them. I shall give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous will enter through it. I shall give thanks to you, for you have answered me, and you have become my salvation.” The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

    This is the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. O Lord, do save, we beseech you. O Lord, we beseech you, do send prosperity. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God. He has given us light. Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will give thanks to you. You are my God, I will extol you. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his lovingkindness is everlasting.”

    Lord, we would be refreshed in this your day. It is important to us, as you know, you have ordained this day that we might be refreshed in it, and with that refreshment, O God, live to you throughout the week. May it be so for this day and for this week. And Lord, may you be delighted in the service that we perform in your name and by your strength. O God, your word is meat and drink for us, and in its strength we endure, even as we persevere in and through our Savior, Jesus Christ. in whose name we pray, amen.

    I will admit to you that this is one of those after-vacation sermons. And I do trust that it isn’t too disjointed, and that there is a thread of consistency that you will be able to proceed running through it. I dare say Psalm 118 is one of those psalms to which it seems we are inevitably drawn, for it contains any number of compelling features, including, as I’m sure you noticed, many memorable lines.

    Memorable lines, for that matter, both open and close the psalm. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his lovingkindness, that is, his covenantal faithfulness is everlasting. You find that, as I’ve already indicated, both at the opening and at the conclusion of the psalm. But not only are these words, at least the last phrase in them, repeated again and again You can see them repeated in the first four verses of this psalm, in fact, but they and extrapolations from them are often expressed throughout the Psalter as a whole, and also in other Old Testament passages. In the psalms you will find parallels in the openings to Psalm 105. And in Psalm 136, you will find an entire psalm built around the statement that opens and closes this psalm. And the repetition of the phrase throughout, for his lovingkindness is everlasting.

    The other Old Testament passages that I have referred to, these words seem to have a particular force as they appear in them, a force in the context of the establishment of Israel’s sanctuary and its dedication. words that we cited from Psalm 118, reflected on or echoed from David in 1 Chronicles 16.34 in connection with the elevation of the Ark of the Covenant, you can find them again at the time of the dedication of the Temple during Solomon’s reign.

    2nd Chronicles 5.13, and then in 7.3, and you can find them once more in Ezra 3.11, in the days in which the temple was being rebuilt. Even Jeremiah’s use of these words finds its reference in a promise to restore the temple in Jerusalem after the exile. You can note Jeremiah’s use of these words in his 33rd chapter, the 11th verse.

    But then there is the reference that we find in the 19th verse, to the gate of righteousness, bringing before us once more the possibility of temple construction. And this is echoed in verse 20, where there is spoken of the gate of the Lord. Most certainly in view here are the gates and the gate of the city of God in which the sanctuary stands, but also, most likely, the gates and the gate to the temple itself. In fact, it would seem that the gates of the city become synonymous with the gates of the sanctuary, and the city and the sanctuary become one. The city and the temple become one. with those entering the city drawing near to the very presence of God in his sanctuary.

    And this sanctuary language becomes explicit, does it not, when we come to verses 26 and 27, where we find these words, We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. and then in the 27th verse, explicitly once more, bind the festal sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.

    It would seem then that the call issued by this psalm, namely to give thanks to the Lord, is heard in the context of the assembly, in the context of the Church. in the congregation as that congregation has gathered for worship for the corporate acknowledgment of the Lord’s goodness as expressed in his constant covenantal faithfulness. Moving back to the beginning of the psalm, in verse 2, the native-born members of the of the assembly. At this time, the Israelites are called upon to confess the great truth that God is good, and his covenantal faithfulness is everlasting. In verse 3, the priests and ministers to the Old Testament Church are called upon to confess the very same thing. In verse 4 it would seem that all God-hearers, those most likely Gentiles who have attached themselves to Israel, are called upon to confess within the assembly the Lord’s perpetual mercy to his elect, among whom it would seem now they have been graciously included.

    But there is another memorable statement here, another memorable line, to be found in this psalm, if not many more. I have in mind verse 24. How often have we heard these words? This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. These words, as familiar as they are, may not be easily comprehended by us. In fact, their magnificent poetry and cadence might get in the way. This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

    The intention of these words, a parallel for them is found in the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi chapter 4 verse 3, where the Lord of hosts describes for us the day of salvation, a day in which the Son of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings for those who fear his name, verse 2, a day in which the wicked will be as ashes beneath the feet of the righteous, a day in which the Lord himself, we are told, in words that parallel what we find in Psalm 118, verse 24, the day in which the Lord his name In words that parallel that statement and sentiment of Psalm 818, we find that this is a day, Malachi 4.3, in which the Lord himself will act conclusively for his people. You see, the day which the Lord has named, creating it seemingly as a creation day itself, The day which the Lord has made referenced in Psalm 118 verse 24 is nothing less, none other, than the day of the Lord. The mutual call then to rejoice and be glad in this day contains the Holy Spirit’s beckoning for the earth concerning that day. You will note, however, that the declaration about the day is this.

    God has already made it, he has already established it for his elect. That is, he has already acted in forming it. Now, don’t misunderstand me. What I’m referring to here is no denial of the coming day of the Lord. then God will bring this sad world to a close in the full vindication of his Church and in the confirmation of his judgment upon the wicked.

    But the force of the psalm is the recognition of and the celebration of the fact that this grand and conclusive day has already intruded upon the experience of God’s people. It is as if they are living in its reality. And that is a supreme joy to them, because they know that they, living in the reality of that day, have already been vindicated by their God. Conscious of this then, we are able to bring together the two familiar statements or lines that we’ve commented on thus far in this psalm.

    You will recall that the first of these lines has the context elsewhere in the Old Testament of the establishment of God’s sanctuary, whether the tabernacle in the case of David, or the first temple in the case of Solomon, or the second temple in the case of Ezra. It is particularly in association with the establishment of the Lord’s sanctuary, then, that the day which the Lord has made, the day in which he has acted, the day of the Lord itself, has arrived. in the event of the establishment of God’s final and conclusive habitation for his people, in the midst of which he is enthroned as their king and set in their midst as their sovereign. The day of the Lord has become visible, it has been felt, it has been experienced by the elect of the Lord even before the end of the world, and it is your privilege to enjoy the blessings of it. But as a result, the praise and thanksgiving praise and thanksgiving demanded of us in Psalm 118 becomes very specific, does it not?

    Informed by the most substantive content. For this psalm has no interest in the praise-for-praise-sake mentality. It has no interest in vacuous and empty-headed praise. It is not interested in spontaneous exuberance that is completely contactless. It is not interested in the praise as therapy approach to religious worship. It has no interest in that whatsoever.

    For the psalmist, the praise, the joy, the gladness, the thanksgiving prescribed is specifically bound to a specific event, the event of this establishment and hallowing of God’s house in which he is exalted, in which he is enthroned. The day which the Lord has made is specifically the day in which he has made for his people a habitation, a sanctuary, a day in which he has revealed his might and his sovereignty.

    And it is in this day that the Lord’s true do in fact rejoice and are in fact glad. It is this day in God’s accomplishment and brings the doubt that provides the content for the confession with which the psalm both begins and ends. The Lord is good. His lovingkindness or his covenantal faithfulness is confirmed as unfailing because he has overseen and brought to completion the construction of his victory house, his temple.

    The psalmist here isn’t any more interested in abstract attributes of God than he is in the abstract praise. both his contemplation of the divine nature, God’s goodness is faithfulness, and his calls for worshippers to give thanks, are united in his appreciation for what God has done, and that specifically. We are dealing here with the God of Israel, who has done specific things, who has acted in a specific way. who has accomplished his redemption for his people definitively and historically. That is the God we are interested in, and it is by way of his actions that he has revealed his attributes.

    Therefore, you build your theology not upon a philosophical reflection of God’s attributes of him as he is in himself. You build your theology upon a reflection upon what God has done, what he has accomplished, the manner in which he has revealed himself in the concrete actions that he has performed in history. Christianity, biblical religion, is event-centered religion. It is not idea-centered religion. We are not in the business here of doing religious philosophy. We are in the business of worshiping the God who is active, who in his actions has revealed his nature. But what is it that brings God’s goodness and his lovingkindness to light?

    I have already let the cat out of the bag. But truly, the movement within the psalm is going to impress this upon you as you move from that fifth verse onward through the psalm. It will impress upon you the means God uses to show himself both good and faithful. Admittedly, you may find these verses somewhat less than immediately transparent. For instance, you look at verse 10 and its words, All nations surrounded me, and you scratch her head.

    When exactly did that happen in the experience of an Israelite? Aren’t we exaggerating a little bit here? You’re beginning to think that this fellow obviously is a victim of acute paranoia. He seems to be taking his own personal experience and conferring upon it the most melodramatic and grandiose significance. Further, with his repeated statements that, yes, he personally will cut off or destroy these very nations that have surrounded him, again you might be liable to think that he has given way to hyperbole, exaggeration, overblown estimation of himself. It seems to be at work in him here, an overblown estimation of himself, as if he were the Lord’s own avenging angel. Then there is that enigmatic statement in verse 22 that may have confounded you a little bit, because in the course, in the run of the psalm, you weren’t quite sure as to how it fit in.

    What’s it doing here? The stone which the builders rejected has become the teeth cornerstone. What’s that all about? However, there are some clues for us as to what is going on here, and I call your attention to verses 14-16, verses that will find some connection to verse 28.

    These verses, 14-16, explicit portions of them have been actually lifted from elsewhere in scripture. Do you know where? You may recall these words. They come from Exodus 15. They are lifted right out of Exodus 15 and the song of Moses, the song of the sons of Israel, when God saved them from the Egyptians. You can find these words in Exodus 15 verses 2 and 6. And I said that there is reference to verse 28, you are my God, I will give thanks to you, you are my God, I will extol you. Yes, this is also found in Exodus 15 verse 2.

    Do you see what the psalmist is doing? The psalmist will not speak of himself in isolation. He will not express himself as in isolation from the rest of salvation history, from the history of the people of God, any more than he will speak abstractly about God and abstractly about the praise that is due unto the Lord. The pressure at work on the psalmist is that he would read his own deliverance, whatever that might be. In terms of the definitive deliverance, God has worked on behalf of his people as a whole.

    There is a religious act going on in the course of this psalm. This man, as he expresses himself, is actually giving up his life into an identity with the entirety of the people of God and their history. He is giving his life away. That’s what’s happening here. Now, I have said it to you before, I have said it to you often.

    This will find its reflex in the Apostle Paul, as he is determined not to read his life as one who is an individual with a sacrosanct individual life of religiosity. No, no. As if his own religious psychology was the thing about which Christianity was concerned. Not at all.

    The Apostle Paul will constrain himself to read his life in terms of those acts which God has performed for the sake of all his people. Therefore, the Apostle will say, when Christ died, I died. When Christ was raised, I was raised. He will give up his life in an identity with Christ, and God’s saving act. The Apostle Paul is true to the genius of biblical religion. Oh, but we have more like him.

    But here it is expressed in the psalmist many years prior to Paul. Once more, the psalmist will not speak of himself in isolation, as if he is a mere individual. He will not speak of himself in isolation to the entirety of the history of redemption, the history of the people of God, any more than he speaks abstractly about God, or abstractly about the praise that is due unto the Lord.

    The pressure at work in the psalmist is to read his own deliverance in terms of the definitive deliverance. God has worked on behalf of his people as a whole. That’s the significance of the reference to the exodus. This means that the personal singular pronoun I in the psalm becomes more than individual, it becomes plural, it becomes corporate, in the sense that it includes now all Israel. By using it, the psalmist will take all the faithful to himself, and they will be gathered to him, as they, as one man, are situated in the event of Israel’s passing. It doesn’t matter how far the psalmist is removed from the Exodus event.

    He speaks as if he were there. This past deliverance is subsequently projected into the later history of Israel, inclusive of the period of the rebellion in the wilderness against Moses. of the period of the Judges, when the people of God were regularly rebellious, inclusive of the period of the Exiles, when God’s judgment came crashing down upon the people of Judah. So that the psalmist says in a collective voice, in more than an individual tone, the Lord has disciplined me severely. But he has not given me over unto death.” Verse 18. Instead of death, the psalmist has left. Instead of death, the people of God live and declare his works. Verse 17.

