End of the Age — Mark 13

Context

Parable of the Tenants — Mark 12

“A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.

9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

Later in Chapter 12, as we looked at last week, The Lord Christ has a scathing denunciation of the 1st century religious Professionals.

Here the Lord Christ speaks of the coming ruination of the Temple.

The theme running through Mark 12 and 13 is the end of the Old Covenant Order. When the disciples come to the Lord Christ to ask about “the End,” they are not asking about the end of the world. They are asking about the End, to them, of their present Temple order.

That this is a conflict that only has one of two possible endings is the fact that the enemies of the Lord Christ realize also that if they are not to be ended they must end the Lord Christ and in Chapter 14 we begin to see that unwind.

As we said last week this is a worldview conflict which means either the enemies of Jesus have to end or that the Lord Christ Himself must end.

It is interesting that the Disciples come to ask Jesus in private about the end,

3 And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?”

I note this private conversation because throughout Mark, Jesus reserved some of his most essential teaching for private moments with the disciples. Jesus explained the parables to them privately (4:34; cf. 4:10-12). He took Peter, James, and John alone to a high mountain and revealed his transfigured self to them (9:2-8). Privately, the disciples asked Jesus why they couldn’t cast out a demon in a specific case (9:28). Here, in chapter 13, the disciples — Peter, James, John, and Andrew — ask about the timing of the telos (or, “end”; 13:3).

So, we see, that for Mark there are many private teachings. At least in terms of the Temple, the reason might be that the conversation was private was that such public teaching of the same truths might be considered treason and sedition. So, the Lord Christ teaches privately.

Of course this can remind us that not every truth need be set forth in a public setting. We have to pick and choose what teaching is for private consumption and what teaching is for public consumption.

Now as we get to the meat of the conversation here we have to note time indicators of the text. We emphasize this because so many today want to suggest that texts like these are yet completely future. But while, these conversations were future to the Disciples I am convinced that they are past to us.

In this regard note

“Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

The Lord Christ, in all that He is about to teach, is teaching about the buildings that stood in the 1st century. He is not talking about the ruination of some future Temple. He is speaking of the ruination of the 1st century Temple. As such once that 1st century Temple complex is gone the prophecy itself is past.

Another time indicator here is

And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads YOU astray.

Note the pronoun “YOU.” The Lord Christ is not talking about the danger of some hypothetical people in some far distant future being led astray. He is talking about the danger of those very alive disciples being led astray. So, unless we believe that the Disciples are still alive, to be potentially lead astray, we have to understand that what the Lord Christ was speaking of here was not only in regard to that 1st century Temple complex but also in regard to those 1st century disciples.

Quickly another time indicator regarding the 1st person plural pronoun is in vs. 7,

7 And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed.

Q.) — When who hears of wars and rumors of wars?

A.) Those 1st century disciples.

All that is being said here should be understood as past to us but future to them.

Now, this is monumentally important because legion is the name of Christians who believe that this kind of apocalyptic literature remains future to us and as such they are looking for Temples to be rebuilt that can be cast down again. They are mapping out possible end date return scenarios of the Lord Christ by reading passages like this up against Newspaper accounts of what is going on in Israel.

They look at nation rising against Nation … they see famines … they see earthquakes and they somehow insert all of that in a belief system that looks for a different “end” than the end that the Lord Christ was speaking about here.

And so we get the prophecy Snake oil salesman. We get John Hagee running around selling books about 4 blood moons.  We get books like, “88 reasons Why The Rapture Will Be in 1988,” by  Edgar C Whisenant. We get Jack Van Impe, the Evangelist who scared me royally with his predictions about the end of the world when I was a adolescent. We get the “Left Behind” Series by Tim LaHaye.

When we are wrong on this “end” business, and we’ve been wrong for 2000 years because this wrongly understood “End” has not come then we look like fools running around saying the “world is ending, the world is ending,” Jesus is coming back next week.

An example of the ship wreck all this wrong headed futurism can do I offer just one example I came across in my preparation,

“When the designated range of dates passed, I remember there being a lot of confusion and anger in the church and we ended up leaving. After several years of religious exploration dosed with much more skepticism than before, my wife and I both ended up rejecting Christianity all together.”

A great deal of confusion in Church History, both modern and long past, could have been avoided if texts like these were understood to have been future to the 1st century hearers but past to us.

Now … this is not to say that all predictive events in the Scripture are past but it is to say that many that are taken as yet Future are indeed now fulfilled already. Mark 13 is one of those texts.

Well, as we continue on the issue of Timing we consider vs. 2

2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

The Lord Christ has drawn their attention to the 1st century Temple complex and as that is the building that must be destroyed, in order to know when this prophecy was fulfilled we need only ask when that happened. When we ask that question we see in history that this temple was thrown down in AD 70.

In AD 70 the Jewish End came with the Temple stones ruined just as the Lord Christ predicted. The Roman General Titus came against Jerusalem for its Rebellion against Rome and crushed it.

Flavius Josephus, the Priestly descended Historian writes of the Temple in his book “Wars of the Jews”,

“there was left nothing to make those who had come thither believe it had ever been inhabited.”