    The consequence of this is now the gracious welcome by God. Understand it, the gracious welcome by God and the bold approach of his people on the basis of that grace to enter into the glorious gates of righteousness, verse 19, into the very gate of God, verse 20. It is after Sinai and the rebellion at Sinai that God built his sanctuary. and then welcomes his people to it. It is after the period of the judges that God builds his temple within Jerusalem and then welcomes his people to it. It is after the exile and the devastations of the sin of the people of God prior to that exile, that God restores his temple and then graciously welcomes his people into his very own sanctuary. What a God is this! Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

    Can we confess anything less? He is good, and his loving kindness, his mercy, is everlasting, is it not ever? We who were rebellious, we who were sinners, we who are joined to that company in the wilderness with all the rebellious tribe in the time of the judges, with Judah itself in all of its sin, we now are welcomed into the sanctuary of God by his gracious invitation and provision. What right do I have there?

    You begin to see how content-specific But so great a victory has God won for us in our salvation, as it is extended and confirmed in the establishment of his throne in his sanctuary. So great a victory is this that it is viewed now in the psalm in the most comprehensive terms, it projects itself into the final day, the day of the Lord. In which all of the nations are assembled against the Lord and his anointed, all of the nations that day in which the Lord himself will rise to slay the wicked who have opposed him, and enlist the help of the righteous, the elect whom he has redeemed, they judging even angels.” But it must not be overlooked in all of this that this victory, and the accompanying praise for God in it, are not irrespective of the confession from the people of God that they have been party to that rebellion by which God’s principal building block has been rejected.

    The enigmatic verse 22. It may well be that we find pattern for this rejection. in the experiences of Moses as he is rejected by the people of God, you may recall, during the period of the Judges as the Judges themselves are subjected to persecution, in the time of David when he is the object of persecution and pursuit, the Prophets themselves, as they are rejected and their message with them, that all of these, yes, share an identity in the rejected principle gaining block in view. What is important to see is that the victory now experienced is inseparable from the vindication and exaltation of that rejected stone to the place of the chief cornerstone. The pattern laid here before you in Psalm 118 is not then a piece of Old Testament reflection. It is not just a recounting of Old Testament history, exodus to exile, with which the psalmist sees himself thoroughly identified.

    Rather, it is that history for the people of God in the most comprehensive sense, on the most universal scale, inclusive of all of God’s people, even unto the final judgment. The thanksgiving and gladness expressed by the psalmist, called for on our behalf, is expressly focused now on the Lord’s salvation, His deliverance of His people, by which those people are brought into the sanctuary of the Lord, a sanctuary established upon the very one that the people of God had in fact rejected.

    And that rejected one, that rejected stone, the Lord Jesus Christ, has become the chief cornerstone. In the end, it is revealed that Jesus Christ is the voice that we hear in the psalm itself, the one thoroughly identified with his people even in their sin. but as well he is the rejected stone who is God’s chief cornerstone in an enduring sanctuary, a throne room of triumph for God over all, a triumph such that the salvation of the people of God is included in the exaltation of the rejected stone. And that’s why you rejoice. and you are glad about the resurrection, and why that resurrection is at the very center of your confession and your identity as believers. It now is possible to see God’s entire purpose, not Israel alone but the church of all ages. And Jesus Christ, the rejected stone, now the chief cornerstone, laid by God’s gracious hand, in a redemption that can’t be outclassed, beyond which there is no other salvation. The purpose of it is to bring you into the final sanctuary of God, and I tell you, there is no other sanctuary than that one in which Christ himself appears as the chief cornerstone. I trust you know that, and because you do, you are able to sing this psalm as no Jew could. Let’s pray. Lord, we ask that you might be merciful continually to us, that we might realize the full range of the words and the intent of

    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 Tree at Marah

    The Tree at Marah

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 1, 1996.

    About this sermon

    Three days after the sea, Israel’s bitterness at Marah shows how quickly thankfulness curdles into complaint. The tree God shows Moses to sweeten the water points to the cross, and Christ’s own three-day journeys pattern the salvation his people live out of. Thankfulness is a way of life.

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    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we are reading Exodus 15. We begin with verse 1. This is the word of God, Exodus chapter 15. Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the Lord and said, I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted. The horse and its rider He has curled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise Him, my Father’s God, and I will extol Him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is His name. Hero’s chariots and his army he has cast into the sea, and the choices of his officers are drowned in the Red Sea. The deeps cover them. They went down into the depths like a stone.

    Thy right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. And in the greatness of thine excellence thou dost overthrow those that rise up against thee. Thou dost send forth thy burning anger. and it consumes them as chaff.

    And at the blast of my nostrils the waters were piled up. The flowing waters stood up like a heap. The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoils. My desire shall be gratified against them. I will draw out my sword, my hand shall destroy them.

    Thou didst blow with thy wind. The sea covered them, they sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who is like thee among the gods, O Lord? Who is like thee, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders? Thou didst stretch out Thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. In Thy lovingkindness Thou hast led Thy people, whom Thou hast redeemed. In Thy strength Thou hast guided them to Thy holy habitation.

    The peoples have heard, they tremble. Anguish has gripped the inhabitants of Philistia. Then the chiefs of Edom were dismayed. The leaders of Moab, tremblings gripped them. All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. Terror and dread fall upon them. By the greatness of thine arm they are motionless as stone.

    Until thy people pass over, O Lord, until the people pass over whom thou hast purchased, thou wilt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thy dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign forever and ever.’ And the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, and the Lord brought back the waters of the sea on them.

    But the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea. And Miriam, the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing. And Miriam answered them, Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted, the horse and his rider he has hurled into the sea. Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea. and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.

    And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter, therefore it was named Marah. So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, What shall we drink? Then he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet.

    There the Lord made for them a statute. and regulation, and there he tested them. And he said, If ye will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians, for I, the Lord, am your healer. Then they came to Elam, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy deep pools. and they camped there beside the waters.

    By your spirits working for God, you have brought order into chaos, and it pleases you, O God, to structure your word even according to that blessed pattern of things in glory above. So in keeping with that word, O God, and by your Spirit, the world itself is ordered and arranged. And Father, we ask that you might also Bless us in the knowledge that your spirit brings order to the chaos that reigns because of sin and death, so that even now, as your church is formed, there is order there in answer to the chaos that reigns among men. Bless us, O God, with your peace, even as we are a part of your people. And may your people throughout the world know your peace and the blessedness of your spirit who works in their midst to bring order out of chaos. This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. In some ways, Thanksgiving Day is no help to us. In some ways, Thanksgiving Day is no help to us.

    For one thing, it finds us so preoccupied with everything but Thanksgiving. I’m reminded of the story of Mary and Martha. with those two sisters, and Martha preoccupied with everything but Jesus. But for another thing, Thanksgiving Day suggests a localization for Thanksgiving that makes this day an exception to every other day of the year. In other words, we must give thanks on Thanksgiving Day because we haven’t been giving thanks regularly on the days throughout the year. Could Thanksgiving Day actually be construed as a national day of penance, when we make restitution to God for 364 days of thanklessness?

    Now, please understand me. My message this evening is not a diatribe against our national custom to celebrate a special day of thanksgiving, although it does seem to me that increasingly this special day designed to accent our thanksgiving to God has become a day in which we actually thank one another. family members, close relatives. And as I heard one football commentator this last Thanksgiving Day say, the technicians who have actually given up their day with their families in order to provide us with coverage of our favorite teams. But as I said, this is no diatribe against the day itself.

    It is a sermon about thanksgiving to God in view is not the day, but an attitude, a disposition. According to the Scriptures, ours is to be a disposition overflowing with thanksgiving to God. In fact, we are told by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5.20, and elsewhere I might add, that we are to give thanks always. Not just one day a week, if that, but always. Thanksgiving, then, it would seem, according to the word of God, is a way of life, something that is always to characterize us. to be interrupted, to be perpetually pursued. Now, the call to this way of life is most definitely heard throughout all of Scripture, including the Old Testament. This way of life is set before us, in fact, in the most dramatic fashion in the story of the Exodus.

    The journey of the children of Israel out of Egypt, initially, whether you realize it or not, was to be a three-day journey for the purpose of keeping a festival to the Lord. The Lord makes mention of this very fact in his first meeting with Moses, the meeting that took place at the burning bush. In Exodus 3, verse 18, God says to Moses that he is to tell Pharaoh to let Israel go so that Israel might travel three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord. Exodus 5, the beginning verses of that chapter. Moses, together with Aaron, deliver this self-same message to Pharaoh. a message that speaks about the three-day journey for the sake of keeping festival with the Lord. And chapter 8, verse 27, chapter 10, verse 9, this message is again repeated. But once the deliverance is accomplished, and Israel has now left Egypt by way of the Red Sea, the people make their three-day journey. And they arrive, you will note in the text that we read this evening, they arrive at Mara, a place whose name means bitterness. Bitterness. Because the waters of that place were bitter. Here’s the dilemma. Here’s the dilemma.

    Israel has been delivered, having experienced the great saving work of God at the Red Sea. Indeed, as is stated and sung, the Lord has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider have been thrown into the sea. The Lord has become his people’s strength and song. He has become their salvation. Truly their inheritance, according to the Lord’s promise, is certain. Exodus 15, verses 17 and 18. Thou wilt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thy dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.

    The Lord shall reign forever and ever.” The praise of Israel’s sons is complemented by the daughters led by Miriam. But the thanksgiving gives way in short course through grumbling and complaining. And that’s because the Israelites have made their three-day journey through the waterless wilderness of Shur, and have come to the bitter wells of Mar. So these redeemed, the nation of Israel, come to that appointed day, three days after their deliverance, when festival was to be held. And in that circumstance, they are greeted by bitter waters they cannot drink.

    What would you do? What would you do? Well, left to your own power, left to your own devices, you would do exactly what the Israelites did. you too would grumble, calling into question the sincerity of God’s action three days previous in saving you, calling into question the inheritance into which you hoped to enter, yes, calling into question even the existence of the God who had claimed to renew Yes, you would grumble.

    But wouldn’t your grumbling raise the question whether there is actually a parallel between the bitter waters at Mora and your own bitter hearts? The children of Israel, in coming to Marah, come to bitter waters, and as they look into the waters, they see the reflection of themselves. The bitterness of the waters greets the potential for bitterness in the people. It’s as if you have grumbling waters. as well as grumbling people. But if it is not to be grumbling and complaining, then what?

    What is it, exactly, that God expects of Israel when it arrives at Moab? God expects them Yes, even in the midst of that wilderness, even now, beside those bitter waters, he expects them to keep the festival. He expects them to continue in their praise and in their thanksgiving. He expects them to give thanks bitter waters or no bitter waters, more or no more. God expects them, then, to be thankful out of hearts overflowing with gratitude.

    He expects of them thanksgiving, as if they were carrying within them the event that had transpired three days previously. as if they were carrying the great deliverance at the Red Sea within their very souls, and more as if they were carrying within them the actual reality of the inheritance to which they were pressing, the destiny which God had for them. It is as if God expects of them, not only that they carry the event in their souls, but they live in that event, the event of their redemption, as if never leaving that event. They are always in it, defined by it, as if they were living in the reality of the inheritance already within their possession. They never separated from that inheritance. Now, as the children of Israel come tomorrow unto this test, for it is a test, and so described in the word of God, to which the Lord has brought them, they are unprepared to respond as the Lord wishes, for they are in need of a cure for their bitter, thankless parts.

    In this story, then, we are told that God shows Moses a tree. which, when Moses throws it into the water, makes the bitter water sweet. We have to delay long over that tree that is showed to Moses, that tree that is thrown into these waters, powerful to transform the waters from bitterness to sweetness. Could this tree be anything less than an anticipation of that tree, the cross of Christ? The tree, like Christ’s cross, now enters into the bitter waters and is identified with those bitter waters, even more is identified with the bitter hearts and souls which that water represents, and it becomes the means for the curing of those waters.

    If there is to be any curing for the people, it will have to be by the activity of the Lord, who identifies Himself in this passage as their healer. I am your healer. And He has in mind more than just diseases. He has in mind more than just the aches and pains and difficulties of life and aging. He has in mind the healing of the soul unto salvation and unto glory. If there is to be any cure for the people of God, it will have to be by the sovereign activity of the Lord, their healing. He has the power, through the action of setting Himself precisely in their condition, to cure the bitterness and the sin that plagues their souls. He has the power, through such action, to place them in the setting of His saving work, and it’s envisioned objective, the inheritance itself.

    Think of it, never leaving the banks of the Red Sea, always living in the celebration that we have just read of this evening, the celebration of that saving work. Think of it. having such certainty of the inheritance that it is as if we are already there, living in the permanence of what has been given to us by grace.

    You notice the development of the song of Moses as he recounts the great redeeming work of the Lord and speaks about it so wonderfully. He comes down to the latter part, and he’s talking about the people as if they’re already positioned within the promised land, as if they’re already there. I tell you, in such a life, thanksgiving never ends. It should not ever end. It is constant, and it is abiding.

    And it is that through which we are called the people of God. I know the depths of depression. I know the struggles that some of you go through. I’m your pastor. That’s why I know these things. But there is a unique therapy that belongs to the Word of God. It is not some sort of twelve-step process. It is an identification with redemptive work of God. so that you carry that work in your soul, even as you are carried within that work.

    It’s as if you live in the event of salvation, always. You never leave. Do you see what this means in New Testament terms? It’s like you’ve never left the cross. You’re always there. It’s as if you’ve never left the tomb. You’re always there. looking, gazing into that empty tomb in the certain knowledge that Christ has been raised.

    Isn’t this what overwhelms you then as you hear the Apostle Paul speak, and he talks about being crucified with Christ, and having been raised with Christ also? You carry that within you, even as you are carried within it. That’s the full range. That’s the marvel of it. And that’s why Thanksgiving is always to be ours. Think about it.

    The realization of such thanksgiving as I have been speaking of this evening, this thanksgiving for the life of God’s people, depends, as I have been underscoring, upon Christ and His cross, prefigured in the truth, mentioned in the text, thrown into the bitter waters of Mars. But if we consider Christ’s identification with his people in their bitter state, even as this tree is thrown into the waters with respect to the particulars of the story, think how close the identification, how deep and rich the identification of Christ with his people is at the time of his very sacrifice.

    Jesus will speak about his own three-day journey. Now, this lest you despair about your ability to do what God has called you to do, you must look to Christ. Jesus has taken his own three-day journeys. Now, it’s a rather remarkable thing, because he speaks about two three-day journeys.

    He speaks of one upon learning that Herod is out to kill him. He learns that from all people, the Pharisees. He responds to the Pharisees who bring him this information, “‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, but the third day I reach my goal.’” Now, according to my calculations, that’s three days. Now, you understand he’s speaking figuratively. He’s a long way from Jerusalem yet. But He’s picking up the imagery, you see, because there is a Mara coming in the experience of the Son of Man, and He’s destined for it, for you.

    So, yes, there is that three-day journey. If ever there was a Mara, it was the cross to which Jesus journeyed. in which he takes to himself the sinful bitterness of his people, embarrasses that, in order that not only the waters, of course, but the people themselves might be made sweet. Jesus also journeys not just three days before the cross, but three days after the cross. The cross then becomes the starting point, the great day of celebration comparable to the deliverance at the Red Sea, a new Red Sea experience in this new journey as Jesus travels into death itself, into his own waterless wilderness of sure, only to come forth from death into the realm of perpetual thanksgiving.

    Let me ask you, do you ever think about what Jesus is doing right now. I know. Now, that’s not presumption. I happen to know. He is offering up perfect thanksgiving. Before his father. and it is that thanksgiving into which you are privileged to enter. The continual thanksgiving to which the Apostle Paul calls the people of God, the Church of Jesus Christ.

    In Ephesians 5.20 and elsewhere, finds its foundation indeed in Christ and his cross, by which we have been delivered, even from our grumbling and complaining, even from our sinful bitterness. We are affectionately bound to God’s great saving act in Christ, whose entrance into our life has meant the resolution of our sin, including our thanklessness but whose entrance into our life has also meant our participation in him, the one whose praises of God even now never fail, even through the cross, even through the grave, even unto glory itself. my dear friends, cannot be seasonal. Thanksgiving, my dear friends, is dispositional. May God grant to each of us a full participation, by grace, in just such a disposition. Give thanks. Always.

    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.

  • Praying Against Our Enemies

    Praying Against Our Enemies

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 6, 1996.

    About this sermon

    Psalm 137 closes by blessing whoever dashes Babylon’s children against the rocks, and the church has to face it directly, with C.S. Lewis’s wrestling and the New Testament’s continuing language of judgment in view. The psalm cries out for God’s justice against real enemies. Praying against enemies remains a legitimate prayer.

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    Sermon transcript

    We are reading tonight Psalm 137. Psalm 137. This is the word of God. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof, for there they that carried us away captive required of us a song, and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

    If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy, remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said, Raise it, raise it, even to the foundation thereof. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”

    Pray with me now. Help us, O God, that our hearing might be joined to our living. Father, work by your Spirit in our willing souls. so that in hearing what you say to us, we are prepared to obey. Father, there are many hard things in your word. We cannot deny that. But Father, with faith, we face these hard things. And truly, by your Spirit, you help us with those problems of the mind, those problems of the soul, and those problems of our wills.

    Grant us mercy, O God, even as we are a people of prayer, even as we are a people of your word, even as we are a people of the sacraments which you have ordained. and minister to us powerfully and effectively your grace. We pray these things through Christ who makes continual intercession for us without fail. Amen. We have been singing through the Old Testament Psalter selections successively on our Sunday evening gatherings, and tonight we have come to Psalm 137. We have also, as you know, just read that psalm.

    Now, I will be perfectly honest with you. I’m not going to hide this fact from you. I blinked. I hesitated. I thought about skipping this song. My thought was, do I really want to lead this congregation in singing about the happiness of those who repay my enemies, and especially the happiness of those who seize my enemies’ children and beat out their little brains. Psalm 137, verses 7 through 9. I hesitated. I hesitated because of the ending of the psalm and because of what it says there about the little children.

    Not that other passages in the Old Testament don’t express similar thoughts. even declare confident prophecies with regard to these things. The universal foie gras written about in the early chapters of Genesis, the story about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—do we imagine the children were spared? the story of the death of Egypt’s firstborn during the time of the Exodus, that awesome command that came from the Lord to Joshua as he was the head of the armies of conquest as they came into the land of Canaan, the Lord’s direction to Saul, to King Saul, concerning the Amalekites, and their thorough and complete eradication. even to their children. Elisha’s anticipation of the brutal judgment that was to be visited upon Israel herself by the armies of Syria, and Isaiah’s prophecy in his thirteenth chapter, verses fourteen through sixteen, about the coming end of Babylon. A passage which also mentions the little ones and their destruction. A prophecy, I might add, which seems to provide the base for what we read in the concluding verses of Psalm 137. The Old Testament is filled with the message about the coming judgment of God, a judgment which includes, in all its presentations, a destruction of the children.

    We’re trembling, aren’t we? Can you think about the constraint upon the Jews on the day of Pentecost? Peter is preaching. He speaks to these adults about the signs of the coming of the Spirit. Yes, there is sign of blessing, but there’s also sign of judgment. The Jews that are gathered that day don’t miss the point. The judgment comes upon them and also their children, and because of that, they repent. They see it by the blessing of the Holy Spirit. If you don’t want to believe for yourself, believe for the sake of your children. I plead with you.

    The Old Testament is filled with the message about judgment, judgment coming from God, a judgment which in all the portrayals includes the destruction of the children. So my hesitation wasn’t that I found thoughts from Psalm 137 and those concluding verses foreign to God’s revelation in the Old Testament, nor did I find the subject of judgment concerning the enemies of God’s people foreign to the Psalter itself.

    Psalm 109, for instance, finds the psalmist praying that his enemy’s petitions be turned into sin. That psalm finds the psalmist praying that his enemy’s days be few. That’s a poetic way of asking that they die. They fade away. In fact, there is an extensive implication in the 109th Psalm that sweeps us away as much as what we find at the conclusion of Psalm 137. Then there’s Psalm 69. Psalm 69 finds the psalmist praying that the very simple and common enjoyments of life become the means of his enemies’ undoing. May their table be made a snare to entrap them.

    And compare this with what we find in the most favorite of all Psalms, Psalm 23. David’s confidence there that the Lord would turn the tables on his enemies by forcing them to gaze upon him even as he enjoys superabundant blessing while they are reduced to irreparable and ruinous poverty. Verse 5. Yes, that is in Psalm 23.

    Now, I have sung lustily these other psalms, these psalms concerning the vindication of God’s people, these psalms that even speak about God’s vengeance and judgment. But yet, when I came to Psalm 137, I blinked, I hesitated. Now, before I go any further, In the consideration of this difficulty and problem, I want you to notice another interesting feature about the spirituality and the piety that we progress in.

    I call your attention to the Trinity Hymnal. And it doesn’t matter which edition you use, be it earlier or later. If you check the responsive readings in the back of the Trinity Hymnal, you will find that Psalm 137 is missing. it isn’t there. You will also find that in the two versions of the Trinity Hymnal, we find no inclusion of the metrical version of that psalm. Just as a sidelight, I was checking the Book of Common Prayer in this regard. You know the Book of Common Prayer has a Psalter section in it. In that section, Psalm 137 is also missing.

    Interesting. But others of these psalms which we spoke of earlier, others of these psalms that dwell The vindication of God’s people at the expense of their enemies, God bringing his vengeance down upon his enemies, such as Psalm 69, such as Psalm 23 and others, are included. But as we review Psalm 69, for instance, the reason as to why it is included may become quickly evident. This psalm is transparently messianic. including such lines as, they gave me also gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Lines that call to mind the experience of Jesus Christ on the cross. So yes, Psalm 69 is included. We don’t need to linger too long as to why Psalm 23 is included.

    At the same time, Psalms 23 and 69 give us a hint as to why some psalms have received such easy acclamation and reception, not as much as a second thought, even when they express what might be judged a spirit of vendetta. These psalms lay their thirst for vindication and for God’s vengeance within an indirect poetical law, or they overlay the context with such glorious considerations that the sharp edge that we perceive, for instance in Psalm 137, is not so much noticed by us.

    Psalm 137 itself, although set in some of the most compelling and soulful poetry in all of Scripture, by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our hearts. Although this psalm is set with some of the most compelling and soulful poetry in all of Scripture, this psalm in particular beats us, strikes us, with its crushing blow at its conclusion. We tend to be overwhelmed by it.

    But note now, it is as if the intention of the psalm is its conclusion, is its concluding verses and statements. We may think to ourselves that the other psalms we’ve mentioned have other purposes, but this psalm leaves us not only with shattering words echoing in our ears, but with shattering images imprinted upon our brains.

    So offensive is this psalm to some that C.S. Lewis calls the last lines of this psalm the horrible passage. In other words, Lewis judges himself rightly, rightly appalled by what he reads here, and we are rightly appalled too. Now, to his credit, Lewis goes on to try and make a case for the inclusion and the usefulness of the 137th Psalm in our Bibles. But the best that he can do in making a case for this psalm is, first of all, to suggest an old dictum, namely, the higher, the greater the danger. the greater the danger. In other words, because the Jews had in view such a high and exalted moral excellence, they were uniquely positioned to fall all the more severely into a more profound expression of sin, such as is expressed here at the conclusion of Psalm 137. Lewis does not hesitate to suggest that, to itself, what the psalmist is expressing here is inherently sinful and an evil.

    But interestingly, even after this bit of resourceful sophistry, Lewis Secondly, he proposes his own plan for the salvaging of a positive reading of this psalm and its last verses. Lewis’s effort at this point is a sort of exegetical alchemy, in which he takes this hard and crude stone of a text and turns it into pure gold.

    He does this by the way of allegory. Now, not that we are opposed to allegory, if you use allegory properly. He appeals to allegory. However, his allegory reads the psalm this way. What we have in Psalm 137 is entrance into our own personal inner worlds. Now, I’m going to quote here. So if you get upset with what is said, and even the language used, you’ll know that I’m quoting Lewis.

    Alright? What we have here, says Lewis, in 137, is entrance into our own personal inner worlds, in which there are things like babies—that’s the last verse of the psalm—things like babies, the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments which may one day become compulsive and even settled hatred, but which woo us and weedle us with special pleadings and seem so tiny, so helpless, that in resisting them we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whimpering to us, I don’t ask much, but… I had at least hoped for, or you owe yourself some consideration.

    Against all such pretty infants, the dears have such winning ways, the advice of Psalm 137 is the best. Knock the little bastards’ brains out.” Now, you may not buy Lewis’s position on Psalm 137, that what we have here is an allegory of the inner struggles we all have to deal with in our personal sanctification, and that the little ones that are mentioned in verse 9 are actually dangerous, tempting little thoughts which, if left unchecked, will grow up to destroy us. But if you don’t go in Lewis’s direction, on what basis will you justify this psalm in light of maybe even your own hesitation, in light of the hesitation of others, such as the editors of the Trinity Hymnal, to include?

    Well, first of all, We must admit once more, and this quite basically, that the sentiment expressed here finds contact points in the entirety of God’s Word. Not just in the Old Testament, which we have noted already, but also in the New. What we find in Psalm 137, the sentiment expressed is in some way kept alive, even into the New Testament expression of the will of our God. We need to keep this in view, and that particularly when we consider our Savior. Yes, our Savior. Meek, gentle, humble Jesus.