A book by Historian Thomas Newton, accessing old records, and written in 1754 tells us,

For when the Romans had taken Jerusalem, Titus ordered his soldiers to dig up the foundations both of all the city and the Temple…. As we read in the Jewish Talmud and in Maimondes, Turnus Rufus, or rather Terentius Rufus, who was left to command the army in Jerusalem, did with a ploughshare tear up the foundation of the Temple; and thereby signally fulfilled those words of Micah (3:12) “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed  as a field.” Eusebias too affirms, that it was ploughed up by the Romans, and he saw it lying in ruins.

So again, the End that the Lord Christ is speaking of here is NOT the End of the Cosmos but the End of the Jewish Order… the end of what made Judaism, Judaism… the End of the Sacrificial and ritual system … the End of the Jewish Age. Here is also the End of a distinctly Jewish Church and with this end comes the in rushing of the Gentiles into God’s Church.

With this End that the Lord Christ speaks of in the little apocalypse of Mark 13 comes in God’s New World Order. Instead of looking to the Sacrifices to turn away God’s just wrath against our sin, we now look to the Lord Christ as the author and finisher of our faith… as the one who through His sacrifice turns away the wrath of God. Instead of some regal centralized Temple, Christ is now our Temple and whenever we assemble as God’s people in the name of the Lord Christ there God receives our Worship. The High Priestly Aaronic line and its necessity has ended and Christ is now our Great High Priest who gives us entry into God’s presence. Because that End has come it is no longer necessary to please God with animal sacrifice as Christ is now our eternal lamb of God and through Him we receive God’s favor.

When Christ speaks of the End then here, he is not speaking of the End of the Cosmos but the End of the Old Covenant age, and that End has indeed come. Continuing to look for the End that Christ speaks of in Mark 13 would be as ridiculous as a 70 year old Grandmother looking for the end of her virginity. That End has come and gone and so has the End that Christ speaks of here.

As the Church we do ourselves a grave disservice by be futurist in our eschatology.

Signs of the End

False Prophets 

5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.

The reality of False prophets throughout History is ubiquitous. No less during this time.

Acts 5:36 — Gamaliel speaking mentions two such men,

36 For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. 37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.

Acts 8 likewise tells us of another,

9 But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. 10 They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” 11 And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.

Secular Historians likewise chronicle the rise of False Messiahs during this time. Dositheus, a Samaritan, “pretended that he was the lawgiver prophesied of by Moses.”

Indeed, the problem of False Prophets was so thick that the procurator Felix had many of them routinely gathered up and killed every day. These charlatans did then what they have always done and continue to do. They gather gullible people around them who want to follow a Messiah. Well might we expect the Lord Christ to warn His disciples against such deluded con men.

It is NOT the false prophets in 2015 that Jesus was warning about though they exist aplenty. It was the false prophets between His death and His judgment coming in AD 70.

Warfare

7 And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

In the Annals of Tacitus, covering the period from AD 14 to Nero’s death in AD 68 we read of him recording,

“disturbances in  Germany,”
“Commotions in Africa”
“Commotions in Thrace”
“Insurrections in Gaul”
“Intrigues among the Parthians”
“The war in Britain”
“The war in Armenia”

Josephus writes of the commonality of war,

“I have omitted to give an exact account of them, because they were well known by all… yet for the sake of the connection of matters, and that my History may not be incoherent, I have just touched upon everything briefly.”

It was not the wars of 2015 that the Lord Christ was referring to when  He spoke of the coming End but the wars between His death and the overturn of the Temple’s Stones.

Famine  — Josephus

Book V, Chapter I, Section 4 (Entire)

The Destruction Of A Vast Quantity Of Corn That Led To Famine During The Siege

 In another section we read of the famine,

The madness of the seditious did also increase together with their famine, and both those miseries were every day inflamed more and more; for there was no corn which any where appeared publicly, but the robbers came running into, and searched men’s private houses; and then, if they found any, they tormented them, because they had denied they had any; and if they found none, they tormented them worse, because they supposed they had more carefully concealed it. The indication they made use of whether they had any or not was taken from the bodies of these miserable wretches; which, if they were in good case, they supposed they were in no want at all of food; but if they were wasted away, they walked off without searching any further; nor did they think it proper to kill such as these, because they saw they would very soon die of themselves for want of food.

But we likewise hear of Famine in the New Testament which was all written by AD 70 and the destruction of the Temple.

27 Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius).29 So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers[a] living in Judea.

Tacitus speaks of other Famines in AD 51

“This year witnessed many prodigies (signs or omens)… including repeated Earthquakes,… further portents were seen in shortage of corn, resulting in famine.”

The Lord Christ mentions wars and famines together and rightly so for as we know war and famine are root and fruit.

It was not the famines of 2015 that the Lord Christ was referring to when  He spoke of the coming End but the famines between His death and the overturn of the Temple’s Stones.

Earthquakes

There will be earthquakes in various places;

Notice Christ doesn’t say, “There will be more earthquakes than usual.” He merely says, There will be earthquakes in various places

And we see that,

Two Earthquakes mentioned in Matthew’s Gospel

27:54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said,“Truly this was the Son[a] of God!”

28:2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

Paul’s imprisonment ended via Earthquake

Acts 16:26 —   and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened.

Also we find in chronicled history that 3 earthquakes occurred prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. There we also quakes in Crete, Smyrna, Miletus, Chios, Samos, Laodicea, Hierapolis, Colosse, Campania, Rome, Pompeii and Judea.

Josephus describes a Richter busting quake in Judea “that the constitution of the universe was confounded for the destruction of men.”

Plumptre, in his commentary on Matthew writes,

“Perhaps no period in the world’s history has ever been so marked by these convulsions as that which intervenes between the Crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem.”

It was not the earthquakes of 2015 that the Lord Christ was referring to when  He spoke of the coming End but the quakes between His death and the overturn of the 1st century Temple’s Stones…. those stones and that Temple He is speaking of.

Conclusion

Now what is the conclusion of all this. Is the conclusion, “Whew, Jesus already came back so I don’t have to worry”?

Christ did come in Judgment in AD 70 but He is coming again once He has made all His enemies His footstool.

The conclusion of the matter should be about the Lord Christ’s Kingdom work. We are not living in a time when “the End .. The End is near. We are living in a time when the nations yet need to be discipled. We are living in a time when the message must still go out that all men everywhere must repent.

Our mindset isn’t one of holding out waiting for the Lord Christ to snatch us out of a descending gloom and doom. Our mindset is one of “occupy until I return.” Our mindset is not defeatist … not “the Anti-Christ is going to get us.” Our mindset is to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. Our mindset is to be part of the Army, before which, the Gates of Hell will not prevail.”

Our mindset is not, “if the war doesn’t get us, the Famine might and if the famine doesn’t get us the earthquake might.” Our mindset to speak up the finished work of the Lord Christ that the glory of the Lord will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea. Our mindset is to remind people of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and that they should have compassion on themselves by bowing the knee now as opposed to bowing the knee later.

Theopolis Institute’s Terrible Article On Immigration

First, we should clarify that there is not the slightest shred of biblical justification for any government to legislate against the free movement of law-abiding citizens from one country to another. There should be no laws against immigration.

Rev. Steve Jeffery
Federal Visionist UK Pastor
Federal Visionist Theopolis Institute

Now think about this for just a second.

If the above were true why would it not similarly be true that there is not the slightest shred of biblical justification for any government to legislate against the free movement of law-abiding citizens from one family’s property to another family’s property? After all, all nations are are extended families.

Unrestricted immigration is a violation of the 8th commandment since the kind of movement required in untrammeled immigration means the disregarding of the ownership of property. The fact that the State claims ownership of all property is the only thing that keeps untrammeled immigration from being clearly seen as theft. Because we think that, since the State owns everything ,the State, as owner of everything, has the place to open up borders in order to give to the alien and stranger what belongs to the home born. In order for Rev. Jeffrey to make this claim he must first assume the State is owner of everything and so can make laws that allow the placement of the alien and stranger above the home born.

Remember that Rev. Jeffery said above that there is not the slightest shred of biblical justification for any government to legislate against the free movement of law-abiding citizens from one country to another. I have already given more than a shred by invoking the 8th commandment.

Another fact that shreds Rev. Jeffery’s “not a shred” argument is the 6th commandment which requires us to not only “not murder,” but also that,

“I am not to dishonour, hate, injure, or kill my neighbour by thoughts, words, or gestures, and much less by deeds, whether personally or through another … ”

And yet the kind of immigration that Rev. Jeffrey is calling for is a case of dishonoring, hating and injuring our own family and neighbors by supporting a policy that will create a permanent economic underclass. The kind of policy that Rev. Jeffrey is calling for will result in eliminating the middle class while creating a have vs. have not social order. The support for this statement can be found in Harvard Economist George Borjas analysis in this article,

http://cis.org/node/4573

Rev. Jeffrey and the Theopolis institute are confusing sojourning with integration. Biblical sojourning was segregated. This handy chart reveals that there were different categories for non resident and that the non resident remained distinct from the resident member of the Nation.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/encyclopedias/isbe/stranger-and-sojourner-in-the-old-testament.html

These Old Testament distinctions are completely disregarded by Rev. Jeffrey and the Theopolis Institute. This is a ham-handed handling of Scripture on the part of Rev. Jeffrey and the Theopolis Institute and makes for a distinct misrepresentation of truth and reality.

 
This whole line of thinking would be news to Moses who asked permission for Israel to merely pass through Edom. And when permission was denied, he offered to pay a toll. After that was denied, Israel went round Edom. Moses never insinuated that Israel had a right to pass through on the grounds that “the free movement of law-abiding citizens from one country to another” may not be impeded.
 
This is Libertarian make believe without a shred of justification from Scripture.

Christ, Religious Professionals and the Widow’s Mite

Beware of the Scribes

38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces 39 and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 40 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

The Widow’s Offering

41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.[f] 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Background

Here we find the Lord Christ teaching on the Tuesday prior to his Crucifixion. On these last days of public ministry during Holy Week the Lord Christ remains focused on the doctrines and practices of the Religious Professionals of his time. The Lord Christ knows that with His death this whole Temple system, which the Religious Professional serves is coming to an end.

And so the Lord Christ directs our attention to the failure of the Temple system.

1.) Religious Professional have polluted it.

2.) In the next chapter the Lord Christ will note, that this whole Temple system is all going to violently end. In its place the Lord Christ is to be the new Temple to whom all types of men and women will come and will find peace with God.