    Do you remember what he said about the cities of northern Galilee? Do you remember the judgments and the woes that he pronounced upon them because they refused to believe the gospel? Do you think for a minute as he pronounced the woes upon those cities that he was considering that somehow the children would escape the judgment? Because the children will experience the judgment, it is all the more reason for those who are of age to respond savingly to the message.

    Woe to you, Corazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! Woe to you, Capernaum! His woes are ear-piercing, and they are literally devastating. You find them listed in Matthew 11 and in Luke 10. But they merely anticipate the greater role that he pronounces towards the end of his ministry, a role that he pronounces upon Jerusalem, a role that seems to have in mind the prophecy and lines of the Old Testament and even those concluding verses of Psalm 137, for he tells Jerusalem that they, with their children, will be dashed to the ground within their city walls.” Luke 19, verse 44. This is Jesus speaking.

    Also, it has been rightly pointed out that the prayer that we pray so often, the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer that has the petition, Thy Kingdom Come, has in view much more than the beatific and wondrous conditions of the kingdom finally come. For the elect, it has in view, you see, the end of the world and the judgment to come. When you pray that prayer, thy kingdom come, you are praying to the Father that he would bring about the end of the world. You do the same thing when you say, Come, Lord Jesus, even so, quickly come. You are praying for the end of the world, for the coming of the judgment in its conclusiveness and in all of its horror.

    These are New Testament considerations. the pictures and descriptions of the coming judgment given to us in the Bible, Old and New Testament. If I’ve already pointed out to you, but I underscore it here, none of them can be rightly said to exclude the children. In fact, in those instances where the children are specifically mentioned, the horror of the judgment is deliberately intensified so that you might get the point. You must turn. Thirdly, C.S. Lewis is at least partially right. Psalm 137 does contain allegory. But Lewis has missed that allegory altogether.

    In Psalm 137 we hear about Edom and Babylon. Now, who are Edom and Babylon? We know about Edom, the descendants of Esau, brother to Jacob. Here in Edom and Babylon are the embodiments of apostasy within the Church, within the Covenant, and hostile attacks, yes, represented in Babylon from outside the Church, outside the Covenant. Even the New Testament is not devoid of imprecations upon both kinds of enemies, both those who are apostatizing and those who are hostile oppressors from outside.

    But at the same time, and in the fourth place, we must do justice to the full range and scope and development of biblical revelation, and acknowledge that in Eden and in Babylon, we have more in view than just flesh and blood enemies of the truth. Paul makes this plain by calling attention to the spiritual nature of our warfare, and John the Apostle does the same in the book of Revelation. There is a movement then to the something more that is opened up for us in the New Testament revelation. There is a something more with respect to our warfare in this world, and it has to do with the spiritual nature of that warfare.

    And this helps us to appreciate the way in which we are to look at Psalm 137, for we must look at it in a way that is different than the Jews looked at it in old times. And here we go back to the beginning of the psalm, the way in which the psalm began, with those mournful and soulful sentiments and statements so poetically posed. You see, this forlorn and melancholy spirit expressed here in Psalm 137, as legitimate as it may have been in the Old Testament environment, finds no expression in the New Testament. There is no saint of the New Testament that expresses such things. Zion may in fact be distant from us, it may be as distant as the heavens, but we know, do we not, that Zion is present with us, and that it is presently accessible for us.

    We cultivate hearts that are set upon glory, regardless of our circumstances. What does it matter if there are Edomites and Babylonians out there? or even inside the Church of Jesus Christ. We are not then those who are hanging our hearts upon the nearest willow. We are not sitting down in abject states of depression, mourning for that which is lost.

    We are rejoicing in that which has been given by grace, that which we are presently enjoying. Zion for us may well be distant, as distant as the heavens, but it is a present reality to us, gained for us in and through Jesus Christ, and we have presently access to it.

    We then cultivate hearts that are set on glory, and rejoice in that glory, hoping in that And we are hardly aggravated because Edomites and Babylonians of the flesh are keeping us from it. I don’t know any Edomite or Babylonian that can keep any saint from the enjoyment of the glories of Zion. I know none. In fact, I know no spiritual force or power that can keep us from the enjoyment of that glory. Finally, and this in conclusion, we do well to remember that particularly in this gospel age, we have pushed upon us a specific and special consideration. we have a specific and special obligation, do we not?

    For there is that sense in which we do not implore God for the destruction of our enemies and their children. Rather, we implore God for their salvation and their deliverance. and this in keeping with the opening up of the fullness of the covenant. It is meant for all of the nations of the earth. And may they be gathered.

    Right use of Psalm 137 introduces us to the complexities of our Bibles. No simple reading will do. Right use of Psalm 137, therefore, accepts this psalm as indeed a proper prayer for the coming judgment, for the coming, even horrible, end of this world. but equally understands the difference between an Old Testament Jewish appropriation of that psalm and a New Testament Church Christian appropriation of it. There is marvelous, deep, wondrous instruction for us as we plumb the depths of the differences between those appropriations.

    And yes, because they are profound and and complex, I feel that I have some excuse for my hesitation. I have some excuse for having blinked. And it may well be that the editors of the Trinity Hymnal might appeal to that same excuse. But claiming that excuse does not spare us the hard work of understanding God’s word rightly. May we do so. Amen.

    Our God, you have thought of everything, and even where our souls are most hesitant, you have pushed us. Lest we forget those things that are at the very center of your cause and purpose, lest we miss out on the full range of your revelation. Lord, we ask that we might think through the hard questions and complex matters of your word. To the benefit of our souls. And where we have opportunity for God. May the resolutions to which we come to which we are brought. The help not only to ourselves but to those we know love. And hope to influence for 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.

  • Josiah’s Proper Motivation

    Josiah’s Proper Motivation

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 12, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Corporate America’s fondness for mission statements has crept into the church’s view of itself. God himself drives Josiah’s reform, as he drives Paul’s ministry, and that is the same test Satan once put to Eve. Zechariah 4:6’s ‘not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit’ names the real alternative.

    More sermons from 2 Chronicles · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we are looking at 2 Chronicles chapter 34, and we are beginning at verse 8. Now, in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land and the house, he sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, and Maasaiah, an official of the city, and Joah, the son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.

    And they came to Hilkiah, the high priest, and delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the doorkeepers, had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim, and from all the remnant of Israel, and from all Judah and Benjamin and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

    Then they gave it into the hands of the workmen who had the oversight of the house of God, and the workmen who were working in the house of the Lord used it to restore and repair the house. They in turn gave it to the carpenters and to the builders to buy quarried stone and timber for couplings, and to make beams for the houses which the kings of Judah had let go to ruin. And the men did the work faithfully with foremen over them to supervise. Jahath and Obadiah, the Levites of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Neshulam, the sons of the Kohathites and the Levites. all who were skillful with musical instruments. And they were also over the burden bearers and supervised all the workmen from job to job, and some of the Levites were scribes and officials and gatekeepers.

    When they were bringing out the money which had been brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord given by Moses. And Hilkiah responded and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan. Then Shaphan brought the book to the king and reported further word to the king saying, everything that was entrusted to your servants they are doing. They have also emptied out the money which was found in the house of the Lord and have delivered it into the hands of the supervisors and the workmen. Moreover, Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest gave me a book, and Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.

    And it came about when the king heard the words of the law that he tore his clothes. Then the king commanded Hilkiah, Ahicham the son of Shaphan, Abdon the son of Micah, Shaphan the scribe, and Isaiah, the king’s servant, saying, Go, inquire of the Lord for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah concerning the words of the book which has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord which is poured out on us because our fathers had not observed the word of the Lord to do according to all that is written in this book. So Hilkiah and those whom the king had told went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of the son of Tokah, the son of Hazrah, the keeper of the wardrobe.

    Now, she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter, and they spoke to her regarding this. And she said unto them, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Tell the man who sent you to me. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am bringing evil on this place and on its inhabitants. even all the curses written in the book which they have read in the presence of the King of Judah, because they have forsaken me and have burned incense to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands. Therefore my wrath will be poured out on this place, and it shall not be quenched. But to the King of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus you will say to Thus says the Lord God of Israel regarding the words which you have heard, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and against its inhabitants, and because you humbled yourself before me, tore your clothes, and wept before me, I truly have heard you, declares the Lord. Behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in so your eyes will not see all the evil which I will bring on this place and on its inhabitants.’

    And they brought back word to the king. Then the king sent and gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, and the king went up to the house of the Lord and all the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the Levites, and all the people, from the greatest to the least. And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord. Then the king stood in his place and made covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, to proclaim the words of the covenant written in this book. Moreover, he made all who were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand with him, so the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.

    And Josiah removed all the abominations from all the lands. to the sons of Israel, and may all who were present in Israel serve the Lord their God. Throughout his lifetime they did not turn from following the Lord God of their fathers.” Then he answered and said unto me, This is the word of the Lord, which is a rubbable saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”

    Let’s pray together. O God, your word is read before us week by week, and we have been even so blessed that we have copies of your word in our hands. Therefore, O God, we beseech you that we would respond to your word as Josiah responded, and as the people of his day responded, and that for your sake. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Tonight, in dealing with the subject of the Holy Spirit, and In the interest of furthering our consideration of Zechariah 4, verse 6, I want to take up the question of motivation.

    It has become customary in Christian circles to talk about mission statements. and to structure the life of the Church for the purpose of realizing a number of very clearly defined, manageable, observable gains and goals. Now, as you think about all of this and the terminology that I have just thrown out in front of you, even specifically this phrase, mission statement, you must understand that you are not to think about church vocabulary. Instead, you are to think about a corporation, a business. For the phrase, mission statement, as it is currently used in much of Christianity, is not taken from the world of Christian theology, but from the corporate think tanks and company boardrooms where businesses contemplate business. Where they contemplate even strategies that will make for corporate success.

    The interest, then, in the discussions that give rise to such mission statements, centers on what will cause consumers to buy the product, and ensure the company’s place in the arena of corporate players. When transferred to the church, the mission statement, or vision statement as it is sometimes called, is informed by consumer or seeker interests. The question is asked, how can we make our product more attractive to the religious consumer, and secure our place as a major player in the arena of ecclesiastical and para-ecclesiastical concerns? The question of motivation intrudes into this whole matter. when it is suggested, subtly sometimes but oftentimes not, that motivation in the Church must be identical to the motivation that we find at the corporate level. In other words, after giving the crassest reading on corporate America motivation, The Church jumps in line and follows suit, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

    Our motivation, so it is stated—yes, once more, in the crassest terms—our motivation must be sales, consumer satisfaction, reinvestment, larger prophets and bigger churches. Give us quantifiable goals. Our motivation then spurred on and even defined by such goals. This our motivation then directed towards the multiplication of numbers, human and fiscal, for the good of our church enterprise, our ecclesiastical business, as we achieve preliminary goals on our way to the attainment of otherness.

    The assumption in this approach to the church is most definitely that the Church, without such motivation, not only sacrifices significance and importance, but calls into question its commitment to the Gospel. That is to say, the Church that fails to tie into the modern Church-growth philosophy, The Church that lacks its view of motivation is Christian in name only, and is destined, so say some like George Barna, as if they were dinosaurs for extension under God’s displeasure. Well, as if you didn’t know, I beg to differ. In fact, I am bold before you to contend the exact opposite. I am bold to contend before you that those churches which have embraced the church growth and its view of motivation are far from God.

    Let me say at the beginning of this critique, biblical motivation for proper action is always God himself. Period. Now, note that I did not say that proper motivation, biblical motivation rather, for proper action is always the glory of God. What I did say is that biblical motivation for proper action is always God Himself, period.

    Now, I say what I have, not in order to downplay or speak disparagingly of the glory of God, heaven forbid, but only to make sure that God receives his due, that God himself receives his due. The church growth movement is overrun with glory-of-God rhetoric. The phrase itself has become camouflaged, beneath which all sorts of evils lurk, removes church structures, regardless of what the Bible says.

    Therefore, we pursue it. Therefore, we follow it. Therefore, we invoke it. The new worship—should I even call it worship? They don’t. They call it celebration. The new celebration formats, the color-coded name tag systems, the multifaceted church programs, the overtly commercial outreach efforts. All of these are baptized under the excuse, the greater glory of God.

    Therefore, in this discussion I contend for God himself, first of all, knowing that if God is most appropriately central, his glory will shine out in a proper way and be properly invoked. So I say again to you, biblical motivation for proper action is always God himself, period. And the intent of God’s Word, I would suggest to you, has that perspective on motivation from beginning to end.