So, I submit to you what is going on here in Mark 12:38-44 is a series of contrasts.

The contrast in Mark 12 then is not only the contrast between the wicked Religious Professionals and the faithful widow but more importantly the contrast is between the corrupted Old Temple system that injures God’s most vulnerable people as against the Faithful Lord Christ, as the New Temple, who will give is all for God’s people.

The contrast here is a religious system which has become a kind of an essential backdrop for a phony religious piety (Mark 12:38-39) as against the Lord Christ  who  emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, and who humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The contrast is between wicked Religious professionals who love to grandstand at the expense of God’s people and the Lord Christ who is meek and lowly in heart.

The contrast is between those who would become rich at the expense of the poor with the Lord Christ who was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.

The contrast is between a Widow who surrenders her all to a Temple system that has failed with the Son of God who as God’s new Temple will surrender His all that men might have peace with God.

Now having established that let’s look at the main players in Mark 12,

I.) Scribes

One of the purposes of this narrative is to expose the religious leaders for their hypocrisy. They pray to demonstrate their piety while at the same time they devour widow’s houses.

Of course you remember the Scribes. They were the Religious Professionals. They taught their corrupted version of the Law of God.

Of the Lord Christ,

1.) They complained that he ate with publicans and sinners (Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30, 15:2).

2.) When Jesus said to the one sick of the palsy , “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee,” (Mark 2:6) the Scribes charged Him with blasphemy.

3.) When he cast out demons they said that He cast them out by “Beelzebub, the prince of the devils” (Mark 3:22).

4.) They would sit and watch Jesus to see if He would heal on the Sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against him (Luke 6:7).

5.) They also were among the Pharisees when they brought to him the woman caught in adultery,“tempting him, that they might have reason to accuse him” (John 8:3, 6).

6.) They were filled with indignation when Jesus performed any miracles (Luke 6:11).

They took counsel with the chief priests as to how they might destroy him (Mark 11:18),

7.) When they contrived to have Jesus brought before Herod , they stood and vehemently accused him (Luke 23:10).

So, we see a running conflict between the Lord Christ and the religious professionals. Oftentimes Mark records the scribes mistrusted the Lord Christ’s various activities (cf. 2:7, 16; 3:22; 7:1, 5; 11:18, 27-28), and in return, the Lord Christ and his disciples questioned the influence of scribal teaching (cf. 9:11; 12:35). At one point, the disciples, without Jesus’ around, argued with scribes over an ailing child (cf. 9:14). As his mission continued, Jesus recognized their antagonism, predicting that they would “reject” him (8:31) and, eventually, “condemn him to death” (10:33).

So, this withering public critique of Scribes, in 12:38-40, fits into the larger pattern of conflict that Mark portrayed.

In verses 38-40 Jesus specifically denounces the scribes. In Mark’s estimation they are self-important, arrogant, and self aggrandizing. This section of Mark’s gospel, since Jesus’ triumphal entry, has been dominated by controversy and antagonistic interaction between Jesus and various groups with leadership responsibilities in first-century Judaism. It is not surprising, then, that we find here a final nail in the coffin, a sweeping condemnation of the scribes.

We should pause here to note that throughout history religious professionals have often been a burden on God’s people. Whether you want to look at the OT record, or the NT record you find that religious professionals are often a group of people one wants to keep at arm’s length. You can find this truth throughout history. When you look at the Reformation, for example, one of the driving factors in the demand for Reformation was the corrupt and scurrilous religious professionals who likewise were preoccupied with building up their illegitimate wealth at the expense of the most vulnerable of God’s people. The indulgence system, which was the occasion for the Reformation, was just such an example. It is no less true today. The sheep, too often, are still being sheered by the Religious carny, con-man, and Religious Professional scheister.

While we esteem faithful shepherds we are reminded of a truth repeated throughout Scripture

Psalm 146:3 — “Put not your trust in rulers, in mortals in whom there is no help.”

II.) Widows

There are about eighty direct references to widows in the Scriptures.

Repeatedly Scripture teaches that God is the kind of God who keeps a careful eye on the widow.

Per Deut 14, 16, Widows were to be especially cared for in the Hebrew community
Per James 1 one aspect of the essence of religion is to visit widows and orphans in distress
Per Acts 6 we see the Church was providing for Widows
Per I Timothy 5 we see that the church understood that it was responsible for God centered widows who had no one to do for them

He is profoundly concerned for her, together with all those who are vulnerable and so easily oppressed. God is righteous and protects widows.

Psalm 68 teaches that God is “a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows . . . in his holy habitation,” (Psalm 68:5).

We see this again in Isaiah 10, Jeremiah 22 and Ezekiel 22 where, in each case, God has noticed the oppression of the Widow by the powers that be and demands that it cease.

The Lord Christ reflects this character of God when he bends low to be the God who provides to the widow of Nain when he restores life to the son of the Widow of Nain.

Jesus reflects this character of God while on the Cross when he provide for his own widowed Mother.

Jesus reflects this character of God here when he denounces the Scribes (Religious Professionals) for enriching themselves at the expense of the least and most vulnerable.

Of course this reveals to us the Character of God. He is especially near to those of His people who are oppressed and vulnerable. He HATES it when the righteous poor in the covenant community are swindled or taken advantage of. He HATES those who, in His name, feather their own bed at the cost of His covenant community poor. The Lord Christ here says that those who act this way will have a greater condemnation.

Reminders

1.) This reminds us then of the danger of being a unfaithful Religious Professional. It is true we might get ahead in this life by doing the equivalent of devouring Widows houses but the Lord Christ tells us here that a time is coming when those who have sewn the wind of ill gotten gain will reap the whirlwind of God’s remembrance.

2.) We are reminded again of our need to look out for “the least of these” among us.  It remains true that “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is  to visit orphans and widows in their affliction …”

III.) We close by considering some issues surrounding this giving of the Widow that may inform us of our own giving,

One of the clear ideas that comes through here is that while the Rich put in large sums that dwarfed the widows giving (vs. 41) the Widow put in all. Of course the call here isn’t that all people must deposit everything they have into the offering plate. However what is accentuated is that there is a difference between giving out of abundance and giving out of want. It’s not the size of the check but the size of the cost that is highlighted.

“The value of a gift is not the amount given, but the cost to the giver.” – J.R. Edwards (Pillar NTC)

Similarly,

God measures the gift by the sacrifice involved (cf. 2Sa 24:24). – A. Black (College Press NIVC)

I’m reminded of someone I once knew who would give nice presents and gifts for certain occasions. I later learned that this person was passing on work related promotional material. So, while the gifts were nice, they cost the person nothing.

I am reminded of the Scripture … “I will not sacrifice to the Lord that which has cost me nothing.”

R. A. Cole reminds us,

“It is well to remember that God measures giving, not by what we give, but by what we keep for ourselves;”

In all this we observe that it is possible that the generosity of the impoverished can be greater than the generosity of the wealthy.

All of this communicates again that even in  our giving God looks at the heart. This can serve as encouragement to those who are frustrated by the fact that they have so little to give. God looks at the heart. He doesn’t count your gift by the number of zeros in your check. He counts your gift according to your heart, and your resources.

Conclusion

By this standard of Giving we see that God gave all in providing Himself, in the 2nd person of the Trinity to be the means by which we can have peace with God.

Christ is the greatest of all who have given all for while we were still enemies the Lord Christ gave His all that we might be reconciled to God through the death of His Son.

Christ emptied Himself and bore our griefs and and carried our sorrows. He is the archetype Widow who gives all of which the Widow here is but an echo.

If we are to have a giving disposition it must be imbued with gratitude that comes from the God who gave all and gives all. We do not give in order to get. We give out of gratitude because we have already been given all by the one who gave all in our stead.



 

	


	





	

		
		
All Saint’s Sunday Sermon
	


	
	
	

		
39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. 12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.


Today is All Saints Sunday.  Throughout much of Western History the Church celebrates this day in recognition of all our Brothers and Sisters, Fathers, and Mothers in Christ who have gone before us and who now comprise the Church at rest. We take this day to remember and commemorate the Saints, just as the writer of the book of Hebrews remembers and commemorates the Old Testament Saints in Hebrews chapter 11.  The writer of Hebrews holds up these long departed as positive examples of faith and models these saints before the congregations as examples of the kind of faith that the Hebrew congregation is to have.


In terms of remembering and honoring the long dead we do the same thing in our broader culture, as we are doing here on this Lord’s Day. In our broader culture we have days like “Veteran’s Day,” and “Memorial Day,” where the purpose is to honor those who have gone before in a general sense. “All Saints Day” is to the Church of Jesus Christ what Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day is to us as Americans.


On “All Saints Day” we are reminded that we are who we are because we are in Christ and being in Christ we have been given a Christian History as lived out by those who have gone before.


This is a celebration you will seldom find in Reformed churches. The Reformation was known for getting rid of the idea of saints because the idea of saints had become a business with praying to saints, and a calendar full of holidays for saints and and the blasphemous idea that dead Saints could intercede for those still living. The Medieval Church thought they were honoring the Saints in such a way but in point of fact they were dishonoring Christ as our alone Mediator with God by lifting departed saints to such an exalted positions.


But I think the Reformed Church needs “All Saints Day.”  The Bishop of Rome has no property of rights over 2000 years of Christian heritage. If the danger 500 yeas ago was to worship the Saints or to make them silly by giving us things like “A Saint for oversleeping,” (St.Vitus), or a Saint for Ice Skaters ( St. Lidwina) or a Saint for caterpillars ( St Magnus). then our danger today is forgetting our History. our story, and those who have gone before.


And So we come to the first necessity of “All Saints Day,”


I.) By Restoring “All Saints Day” to our Calendar we can reconnect with our Past 


Notice what the Writer to the Hebrews does here in Hebrews 11 & 12. He invokes the Saints of the past and their faith hoping to connect the Hebrew congregation with a living and dynamic past. The Hebrew congregation is in danger of returning to the Old Covenant because they are weary and what the writer to Hebrews does is to bolster their faith by recalling the faith of the Patriarchs.


Here we see a linkage between the past and the future that much of the modern Democratic Western Church has forgotten.