    This is the crux of the story of the Fall. Think once more about the temptation in the Garden of Eden. And I ask you to do that because you see from a certain point of view, not just Satan’s, from a very natural point of view, there is no reason not to eat of that fruit of the tree of knowledge. There’s absolutely no reason not to eat of it. The tree, from all appearances, is like every other tree, and even if it is distinguished by appearance, it is distinguished as a tree that is even more appealing, and therefore appropriate to partake of. Therefore, there is no reason not to eat of it. Reasonably speaking, there is no reason to conclude that this one tree can, in fact, confer death, while the other trees do not.

    In the end of the matter, as the tree itself is viewed As it is presented to Eve and to Adam in the garden, the only motivation for Eve and for Adam not to partake of that tree must be God Himself, not the reasons that most naturally arise in connection with the tree.

    The test, in the end, is whether the man and the woman will choose God for himself and place their confidence in him, even when everything else conspires to convince them of just the opposite. Satan will suggest to them other motivations. Eve acts on the basis of other motivations. Adam follows for the sake of those other motivations. But in the end, there is only one proper motivation that should direct Eve’s and Adam’s actions, and that is God himself. They are placed there for the purpose of choosing for the sake of God and God alone. that even after the fall, God does not stop testing his people along these lines, as I suggested to you before. The message with regard to motivation is the same in Scripture from beginning to end. Tests that rise repeatedly in the history of salvation will then bring into focus this this matter of supremest importance, that of motivation. But one of the most remarkable tests of all occurs in the reign of Josiah.

    Josiah reigned at Jerusalem at the end of the seventh century B.C. As we have read this evening, upon discovery of the law in the temple, He sent for Haldah the prophetess to explain to him the meaning of the law. Haldah prophesied, as a result, the end of the nation of Judah and the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its temple.

    And there will be absolutely no remedy for this destruction. It is coming inevitably. That is the key to understanding the story in 2 Chronicles 34. This judgment, spoken of by Halter, is coming inevitably upon the nation, upon the city, and upon the temple. That means, you see, that no amount of repentance No measures of reformation will save the nation, the city, or the structure of the temple. Nothing will save these structures or this nation. No repentance, no reformation will accomplish it.

    But I want you to note now the actions of Josiah in light of that message. I doubt if there is any passage that is so glorious as 2 Chronicles 34, and its conclusion in this regard. You see, after having this message delivered to him, Josiah leads the nation in repentance and reformation anyway.

    But why? He’s not going to save himself, he’s not going to save the nation, he’s not going to save the city, he’s not going to save the temple. Why in the world should he repent and reform? What purpose does the Reformation and the repentance serve? Absolutely none, unless the goal is God, and God alone. He’s not going to save his house, he’s not going to save the city, but he repents and he leaves the nation, and repentance anyway, for the sake of God alone, period. by his repentance and reformation.

    He will not secure for himself those statistics that will give him self-respect as he speaks with other nations and compares statistics with them. It will not guarantee him a greater national income by which he might boast. It will not build for him bigger houses or palaces. There is no other motivation for his repentance and for his own personal reformation, but God alone, God himself, period.

    Josiah pursues repentance and reformation, then, for God’s sake, even though everything Now, with regard to this whole matter of motivation, we also turn to the New Testament story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. And there it would become apparent to us once more that the motivation at the heart of Jesus, our Savior, is God, and God only.

    But let me move on to another text in the New Testament, one from Paul’s letters. It comes at this issue a little differently. and in such a way that Zechariah 4 verse 6 is brought into view. You see, the church growth mafia has told us that our motivation must be the posting of the posting of figures, and that we must look to those sales figures for the purpose of generating excitement within our churches so as to keep our memberships motivated and engaged. This means, of course, that the Church understood along these lines is market-driven. But if you turn to Colossians 1, verse 23, you find the Apostle Paul not only of another point of view, but of a completely contrary point of view. In fact, Paul, from his perspective, I judge, would not hesitate to anathematize the church-growth mafia. These ecclesiastical henchmen are no friends of the Church of Jesus Christ. They are motivated by envy and by greed. The basic motivation in their soul is lust. They are of the flesh. They measure everything by appearances.

    The subject of this verse, as you look at it, is missions and evangelism. and Paul declares emphatically that the gospel heard in Colossae, note his language at the end of the verse, has already been proclaimed in all creation under heaven. Now has this man lost his senses? Or is he lying? Do you believe that? The gospel has been proclaimed, has been proclaimed already in all creation under heaven. Do you believe that?

    Is Paul here telling the truth? Can he not be charged? with lying, falsifying the evidence. What Paul says here is meant in all sincerity, and he is stating here God’s truth. You see, Paul approaches the missionary and evangelistic task of the Church of Jesus Christ as if it were already done, finished, completed. But why in heaven’s name would he do that? Why would he even make a statement like this?

    Because, you see, at the outset of his consideration of visionary and evangelistic efforts, He is determined not to think of himself nor to speak about himself too glowingly. He will not allow his soul to slip into vanity. He is determined not to think too highly of his own effort. or the effort of anyone else who would be engaged in the missionary and evangelistic tasks of the Church. The Apostle Paul, therefore, in setting out the missionary and evangelistic ministry of the Church in such terminology as this, is making it evident that the reason that he would be engaged in it is not for the sake of pursuing some sort of advantage to himself, or some sort of glory for himself.

    The task is already done. The only reason, then, that Paul can pursue it is for his absolute, abandoned love for God. No other reason. There is therefore here nothing of that motivation that seeks to destroy the souls of Churches by causing them to lust for bigger harvests. Nothing of that motivation that is driven by the desire to put numbers on the board, to call attention inordinately to the ministry of a particular enterprise, or to call attention to what the Church or its ministers have accomplished, of which they might boast and brag.

    For it is as if, as Paul makes this statement, it is as if already all the numbers are in, and the entirety of the task is completed, it’s done. The only purpose and motivation for the ministry, then, is not for the self-aggrandizement of those who would pursue it, but for God himself and him alone.

    Here also you must see the magnification of grace. And it is this message that stands out so strikingly in Zechariah 4. For just as the Lord speaks through Zechariah to Zerubbabel with regard to the laying of the foundations and the completing of the temple structure, the Lord has previously set before Zerubbabel the pure accomplishment of all that is in view with regard to that man’s task in and by the Spirit. That sixth verse in the fourth chapter, then, sets the building enterprise before Zerubbabel as if it were already a completed task. In a sense, the accomplishment is in the promise. and Zerubbabel’s motivation in the Spirit must be then God only, God himself, as he is drawn into the work that from the most sublime point of view is already completed by God’s grace. What might we say about ourselves and our own lives? What motivation might there be for you in your Christian pursuits? Your own glory? Your own satisfaction? Posting a few numbers of your own? Greater security? Bigger something or other? The only genuine biblical motivation for proper action is God himself.

    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.

  • Noah’s Sin and the Rainbow

    Noah’s Sin and the Rainbow

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 27, 1994.

    About this sermon

    The world after the flood carries real continuities with the world before it, and Noah’s own drunkenness and exposure in Genesis 9:20-29 turn out to echo the original fall rather than escape it. The rainbow marks God’s covenant faithfulness all the same, with Noah himself, in his weakness, already pointing toward Christ. Thankfulness, not shock at the story’s offense, is where it finally lands.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we are turning to Genesis chapter 8. We are beginning at verse 20, and we are reading through chapter 9. Genesis chapter 8, beginning at verse 20. I give you attention now to the reading of God’s holy words. and Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered offerings on the altar.

    And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma, and the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth, and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, see time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and the fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky, with everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given.

    Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat the flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And surely I will require your lifeblood from every beast I will require it, and from every man, from every man’s brother, I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed. for in the image of God he made man. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply, populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.’

    And God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, Now behold, I myself do establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth.

    And I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.’ And God said, This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all successive generations. I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. and it shall come about when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud. And I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. Now, the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth, and Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.

    Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and pulled his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him.

    So he said, “‘Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his He also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. And Noah lived 350 years after the flood, so all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

    Our Father, truly, in your faithfulness to your promises and to your people, you have fed the generation in the wilderness with bread from heaven. Lord, we know that in this latter day the true bread has come down, that we might be refreshed in you. We do not understand that bread apart from your word and apart from the Spirit. Therefore, O God, we would be fed by your word and in the Spirit. Help us this evening, O God, that our hearts may be opened, that we may be refreshed by what you have to give us, even in Jesus Christ, the living word. We pray it in his name. Amen.

    Noah did view the old world and new. Noah did view the old world and new. With these words, the New England Primer set forth profound doctrine, profound theology to the young souls trained under its tutelage. Noah then, according to this couplet, like a second atom, stepped out upon a new earth once the flood had abated.

    He gathered around him the members of that church of his day, his family, all heirs together through God’s recent redeeming act, his great and mighty work in the great deluge. Noah, the father, the patriarch, bridegroom to this household, its prophet and its priest, leaves all of these in his household to an altar overlaid with blood-sanctified praise to the Lord.

    The smoke, the aroma ascends, eliciting a fresh breeze of the Spirit. and onward comes the benediction of God. Never again, comes the Lord’s promise, never again will I destroy every living thing. Seed time and harvest, summer and winter will not cease as long as the earth continues. the promise of God lending to the creation itself a sense, an impression of permanence, as if there has been something of eternity laid across the face of the creation, as if in the promise with respect to the earth we can see some form of the eternity that God is promising to his creatures. Thus it is that creation begins again, and as at the first creation, now once more God says to humanity, be fruitful and multiply. The new has come.

    But in the midst of it, qualifying its newness Dimming the brightness of that newness is the shadow of darkness and the ever-stalking terror of evil. In this new world, the dread of man, we are told in the text, now terrorizes the lesser creation, the lower creation, as the animal kingdom fears man. But beneath the shadow of darkness, that ever-stoking terror of evil that has overtaken humanity, finds man himself in dread of man.

    Violence, you will recall, filled the earth and even human consciousness prior to the Flood. But now, after the Flood, This tidal wave of evil demands of man a government that is intent upon the restraint of evil through the threat of violence itself upon those who would extract life wickedly, murderously, from others. So ominous and immense is this threat of evil in world, that God speaks as one liable to forget his promise. The threat of evil, evil itself so ominous and immense, that God speaks as one in the face of that evil and its threat, liable to forget his promise.

    Therefore, as the story continues into Genesis 9, God sets his bow in the clouds as a reminder to himself. From what follows, however, it is apparent that Noah will be in need of his own reminder. The immense character of evil and its threat placed Noah at risk in his new environment, in his new world. In fact, Noah is faced now with a monumental threat that rises out of his own heart.

    As he stepped off the ark, as he stepped into that new world, sensing something of the newness that was a part of him, expected things to be different. Did he not understand the name that he had been given from birth? His name, Noah, means rest. Had he not heard from his father, Lamech, time and again the explanation of that name?

    This is the one, said his father, at the birth of this boy, Genesis 5.29, who shall bring rest to us from the labors of our hands, rest to us from the curse itself. Both the father, then, and the son. They lived in faith, but both the father and the son misunderstood. It seems quite likely that this father and son expected something conclusive, something final in the figure of this man.

    No. Noah now surveys his new world and the new humanity. His world and his family testify to surviving corruption, even on this side of the flood, the deluge. Noah himself, in this new world, finds himself laboring with the earth, quarreling with the eking out a living, if you will. The question rising in his mind is, where, then, is the rest? Where, then, is the peak? Where, then, is the finality for myself and for my family?

    He struggles and strives in his new environment, a new environment that yields abundant evidence of the continuation of the curse, even in this new creation. But surely Noah knows himself as well, being the man of faith as he is described in Scripture, being the godly man that he is, he is aware of the truth about himself. Even if he is a figure of the new man, if he is a figure of the second Adam, he is not the second Adam. It is becoming all too apparent to him.

    Even though the post-slug world is like a new creation, it is not that new creation that is promised, into which this world shall be ushered at its conclusion. As great as Noah was then, he did not bring in the glory. He did not bring in the consummate final state of perfect peace and rest. So much is Noah’s falling short.

    The Spirit’s great concern that the frightful and offensive story with which Genesis 9 closes becomes a necessary statement in God’s holy word. You might recoil from this story at the end of Genesis 9. I remember preaching on this text in one context a number of years ago, and there were people in the congregation who would not even greet me as they left. In polite circles, we don’t preach on such texts. We don’t even bring them up. We don’t mention them.

    But now you see So much is Noah’s falling short to the point that the Spirit’s concern must be for the inclusion of this story for our good and for our benefit. The record leaves no doubt about the seriousness of the whole matter, a seriousness brought out by the multiple illusions to Genesis 3.