When a Church cuts itself off from its past and forgets those who have gone before it becomes rootless and so prone to being blown around by every stranger wind of doctrine. The writer to the Hebrews, much in keeping with the idea of “Honoring our Father and Mother,” seeks to bring forth the History of the Hebrew congregation so as to root them again in their undoubted catholic Christian Faith.


This desire to root them in the past is done so as to propel them into a Christian future. The past and the future are thus intertwined. In the way we comprehend our past is the way we will seek to craft our future. If our past is characterized by faithful men and women who have gone before we will see that as the ideal and so will seek to live ourselves as men and women with the same kind of faith as those who have gone before. And so an embrace of our Christian past will be a mighty stimulant to creating a God honoring Christian present and future.


The idea of “All Saints Day” then is not so that we can live in the past. The idea of “All Saints Day” is that by recognizing and honoring those who have gone before who finished the race well, we might be inspired ourselves to be the kind of men and women those Saints were to the end that eventually the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.


So … “All Saints Day,” is not about the Past without, at the same time being about a future oriented people. When we get cut off from our past then we lose our identity in Christ who is the author and finisher of the Faith of all Saints — past, present, and future. When we get cut off from past then we run the danger of having our Christian faith reinterpreted for us through a historical prism that is not particularly Christian.


When  the Church loses its self understanding of its past it immediately loses its vitality for the future. This is what was happening to the congregation of the Hebrews. They had lost their identity and so the writer to the Hebrew parades their History before them…. the History of the Saints.


Without a strong sense of those who have gone before and of our past we will eventually adopt a different past in our thinking and so will end up have having a different future. Those with an agenda will insert a different past that will serve their humanist agenda for the future.


This is what is happening with the advent of Multiculturalism and Political Correctness. Strip the past of its nobility. Bespatter our Christian forbears with scurrilous lies. All seeking to make us repent for a noble and Christian past.


So in order to reconnect with our glorious past we celebrate “All Saints Day.” We realize that if we don’t revitalize our Christian past and the Saints who made it (Historical theology) we will suffer grave consequences.


1.) A diminished short term future


Unless we can convey the same conquering faith that characterized the Saints who have gone before our future will be diminished. We will become pariahs fit to only pay the Jizya tax of some Muslim overlord. We will become economically limited and socially isolated.


2.) The probable loss of our children to the faith


If we can not esteem the Christian past to our children we will not be able to convey the meaning of the Christian faith as being much more then fairy tales. The Christian faith, in order to be sustained in our children must make a deep imprint in terms of how Christianity has shaped those who have gone before into Heroes. Without that reality the Christian faith will lose its substantive meaning and so other faith systems will intrude themselves upon our children’s thinking.


3.) Finally the death of the Christian West


If we will not conquer the world by a faith informed by the past and the Saints who have gone before we ourselves will be formed by alien faiths. We are seeing that happen daily all about us. Either Christianity will absorb and convert on the strength of its undoubted catholic Christian faith as lived out by the Saints who have gone before or we will be absorbed by the faith of aliens and strangers.


So what must we do in order to recapture our Christian Past. Well we must engage upon the very same thing that the writer to the Hebrews is doing. We must keep telling about the Saints who have gone before. This is something St. Paul did as well. Using the OT Saints as a negative example he wrote,


11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.


We must give our children Christian History. Full of heroism, struggle, triumph and loss. Christian history that inspires all ages with resolve, tenacity, and confidence in Christ. We must give them a history that gives them a reason to believe and keep believing that Christianity is both true and is superior to all other faiths.


We must tell them about the great Captain of the faith; the Lord Jesus Christ. We must tell them of the Saints in Scripture and History who were what they were because of their being rooted in Christ.  We must tell them of the Saints in Church History. The Mission of St. Patrick and then the Green Martyrs. We must tell them of Augustine and his writings. We must tell them of Perpetua and Polycarp. We must tell them of Charles Martel, Jean LaVellette, and John Sobieski. We must teach them Geert De Groote and the Brethren of the Common life. We must teach them of Jan Comenius and his resolve to teach the Christian faith. We must teach them of Huguenots, Covenanters, Pilgrims, and Voor-Trekkers.  We must teach them of Henry Martyn, Raymond Lull, and Samuel Zwemer. We must tell them of Faithful Christian wives and Mothers like Monica, Susanna Wesley, and Katharina von Bora.  We must tell them of how Ambrose denied to communion to Emperor Theodosius, how Calvin denied communion to enemies of Christ, and how Gergory VII humbled Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV at Canossa. We must tell them of the saints Columbus, Cortez, and Henry Hudson.


We must tell them of Christian Grandparents and great Grandparents and cousins and Aunts and Uncles. We must let them know that theirs is a Saintly lineage and that to be a Douma, or a Bacon, or a Matens or a McAtee is to be a Christian. Because of God’s covenantal faithfulness to a thousand generations our lineage is sainted.


So, we are reminded by the celebration of this day then that to be a Christian is thus distinct from being an American. After all, those Americans who have no interest in Christ and His Church are not celebrating this day today. We as Christians have our own History and the celebration of “All Saints Day,” communicates that.


This is our Faith and unless we pass it on with all its regal history we will rightfully lose our children.


II.) By Restoring “All Saints Day” to our Calendar we can Emphasize the Communion of the Saints


When we talk about “All Saints Day,” of course we are talking about the Communion of the Saints.  The holy catholic church of which we speak of in the Apostle’s creed corresponds to the church visible while the communion of saints corresponds to the church invisible. The communion of saints means that inward and spiritual fellowship of true believers on earth and in heaven which is based on their union with Christ. It is their fellowship with God the Father the Son and the Spirit (comp. 1 John 1:3 1 Cor 1:9 Phil 2:1) and with each other a fellowship not broken by death but extending to the saints above. A most precious idea


The saints in heaven and on earth

But one communion make

All join in Christ their living Head

And of his grace partake


Here are all these Saints who have gone before listed by the writer to the Hebrews and yet a relationship exists between the living and the dead even though the living comprise the Church Militant and the dead comprise the Church at rest.


In the confessional tradition of the Reformation, as expressed in the Augsburg Confession, the Book of Common Prayer, the Belgic Confession, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, and the Cambridge Platform, the members of the church are said to have a blessed union and communion with one another and with Christ.[7] The Second Helvetic Confession says that those “who truly know and rightly worship and serve the true God, in Jesus Christ the Saviour, by the word and the Holy Spirit, and who by faith are partakers of all those good graces which are freely offered through Christ … are sanctified by the blood of the Son of God. Of these is that article of our Creed wholly to be understood, ‘I believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints.’ “[8] Question 55 of the Heidelberg Catechism teaches that “the communion of saints” means “First, that believers, all and every one, as members of Christ, have part in him and in all his treasures and gifts. Secondly, that each one must feel himself bound to use his gifts, readily and cheerfully, for the advantage and welfare of other members.” Calvin recognized that the phrase expressed that the church is a community of heart and soul, a diversity of graces and gifts.[9] Although the Reformed creeds encourage us to imitate the faith of deceased saints, they never promote venerating, invoking, or praying to them.


So, to celebrate “All Saints Day” is to magnify Christ. There is only one reason we or they are or were saints and that is due to the finished work of Jesus Christ. All the Saints have been grafted into and united with Him and so we have fellowship with one another. Christ is the champion of this day. He is the one who has formed this Holy body by His work of turning aside the Father’s wrath. He has given us a reason to live besides material comfort. Being a Saint is NOT a result of being super Christian. It is merely the result of being found clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.


Conclusion


We cherish then, the honored dead

Magnifying our Covenant Head

Ours is a living faith that gives the lie

That  faith or Saints can ever die


Happy All Saints Day.

	


	





	

		
		
In Defense of the Family
	


	
	
	

		
Recently someone pointed me to this article from 2010 from an OPC Minister. I think it particularly bad and will spend some time pointing out its problems and hopefully correcting them.


http://opc.org/os.html?article_id=226


OPC Minister (Hereinafter OPC)


Families Are of this World, but the Church Is of the Next


We begin by observing that marriage is a temporary, for-this-life-only institution. Although marriage is given us by God for several reasons, its main purpose is to symbolize the relationship between Christ and his church, as the Apostle Paul teaches in Ephesians 5:25-32. This primary and exemplary purpose is more central to the institution of marriage than childbearing, which is the means by which a marriage becomes a family.


Bret


We would note in our hymnody we sing of families being reunited in the next life,


Thus to the parents and their seed

shall thy salvation come

and numerous households will meet at last

in one eternal home


But beyond hymnody the speaks of the coming day when the circle of family will be unbroken Scripture gives us reason to think that families exist beyond this life. In the book of Revelation there is the repeated mention of Nations present in the new Jerusalem. Now, as Nations are constituted in the Scriptures as a people with a shared lineage (Genesis),  a shared history (Exodus), having a common law (Deuteronomy) sharing a common land (Joshua) and having kin leadership (Judges) it seems obvious that when the book of Revelation speaks of Nations in the New Jerusalem that families, like the Church, are of the next world.


Revelation 22:1 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.


Revelation 21:23And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.


Rev. Kingsbury seems to think that the new Heaven and Earth is an existence that is largely discontinuous with this life. It is better to think that what is to be expected of the new Heaven and Earth is a transfiguration of this life with all the expected continuities and discontinuities. The result of the consummation then is not abolition of this world but rather redemption of it including the redemption of a family structure that exists in the next world.


Second, on this point, though the Ephesians 5 passage does teach that Christian Marriage is analogous of Christ and the Church, Ephesians 5 nowhere explicitly teaches that this analogy is the main purpose of Marriage. Now certainly, the primary purpose of Marriage, like the primary purpose of all things that we as Christians do is to glorify God but to say that the main purpose of Marriage is to symbolize the relationship between Christ and his church goes beyond what Ephesians 5 teaches.


OPC


What do the Scriptures say?


Interestingly, no text in Scripture teaches that bearing children is a universal purpose of marriage, that is, something which should characterize every marriage. While Psalms 127 and 128, among other passages, say children are a blessing, they do not say every marriage ought to produce children.


Bret


So, what is being advanced here is that Scripture does teach that children are a blessing from God but that some marriages do not need or want to be blessed by God?


OPC


Genesis 1:28 records the “dominion mandate” given to the first married couple: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Some assume, therefore, that married couples ought be about the business of filling the earth with more people. However, God gave Adam and Eve this commandment not because they were a married couple, but because they were the married couple—that is, all mankind. Hence, the dominion mandate is given to all humanity and is to be carried out by humanity as a whole, but not necessarily by every human being. To put it another way, if Genesis 1:28 means every marriage ought to produce children, then every marriage ought also to be dedicated to agricultural productivity.