    Did you ever notice them? The multiple allusions to Genesis 3. As you compare the story of Noah at the conclusion of Genesis 9, the story of his sin, have you ever picked up on the similarities between that story and the story of the original fall into sin? of this transgression by Noah. The record then from the Holy Spirit leaves no doubt about the seriousness of the whole matter, a seriousness brought out by these multiple allusions to the fall of man recorded in Genesis 3. Remember the story of the fall of man, and I don’t have to rehearse that for you, but I want you now to note how the story of the fall of man parallels the story of Noah’s sin.

    Note, first of all, Adam in Genesis, in the early chapters, is seen in a garden planted by God. Here in Genesis 9, Noah is in a vineyard which he himself has planted. Secondly, Adam’s fall imbued I’m sorry, Adam’s fall involved consuming the fruit of the tree. Noah’s fall involved consuming the fruit of the vine.

    Thirdly, both stories—the fall in Genesis 3 and now Noah’s sin in Genesis 9—involved the themes of nakedness and shame. Fourthly, both stories involved a gracious act of covering. And fifthly, both stories concern themselves with pronouncements of judgment and promise. It is as if, when we are reading Genesis 9 then, that history is repeating itself, as if the new world under this new Adam, this Noah, were witnessing a second fall into sin.

    But surely you say one fall is adequate, wasn’t it? Still, the degrading sin of Noah, together with its aftermath, educates us to the nature of our final redemption, but it also educates us about the nature of Noah’s sin itself and that sin’s seriousness. Concerning the nature of our final redemption.

    You realize what he’s talking about. Noah is a setup. He is a providentially placed, Spirit-deposited setup. We are being forced, as we read the story of Noah, to look beyond him for one far greater Coming is the sin-bearer, who himself is not a sinner. Coming is the Savior, whose work is effectual for the sake of sinners, even sinners like Noah. The true second Adam waits in the wings, and he it is who shall usher in the new world, the eternal world, a world beyond the reach of sin and corruption, in which sin and corruption cannot even exist. Coming then, that One waiting in the wings. Coming then is One who extends to us the great and final rest of the Kingdom of Heaven. One who says, you may recall, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. the fulfillment of Noah’s name is realized in Jesus Christ.

    But as we said, this story at the end of Genesis 9 powerfully teaches us about the nature of Noah’s sin and its seriousness. Here we are face-to-face with the reason why this sin and the description of it bears so close a similarity to what we find in Genesis 3. The intention of the Genesis 9 account is to heighten to the highest level the seriousness of Noah’s sin. You see, it is being placed at the level of Adam’s first transgression. So serious is it. You might ask, what exactly is this sin that is placed at such a high level?

    We may immediately conclude that the sin upon which this text focuses is the drunkenness to which Noah succumbs. Now, there is no minimizing of the seriousness of the sin of drunkenness in Scripture. In fact, 1 Corinthians 10.6 tells us that no drunkard will inherit the kingdom of God. That says it pretty plainly. No drunkard will inherit the kingdom of God. So, without a doubt, drunkenness is a great sin.

    It leads us to consider things, however, that lie beneath the surface. It leads us to consider, for instance, the enormity of hostility and anger, bitterness and dissension, disappointment, anxiety, and sinful depression in the heart. There are some in this congregation who are not strangers to drunkenness. They know firsthand the truth of what I have just said. They also know the marvelous grace of God in delivering them. So without a doubt, drunkenness is a great sin. It speaks of things, yes, that lie beneath the surface of the external act.

    The enormity of hostility, bitterness, anger, anxiety, even sinful depression, self-interest and self-pity in the sinner’s heart. Now, what blanks himself into a blind-eyed, drunken stupor. And that, yes, as we go through the text and we consider it, undoubtedly because of his own deep disappointment. How many people are driven then to drunkenness because of their own deep disappointment?

    And undoubtedly that is there in the chemistry of Noah’s sin. Noah drank himself blind-eyed drunk, undoubtedly because of his own deep disappointment that his new world was not the new world, and that he was not the new Adam and the source of the new humanity. His resentment at his self-pity led him to conjure up his own new world. It was he with an invented self-image could live, if only for a time. An illusionary world of drunken oblivion.

    But even this description of Noah’s Affair points us in the direction of the deep consideration that take us beyond even Noah’s external drunkenness. His sin, meant to be compared with Adam’s first transgression, takes us beyond the drunkenness itself, just as, you see, Adam’s sin in eating that fruit took us beyond the mere external act of the partaking of the fruit.

    Genesis 9 then, just as Genesis 3, takes us into the convolutions of the soul. Convolutions that lie beneath the surface of the world, not expressly mentioned in the text. Convolutions that we have to stand out from the text. In order to get out of them, in Genesis 9, we need to ask ourselves what is missing from the story of Noah and his sin.

    This is a harvest story. This is a harvest story. Verse 20, Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. In order to get at the sin of Noah, indeed that which lies beneath the surface, we are going to have to take account of that which is missing from the story of Noah’s sin. But you must remember that this is a harvest story.

    If you were a Jew reading this story, Understanding it to be a harvest story, what would you look for? In fact, even though it’s with regard to a different matter and in a different context, as you back up to Genesis 8 and you read about the story of Noah and his family, disembarking from the ark, what is there, obviously, plainly and powerfully. A testimony to the gratitude that is in the heart of this man. A testimony to his thankfulness.

    As we move to the conclusion of Genesis 9, Here, specifically, in a harvest story, where you would expect it to be sure, that which is specifically absent from the story is any testimony with regard to gratitude, with regard to thankfulness. There is no thanksgiving in the story of Noah at the end of Genesis 9. It is totally absent. He harvests, and there is no thanksgiving. There is no gratitude.

    Thanklessness, ingratitude, then, are elevated to the level of the first transgression. If you want to get to the heart of what sin is all about, just consider this word, thanklessness. But truly, thanklessness has become a monument in the modern church. And that, despite all of the show, despite all of the exercises in which we, in a sense, and contrive thankfulness. Thanklessness is such a thorough attack upon God. It is such a complete attack upon God. It is such a complete and thorough rejection of God.

    Now, in this regard, you may want to note a latter text from the New Testament. Maybe some of you who are ahead of me know that I am going to ask you to turn to Ephesians I want you to notice in Ephesians 5, beginning at verse 18, the prominence of thanksgiving.

    And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation. but be filled with the spirit speaking to one another in songs and hymns and spiritual song singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord always. Giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even thought. Now as we read that text. Does it strike you that very possibly the apostle Paul has Genesis 9 in mind as he writes it. Could it be that the Apostle Paul is playing off of the story of Noah’s sin even, and as you note in verse 18, the specific sin of drunkenness is mentioned. But notice well how Paul, so wonderfully and explicitly, draws out the theme of thankfulness. Verse 20, always giving thanks for all things.

    Over against the sin, and even that which inspires the sin, if it be thanklessness, The answer to that thankfulness is thankfulness. You might note also a passage that parallels this Ephesians 5 text in Colossians 3. And here, in Colossians 3, verses 15 through 17, the mention of thankfulness and thanksgiving is even more explicit. Colossians 3 verse 15, And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him. to God the Father. This parallel from the Colossian letter to what we have read in Ephesians makes it more apparent just how thanksgiving and gratitude are exactly on target in that Ephesian sense.

    Truly, then, biblically speaking, There is that sense in which we can say with confidence that there is no sin so serious as thankless love. As you can see, in the case of Noah, it leads to all kinds of evil. But conversely, as Ephesians and Colossians tell us, is the way of righteousness.

    And what a blessing. What a blessing for us who abide in Jesus Christ, for His thankfulness, the true second Adam, the one who rushes us into the new world. is such that not only do we profit from that thankfulness which he himself expresses, but we enter into the very expression of that thankfulness through our thanksgiving. Whatever is lacking in our thanksgiving is more than supplied in Christ. in him and through him we are enabled to give thanks, and that even in the most bleak circumstances. As Ephesians 5, 20 says, always giving thanks in all things. Oh God, thanksgiving may be absent from Noah as he harvests the grapes from his vineyard.

    But Lord, in Jesus Christ, thankfulness and thanksgiving are never absent in the new Adam. Jesus Christ. O Lord, because of the bond that exists between Christ and His Church, thanksgiving and thankfulness are never to be absent, missing from us. And that regardless of the circumstances. We pray that we may be a grateful people, thankful to you for your abundant mercy to us. May we rejoice always in and through our Savior Jesus Christ by the spirit of grace that you have given to us.

    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.

  • Psalm 19 Is About Salvation

    Psalm 19 Is About Salvation

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 27, 1994.

    About this sermon

    Around the holidays a vague, general theism surfaces, and Psalm 19 answers it with God’s mighty work in salvation, beyond creation’s testimony to a Creator. Salvation comes first, and obedience follows. Evidentialist apologetics built on general revelation cannot reach that gospel.

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    Sermon transcript

    We begin our reading this morning with Psalm 19. I give you attention now to the reading of God’s holy words. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun. which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strongman to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

    The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

    More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults, keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me, then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

    Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” I’m turning over to Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 10. This is Romans chapter 10, and we are beginning at verse 13. Romans 10, verse 13, “‘For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

    How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent, as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things?’ that they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, have they not heard?

    Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the Dear God, if we ask ourselves the question, why have we come here this morning? We pray to you that we might be able to give a proper response. May that response, O God, be in light of your command that we have in fact been commanded to gather for the purpose of worshiping you. But also, Lord, in that worship, it is well that we hear your word and receive instruction in that word. Therefore, O God, we acknowledge that we have come in order to hear you. We pray, our Father, that we might do that today, that we might be benefited by what your word has to say to us, and that we might live as those who belong to you and are sealed with the Holy Spirit. This we ask through Jesus our Savior. Amen.

    It was my hope and my expectation that we would be continuing our messages this morning on 1 Timothy 2, particularly looking at verses 9-15. As I thought about whether to continue that series of messages at the beginning of the week, I concluded that yes, we would forge ahead, even though this was a holiday weekend and there would be a lot of people absent from Church this morning who would, in fact, want to hear those messages. But I am unable to continue that series this morning for a number of reasons, not the least of which is as I gave my attention to the text I found that my message, as it was taking shape, resisted every effort at proper organization. I was in deep frustration as the week came to a conclusion, and I did remember Pastor Al Martin and something that he did one morning, one Sunday morning when he entered the pulpit. told his congregation that he didn’t have anything to give them that morning, therefore they would have a hymn sung. Well, we’re not going to have a hymn sung.

    I do have a message for you, and it pertains to an Old Testament hymn, specifically Psalm 19, a very familiar psalm indeed. And it is my hope that as we look at this psalm, we will be carried into its depth and we will behold its beauty once more, and that particularly in light of the Thanksgiving season that we have been enjoying.

    There is a mindset abroad at times like these in which it seems that the public is generally given over to a rather nondescript theism, a religious frame of reference, but a frame of reference religiously that isn’t too definite. There are many public statements at seasons like this, from all sorts of public figures, from politicians and others. But maybe you are like me, when you hear these statements, you are somewhat taken aback, because they lack specific biblical content. They seem to have a piety about them, a religious phraseology, but they lack specific biblical content. It is in the interest of that specific biblical content that we take one more look at this familiar psalm, Psalm 19. my hope that we might be surprised by what we find there, discovering even new things.”

    Now, this psalm is divided into three parts. Appropriate outline for three-point sermon. Of course, you know I don’t give three-point sermons. We won’t be getting one of those this morning. But at any rate, the psalm is divided into three parts, and the first part is verses 1 through 6, then 7 through 11, and finally the last part of the psalm, 12 through 14.

    Each of these parts remarkable in themselves and memorable, serving up quotable quotes for us. as we move through the psalm. My interest this morning is with respect to the inner logic of the psalm, an inner logic that may not be all that evident to us, even as familiar as we are with this glorious psalm. Now, you might be surprised by that statement. may be thinking that at least this psalm, Psalm 19, this familiar psalm, is transparent to us. What problem could there be with regard to the logic and the development of this psalm? It seems plain enough. It seems self-evident. So why should we be taking up time delving into that matter this morning? The logic of it is simply that heavens and the earth are God’s workmanship, and by their very existence they declare the fact that they are made by him.

    That’s the ordinary reading of the psalm. Days and nights in their common and regular cycle testify to their Creator. as does the sun, specifically mentioned in this psalm, in its journeys across the heavens. The description of the sun here is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful in all of literature. Here, then, in verses 1-6, the opening section of the psalm, we are given, as theologians would have it, the perfect proof text for what we call a natural revelation, a revelation that rises from nature. Nature itself, the created order, all that we observe, nature itself is declaring the worth and glory of its creator.

    That’s simple enough. As with regard to the logic that seems to be on the surface of things, the psalm goes on very conveniently, verses 7-11, to speak about the law of the Lord. As grand a statement about natural revelation as appears in the Bible, is found in Psalm 19, 1-6. That is what we are told. But this is matched, you see, with an equally grand statement about God’s supernatural revelation in verses 7-11.

    Therefore, we move from the creation as the revelation of God to the law as recorded in Scripture as that revelation from God. Together these verses are said then to present to us compactly and succinctly the range of God’s revelation of himself, the entire range of God’s revelation of himself. Here in a single passage In this psalm, it is said, we find the two-fold character of God’s revelation to us. First, the revelation mediated through the creation, and then secondly, the revelation mediated to us through the scriptures. God, therefore, we conclude, makes himself known in his creation and by his word.

    What could What need we say further? The logic, the inherent logic of the psalm, is transparent and clear. It is open to us, and it provides tremendous ammunition for preachers and theologians, especially when they are giving exams to licentiates and candidates for the ministry. Well, to be sure, this approach to the psalm has much going for it, has much to commend it.

    We would affirm, would we not, that there is this distinction between the natural and the supernatural when it comes to God’s revelation of himself, and we insist upon this twofold approach to God’s revelation of himself. While that is true, there is something of an unfortunate glitch that intrudes upon the traditional interpretation of Psalm 19. You see, there is something about the direction and tone that this interpretation takes. division not simply between natural and supernatural when it comes to revelation, when it comes to creation and scripture, but tends in the direction of a suggestion with respect to a division within God himself. Admittedly, that is a perversion and an abuse of the word of God. But I am suggesting to you this morning that there is something of a glitch in the ordinary and traditional interpretation of this psalm. Along the traditional line, there is then the possibility of the intrusion of an alien an alien element that has the power to suggest that there is a division within God himself, a partitioning within God himself.

    I might suggest to you at this point the direction in which I am going. It is particularly this traditional interpretation of this psalm that has proved very useful to evidentialist apologetics. But the point, the point, this glitch tends in the direction of suggesting to us the vision within God himself. What could I possibly mean by that? How does this traditional interpretation, this usual exposition of the 19th Psalm, suggest to us, possibly, in this glitch quality, a division within God himself. You see, it is as if God could be parceled out piecemeal through a twofold process.

    First, the creation tells us about certain aspects of God, his wisdom and power. Now, we know that the creation does in fact communicate the truth about our God and the truth concerning his wisdom and power. But the glitch quality of the traditional interpretation of this psalm is going to take this in a direction that is unfortunate and, in the end, unhelpful. First, creation tells us about certain aspects of God and concentrates upon certain attributes of God, focusing upon His wisdom and power. And then, Scripture tells us about the remaining parts.

    You move through the psalm then, verses 1 through 6, the creation telling us about certain aspects of God’s being, certain attributes of God, his wisdom and power. Then you come to verse 7, and there scripture is introduced, and it tells us about the remaining parts, specifically about God’s righteousness and justice as revealed in his law.

    But there is a tendency, you see, to allow that first stage, as it concerns creation, to allow that first stage of the process to function independently. so that the knowledge of God and his general attributes of wisdom and power turn into mere knowledge of a general deity in the conclusion of the matter, a God generically considered without a great deal of specifics to define him. Therefore, in our apologetical pursuits and in our evangelistic use of Psalm 19, we believe we are being faithful to this text when we first, on the basis of verses 1-6, try to convince the unbeliever that there is a God, a God. Look around you, there is a God. But then we move on to confront the unbeliever on the basis of verses 7 through 11, and even the latter verses, 12 through 14, with the specific God of the law, the specific God of scripture and of personal fellowship. You see, the process that is invoked, the use of the text that is made, first a general, rather nondescript deity. I might suggest to you that this God identified as a God is a convenient deity for civic policy and political religion.

    You don’t want to get too definite when you enter into the public arena. How many preachers have you heard who, when they are called upon to officiate in a public function, suddenly become deists? No mention of Jesus Christ, no specific mention of redemption, no reference to regeneration. They invoke a general deity. a God, not the God.

    So on this approach to Psalm 19, as it is used apologetically or in evangelistic interests First of all, on the basis of verses 1 through 6, we try to convince the unbeliever that there is a God before we move on to confront him on the basis of the latter verses with the specific God of the law, of the revelation of Scripture, and of personal fellowship.

    First, the general, rather nondescript, deity, a God of creation, which all are to acknowledge, then the specific deity of Scripture, the true God, the God of the commandments, as he has revealed himself in his words. public religion with its feasts and national holidays, even as they absorb to themselves a festival like Thanksgiving, can wreak havoc upon Christian truth along these lines. We can actually gut religion of the triune God of Scripture. We can be so drawn by this whole matter to suspend our own beliefs and the specifics of our own doctrinal commitment in a spirit of generosity and supposed goodwill. We are tempted to reflect upon creation’s provisions and the general attributes of God associated with God in creation, that in our public celebrations we forget the specifics of our great God, the God of our salvation. I am not exaggerating when I say that, left unchecked Such an approach breeds a religious frame of mind wholly content with the generic God of general creational benevolence.

    And I can tell you that absolutely no one is challenged by that God. In fact, that God makes no demands on anybody. Have you had enough of civil religion? I have. If we press it far enough, such a religious frame of mind eventually no longer needs the God of the Bible at all. in any specific or definitive fashion.

    This is the great mistake that genuine Christians have made in the area of education. In the last century, ground was lost not only because of the monopolizing direction of public that because Christians were willing to bow before a general deity stripped of all biblical specifics, a deity increasingly standing independent from any specific biblical content, in time this general deity itself disappeared, interestingly, from the public education arena and enterprise. Now, I will be bold to suggest to you this morning that the answer in no way is the restoration of prayer to public schools, regardless of the rhetoric that we are hearing presently. Although such a measure could be judged a social advance, since No longer would the federal government be telling local schools that they could not pray. Still, the answer for Christians, for believers, is not some system where some general, nondescript deity is invoked. The answer is schools in which the full range of biblical revelation informs the life of the entire institution and its personnel, and that in a meaningful way. But even such institutions as Christian schools are of limited value if they fail to grasp, yet in the end, the proper intention of Psalm 19. Back to the text.

    You see, this psalm does not intend to justify a parceling out of God as if he could be considered as creator independently of his special revelation of himself as lawgiver and judge. In fact, rightly understood, Psalm 19 has a much more integrated view of God’s revelation than is ordinarily thought.

    For, you see, this psalm assumes that this God, spoken of in this psalm, is the God who performs mighty deeds. That is the assumption, and this assumption undergoes the entirety of the psalm from beginning to end. The God portrayed here is not a general God of wisdom and power, but the specific God who reveals himself in his mighty deeds, his mighty works. Well, a light might have gone on in your head, and you’re saying to me now, well, of course, in you is God’s mighty act in creation itself. But I challenge your response at that point, for it is not God’s mighty act of creation that undergirds Psalm 19, rather it is his mighty work of salvation and redemption.

    This psalm is written and appropriated properly only from the ground floor of salvation. This contention is established by three considerations. First of all, I want you to call to mind the way in which the heavens and the earth are used in Old Testament literature.

    If you want a review of that, I can give you a few texts. a number of them from Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 4.26, Deuteronomy 30.19, Deuteronomy 31.28 and 32.1.

    Those texts in Deuteronomy are Deuteronomy 4.26, 30.19, 31.28, But you will notice that this tandem use of the heavens and the earth appears elsewhere in the Old Testament, beyond Deuteronomy. I have in mind specifically two texts out of the Prophets, one in Isaiah 1-2, another in Micah 6-1-2. In the use of the heavens and the earth in the Old Testament, we will look at one text, and that is Isaiah 1 verse 2. That text reads, Listen, O heavens, hear, O earth, for the Lord speaks. sons I have reared and brought up, but they have reverted against me.” You see what Isaiah’s prophecy is doing with the tandem use of the heavens and the earth?

    The heavens and the earth are called as witnesses against the people of God, the people who have been redeemed by him. It’s as if a courtroom scene has been convened, and the witnesses now that come On behalf of God, in his suit against his people, are the heavens and the earth. They’ve seen it all, haven’t they? They’ve witnessed it all. The earth sought, the heavens sought. So when God calls court together, when court is convened, he calls in his witnesses, and his witnesses are the heavens and the earth.

    Psalm 19 is speaking about that testimony, that witness character of the heavens and the earth, specifically as that witness character is predicated upon God’s mighty acts. Having saved his people, redemption and salvation is the assumption, not the conclusion, it is the assumption.

    Psalm 19, verse 1, has a parallel text in the Psalms themselves. I call your attention to Psalm 97, verse 6, where almost identical language is used to that which we find in Psalm 19 and its opening. Psalm 97 verse 6 says, the heavens declare his righteousness, that is, declare God’s righteousness, and all the people have seen his glory.

    To what is the psalmist referring? Is he merely referring to an observation of the creation? Not at all. The psalmist is referring to the fact that the heavens are declaring the righteousness of God and his glory as that righteousness and glory have been revealed in his mighty works, specifically the mighty work of redeeming for himself a people.

    Redemption is the assumption. The reference in Psalm 97 is to God’s great deed of salvation in delivering his people and bringing them to himself. Thus, the righteousness and the glory spoken of are those manifested in his great redemption which he has accomplished for his own. The glory of God spoken of at the opening of Psalm 19 is the glory that shines forth as a result of God’s mighty work of redemption. The heavens are declaring the glory of God in the accomplishment of his redemption for his people.

    But finally, along these lines, and this is why I read for you this morning Romans 10, verse 18 specifically, and maybe you picked it up there, maybe you didn’t, since I was reading from the King James and it may have been a little obscure for you at that point, but did you note that in Romans 10.18, Paul quoted Psalm 19, verse 4. But Paul is speaking about the gospel going to the ends of the earth.

    He’s talking about the gospel of salvation going to the ends of the earth. when he quotes Psalm 19.4 which says, Their voice has gone out into all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

    It is not then their creation that is in view in Psalm 19.1-6, it is redemption. The foundation of the psalm is salvation, not creation. himself applying a text that is ordinarily thought simply to be referring to the creative work of God, to the gospel, to the gospel of salvation and God’s accomplishment of redemption for his people in that gospel.

    Thus we see that the great redemptive act of God that undergirds and informs Psalm 19 is the saving work of our God for his people. When the heavens declare the glory of God, this means that the heavens are declaring the glory of the great redemptive act of God. And when the firmament shows forth his handiwork, this means that indeed we ourselves are his handiwork, evidencing in ourselves that we have been bought by him and redeemed for his purposes. the inner logic of the psalm. The consequence of this great saving work of God, through which the heavens and the earth bear witness, is our love toward God in keeping his commandments. The response from us to this great saving work of God, to which the heavens and the earth bear witness, is our love for God evidenced in our keeping of his commandments.

    You know from redemptive act and event to ethical demand and responsibility. And that is the uniform pattern of the scriptures from beginning to end. Salvation first, then I can see. Redemption first, then I can act. Born again, then I can behave like a child of God. of the summit is that the heavens and the earth are bearing testimony to the fact that God has acted for your salvation. Now, what are you going to do?

    The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

    And I might say that this great redemptive work of which the heavens and the earth are is the foundation for our prayer for strength and grace. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

    There is the inner logic of Psalm 19. I have not departed from Calvin. Now, it may be that my specific exegesis of his psalm is not exactly matching up to his, but in the broad range of Calvinism, I am right on target. For Calvin says, it is with the spectacles of the Word and by root of the regeneration of the soul, that we behold the created works of our God, rightly and truly.

    So then, friends, the Thanksgiving season is upon us. But I hope that you will train your souls never to be content with a thanksgiving to a general, generic deity, stripped of all of his biblical specifics. May your thanks be to the God who has revealed himself in his mighty deeds, a God to whom now you respond. with loving obedience. Help us, Lord, we ask you Or we might even sit comfortably in age-old interpretations of your Word. Interpretations that are venerated by many we love and respect. But move us, O God, if we are to be moved, that your Word would have its perfect work in our souls.

    We then, not in any sense the servants of a general deity, a God without real form or substance, a God without any real description. Rather, Lord, may we be the servants of the true and living God who has revealed himself, yes, by his mighty deeds. who has called heaven and earth as witness to what he has done, and set us upon the path of loving obedience, even inviting us, then, into constant and abiding communion. All of this ultimately and fully in Jesus Christ, our Savior, apart from whom we have no life apart from whom we can see nothing correctly.