Bret


1.) Where in the text of Genesis does Rev. Kingsbury find that the reason for God’s command to be fruitful and multiply was “because they were the married couple—that is, all mankind”? Of course, that is eisegetical work on th part of Rev. Kingsbury.


2.) How is the dominion mandate given to all humanity, and to be carried out by all humanity as a whole without individual humans carrying out the dominion mandate?


3.) Genesis 1:28 does not say to Adam and Eve to be farmers, though Adam likely was a tiller of the ground. Genesis 1:28 teaches a cultural mandate that requires that all men, as God’s sub-regent, to have dominion over creation. That command to be God’s sub-regent unto godly dominion remains, just as the command remains that all men be fruitful and multiply.


OPC


Marriage’s symbolic function will be moot in glory when we have perfect union with Christ, and so it will pass away: “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Matt. 22:30). If marriages pass away, then so do families. The family, in its nuclear form, grows out of and depends on a marriage for its existence; therefore, whatever is true of the greater (marriage) is true of the lesser (family).


Even in this life, families are temporary. They are regularly broken up and reorganized as children marry and form their own families. In fact, whenever children grow up and go out into the world, their parent’s authority ends. For practical purposes, this also effectively dissolves the family. Of course, I do not deny the enduring nature of kinship ties which persist as family members go their own ways, or even when a divorce occurs. When I speak of family dissolution here, I am using the word “family” in its most narrow, technical sense, i.e., the nuclear family.


Bret


1.) The fact that in the resurrection that “they neither marry, nor are given in marriage,” does not mean or prove that family disappears in the eschaton. If indeed future marriage passes away that does not mean that past family realities disappear. Given Kingsbury’s reasoning we might also say that since they neither marry nor are given in marriage therefore gender passes away in the eschaton. If marriage passes away, then so does gender. Gender is necessary for marriage and marriage depends on gender therefore since there will no marriage in the eschaton therefore there is to be no gender. Whatever is true of the greater (marriage) is true of the lesser (gender).


Rev. Kingsbury’s reasoning is curious.


2.) A family that extends into new family units does not mean the end of families, per Rev. Kingsbury, but rather their continuance. One problem is that Rev. Kingsbury thinks in terms of “nuclear family,” while the Scripture speaks of families in their Trustee capacity. Family is not defined, per Scripture, as the Nuclear unit, but rather more in terms of what we might refer to as clans. So, Christian families are not broken up with the advent of the marriage of children and the arrival of grandchildren but instead are strengthened and extended.


OPC


Families are like the rest of this world: impermanent and continually passing away. Therefore, families have a diminished importance within a Christian taxonomy of values, especially when compared to the church. While the church is eternal and will not find her perfect expression until glory, she has begun and lives out that life already, in the here and now. The church manifests the eternal and heavenly in the middle of a temporary and earthly world. Because she is eternal, the church is more important than the temporary family.


Bret


We established earlier that Christian families are not impermanent but pass into the eschaton therefore the fallacy of this argument is obvious.


The argument that the Church is more important than the family is like arguing that the left leg is more important than the right leg when it comes to walking. It is a non sequitur argument. The fact that the Church and the family are bound up together in importance is seen in the Baptismal font. God claims our familial generations as His own and in Baptism ratifies His claim upon His and our seed. Baptism speaks of God’s faithfulness to His promise to the generations.


To argue that the Church is more important than family is like arguing that pregnancy is more important than sex. Pregnancy may well be more important than sex but without sex no ones getting pregnant.


Secondly, while I understand that “Word and Sacrament” belong uniquely to the Church I’m not sure why the Church alone is able to manifest the eternal and heavenly in the middle of a temporary and earthly world. The permanence of matters eternal can incarnate themselves in family worship and in Christian families.


OPC Minister


Because the eternal church has precedence over the earthly and temporary family, Jesus demands loyalty to himself first and last. In a decision between Jesus and his church versus the family, Jesus wins. This is simple when parents are unbelievers and guilty of obvious sin, but less obvious when one has Christian parents who attempt to usurp the church’s authority.


Bret


Of course the Lord Christ is the priority above all priorities. Who could ever disagree with that? However, lest we fall into some kind of ecclesiocentrism I would be careful about perfectly equating the Lord Christ and the Church as if the voice of the Church is always the voice of the Lord Christ. While it is true “that in a decision between Jesus and his church versus the (errant) family, Jesus wins,” it is also true that in a decision between the Lord Christ and an errant Church demanding departure from a faithful family, the family standing with the Lord Christ wins.


Rev. Kingsbury misses the close interdependence of Church and Family. For examples Elders are not qualified to serve in the Church without managing his family well. This provides insight into the interdependence of Institutional Church and family.  Elders are to be husbands of one wife thus again drawing linkage between leadership in home and church.


In a time when the family is being viciously attacked from all sides it really does us little good for representatives of the Church to be “reasoning” like this. Now, certainly, it is possible to lift the family above the Church so that it is wrongly prioritized but the answer to that is not to tear down the family but to show that the Church has its proper place in God’s economy.