    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.

  • God’s City, Not Man’s

    God’s City, Not Man’s

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 23, 1992.

    About this sermon

    Modern society attacks objective truth, and the church too easily settles for God’s common grace as if it were enough. Augustine’s distinction holds: only God’s city lasts, and man’s passes away. Psalm 46’s refuge belongs to that eternal city.

    More sermons from Psalms · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    And as we begin our scripture reading with Psalm 46, actually we will begin and end our scripture reading with Psalm 46. God is our refuge and strength for very present health and trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling prime. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the Most High.

    God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved. He will help her when morning dawns. The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered. He raised his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Come, behold the works of the Lord, who has brought desolations in the earth. He made wars to cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. He burns the chariots with fire. Cease striving and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Well, this is turning out to be the day of detours.

    Again, what I have to say tonight is not unrelated to the message of creation, and most specifically, the issue of the creation of man, man’s creation in the image of God. But I do want to address the state of the Church. in the midst of the world in which we live. Occasionally I have given through the years a sort of state of the church address in order to set the tone for our ministry and also for the purpose of helping us understand better where we are. who are witnessing the collapse of a culture and civilization. It may not appear to be so, surrounded still with great affluence as we are, but we are living in a period of radical change as far as culture and civilization are concerned. The culture and civilization that I have in mind is that of the West. I’m certainly not the first to say this, and I’m not going to be the last.

    But as there is this disintegration, this collapse, even the most devout Christians are thrown into a tailspin. Many are bewildered, very confused. They hardly know what to do, they hardly know what to think. They simply can’t make sense out of it all anymore.

    We who love Jesus Christ and his gospel, we who love our Savior and his gospel dearly, find ourselves bewildered by this erosion. an erosion that is evidence in the fact that those testimonies to common grace, God’s common grace, distinguished from his saving grace now, these evidences and testimonies to God’s common grace are slipping away.

    Those things which in former times within our society restrained its wanton violence, its overt sensuality, its greed, that common grace that restrained these things is now seemingly being removed. There were times that common grace cultivated within our culture, within our civilization, such things as character, industriousness, thrift, even amongst those who didn’t believe, who were distant from the church and alien. to God. In the last century, there were all the premonitions of this collapse in what occurred in Europe. For Europe during the 19th century was engulfed in what we might call a cynical sophistication And that cynical sophistication plummeted that continent into a severe crisis of spirit and soul. Prior assumptions were gone. Former checks, balances were removed.

    Now to be sure, There were all those silly pretensions, all those insincerities which that culture and society had propounded. We know that those pretensions and those insincerities within European society were exposed by those who were quite perceptive as to the true state of affair. If you want to look deeply behind the pretensions of European civilization in the 19th century, all you need to do is take up the novels of a Russian by the name of Dostoevsky. And if you find him a bit foreboding and a little bit lengthy and wordy, maybe just acquainting yourself with Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Heart of Darkness. But at the same time that we had the exposure of European culture’s pretensions and insincerity, there was simultaneously that attack upon objectivity.

    People were robbed of any objective standard and were thrown back upon and in toward themselves. The nineteenth century in Europe became a century of inwardness. Now for many, that experience wherein they lost objectivity and were turned in upon themselves was torturous. It was such a torturous experience that it left any number of casualties to various neuroses and even madness.

    If you are bewildered by modern art, if you have a few art history books and you have thumbed through the pages and you have come upon the art of some of Europe’s leading painters of the last century and moving into this, you might be more than startled. You might be disgusted at what you see. Disgusted because here is something you can’t quite grasp. Let me say, lurking beneath the surface, within these artists is an attempt on their part to come to grips with the dissolution of their culture and civilization.

    And many of these artists were the victims of neuroses themselves, if not madness. Now what happens in Europe usually catches up with America. by and by. America is the child of Europe in many respects, and now follows in the wake of European demise. The pressures produced by the unraveling of our society have, as they did in Europe, pushed us further and deeper into ourselves. It is not without reason that Christopher Lasch, over a dozen years ago, wrote his very profound analysis of American society entitled, The Culture of Narcissism. What is narcissism? Self-love. Self-absorption. Self-preoccupation.

    Our culture says Lash is in the death throes of a competitive individualism. And by absolutizing the individual, there is no external authority left. There is no objective standard outside the self. Rasch goes on, he says, we are no longer capable of understanding, let alone dealing with, even as fundamental a matter as guilt.

    Because guilt, you see, suggests that there’s something outside of ourselves by which we are being measured. It is suggesting that there is reality out there, even embodied in other people, to whom we are accountable. From the place of guilt, says Lasch, we now are preoccupied with anxiety. personal hang-ups. We don’t have guilt, we just have adjustment problems.

    Rush continues, he says, that we have lost the ability to grab a hold of historical objectivity. He says Americans have been traditionally handicapped in this regard anyway, because Americans have been preoccupied with the present moment, the immediate situation. But he has said that our inability to grasp hold of historical objectivity has become an epidemic. And historical objectivity no longer interests us, because we cannot see the immediate value of studying distant facts, figures, circumstances, and ideas.

    Instead of history, we demand nostalgia. and we are preoccupied with sentimentality. Have you been struck by what’s going on television-wise and motion picture-wise these days? Have you noticed the inability of the media, of the popular media to present to us anything that demands of us some sort of historical distancing? Very few films are being produced now that are taking us back into another century, into another time, into another era. It doesn’t sell. It simply doesn’t interest anyone. It has to be of a contemporary setting. Well, things were bad. Psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, very bad.

    So said Lasch when he wrote his book in 1979. that there is much evidence that things are far worse now in 1992. One such piece of evidence of the desperate straits we are in is this interesting footnote to our present economic nightmare. A number of economists are telling us, and I believe rightly, that the recession of the early eighties was far worse than the one we are experiencing presently. But in ten short years, the American people find themselves emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually far less capable of handling what’s going on. Don’t you sense a spirit of desperation that is overtaking us in this country? It’s as if we’re becoming frantic and almost unconsolable in our worries. The recession of the early eighties was less extreme, but we’re far more depressed about our present recession, which isn’t as extreme.

    Why is that? What’s going on? We can approach it from the side of God’s common grace. That’s one way to go at the problem. It’s not a wholly satisfactory resolution, but it does provide us some insights. For yes, within our society we are witnessing the removal of the vestiges, maybe the last vestiges, of objectivity. An objectivity that kept us in check. There was a reality outside of us. There was an authority apart from us. There was some standard, you see, to which we were accountable.

    That is one of the great gifts of God’s common grace to mankind. That sense that we have our meaning with respect to, in relationship to, some external place or reality apart from ourselves. Isn’t that in part what the image of God is preaching to us? That beyond ourselves there is this reality that we are bound to? with respect to which we find our meaning.

    In the past, man found a place of external verification. Even within the arena of common grace, men were finding such a place in which to stand. whether it was creation generally, outside of themselves, the reality of which they did not deny, or maybe law, a category of law, be it even natural law, or in philosophy, where principles were insisted upon, or in religion, as profane as it may have been. So man, even through common grace, was finding true that inherent reality of the creation and its order, a reality that forced him to understand that he must find a place external to himself in order to see himself and his world objectively.

    As was the case in Europe in the nineteenth century, now presently in the twentieth, such objectivity is lost. Even the testimony of God’s common grace in this arena of objectivity is lost. It is even being deliberately rejected. And we are turned back upon ourselves and in toward ourselves. We become our own authority. We become our own standard. There is no objective reality apart from ourselves and our experience. We are thoroughly committed to this philosophy because we feel that it is the inherent expression of our freedom. Our freedom entails that we be free from all objective standards and any demands that would be made upon us from outside of ourselves.

    Do you marvel at the rebellion of youth? Do you think it’s sophistication that’s overtaken Europe in the 19th century and sophistication that has overtaken America in the 20th century? It’s not sophistication, it’s adolescence! Back to the media. Are you concerned about television programs? Are you concerned about the motion pictures that are being turned out? There’s nothing at all about them. They’re puerile. They’re infantile.

    So in the name of freedom, which we are determined to hold on to at any cost, We will reject objectivity, any rule, any authority, any standard, any reality outside of ourselves. It doesn’t even matter how extreme the cost of such a decision. It doesn’t matter that we aren’t happy. It doesn’t matter that we’re miserable. Doesn’t matter that we’re mad at everyone. Doesn’t matter we can’t get along.

    It doesn’t matter that the answer to a voter vehicle altercation is to pull out a gun and shoot the guy. Why shouldn’t he? He violated my space. turned in upon ourselves hasn’t been pleasant. Without any objectivity, we are left in utter instability. We are left frighteningly insecure and tremendously suspicious and unsure of ourselves, if not of everyone else.

    Nonetheless, we fight to regain our footing. Do you notice how Europe fought? Do you notice the cost of their effort to regain their footing? Put in picture? Do you ever see pictures? Do you ever see pictures of the fields of France? from World War I? The horrors of World War II?

    Nevertheless, we fight to regain our footing, our hold on things. We fight to control At a mundane level, we fight to do this through self-help programs, programs that merely exalt our image of ourselves all the more. We do so through programs of self-esteem. We do so through psychoanalysis, through therapy, through efforts at improved self-awareness, through conscious raising religion, through New Age techniques. But for all of this, look at where we are.

    Our marriages continue to fail at record rates. Our society is succumbing to various kinds of addictions. Suicide is at a record rate, and the moral fabric of our society dissolves. They wantonly destroy our unborn because they are inconvenient and a restriction to us in our freedom. We cheat. We cheat on our taxes, we cheat on our bosses, we cheat on our spouses. We lie. And we lie some more to cover up our lies.

    We claim that the whole world has a moral obligation to my self-image and my personal freedoms. We claim that the whole world has a moral obligation to guarantee my right and my freedom to pursue my own personal lifestyle. And then we have the audacity to say that that same world has the moral obligation to pay for all the decisions that I have made and the consequences of them. But at the same time, that same world does not have any right whatsoever to interfere with me in the exercise of my free rights in pursuit of my personal lifestyle. And, of course, we believe, do we not now in our society, in the inalienable right of self-indulgence.

    Whether it’s guzzling beer at Thunderbender tailgate parties in the parking lot of Three Rivers Stadium, or overdosing on TV sports day after day after day. or whether it’s snorting cocaine in the privacy of our own homes, or maxing out on three credit cards simultaneously, because we can’t live without the entertainment center, the new wardrobe, and the family vacation to Disney World.

    Our culture, our civilization is in deep trouble, even if considered from the standpoint of this matter of God’s common grace. And it is in deep trouble not because we are the victims of selfishly wicked politicians and a nefarious CIA plot, regardless of what Oliver Stone says. We are in trouble because we are the ones who are selfishly wicked. and all too wickedly participants in a plot that rises out of the pit of hell and our own depraved thoughts. I’m waiting for the politician of that message. I’ll tell you, I’m going to vote for him.

    Indeed, this collapse of culture and civilization which we are witnessing throws us, we who are the most devout in our faith, into a tailspin. There are temptations for us in the midst of this chaos. We too, like our society, are tempted to go off into the cult of the self with all of the attendant horrors. But we are also tempted in our distress and in our desire for objectivity and even security, to settle for the mere matters, for the mere matters of common grace, as if that were enough, as if merely giving back to some form of objectivity, regardless of what it might be, would be enough to satisfy the longings of our hearts.

    And many of us have been tempted by those who insist that the blueprint for our life and the world should be a republication of the Old Testament theocratic state. need very desperately to remember, even as we witness the signs of collapse, that the Church of Jesus Christ has survived many collapses before.

    Two outstanding collapses come to mind. one of the Roman Empire and the other of the medieval world. In each case, God has been gracious to his people who call upon him in faith in raising up a voice that brought before the Church the message of the scriptures and of the gospel. In the midst of the collapse of the Roman Empire came the voice of an African priest, the voice of St. Augustine and his reminder to a distraught Christian citizenry as they watched the city of Rome sacked by barbarians. His reminder that the city of God, not the city of man, stands eternal. Similarly, with the demise of the medieval world. And although the message of the Reformation has been variously interpreted, its message was virtually the same as that of St. Augustine.

    Beyond this world and bodies they may kill, beyond goods and kindred, beyond any fortress of this creation is our God, a mighty fortress in Himself, one in whom we by faith have been brought so as to be made secure through His mercies, those mercies made real to us in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ. his son. Indeed, his kingdom is forever. And is there any doubt about Psalm 46’s application to all that I have said? Amen. Oh God, turn our eyes 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.