In the 3-year set of readings, the readings for this coming Sunday, November 18, 2007 are Malachi 4:1-6 (Sun of Righteousness); 2 Thessalonians 3:1-13 (Lord is faithful) and Luke 21:5-36 (Fall of the Temple). Chosen as the text for the sermon is Luke 21:13 which reads, “But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony.”
The theologian of glory not only assumes that salvation is by works that please God but also that he can figure out God’s attitude toward him by what he is experiencing. That makes Luke 21 for hard reading as Jesus prophecies that the future holds wars and commotions, nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, great earthquakes along with famines and pestilence along with persecution and death to the faithful.
Doesn’t sound like a very rosy picture, does it? But the theologian of the cross refuses to decipher God’s attitude about himself by examining what he is experiencing. That was the problem with three of Job’s “friends” and his wife who could not understand that apparently bad things do happen to good people.
Many in the congregation are experiencing similar events in their own lives and wonder whether God has left them. That is why verse 13 which explains God’s reason for such calamities is so difficult to comprehend. It reveals that all these things will happen so that Christians will have an occasion for testimony. Sometimes we can create such occasions; other times God places them in our laps.
An example of the former is a truck driver who, after listening to the Law and Gospel radio broadcast on Maundy Thursday (kfuo.org), affixed the following sign to his 18 wheeler. “Hoc Est Corpus Meum” Translated as “This Is My Body” it refers to the teaching of Jesus Himself that in, with and under the forms of bread and wine are the true body and blood of Jesus Christ. We can only imagine the multitude of truck-stop conversations in regard to the Lord’s Supper due to that sign.
Calamities and tragedies are opportunities for testimony but not about us. Proper witnessing focuses on Jesus and Him alone as the hope for the future. For what hope was held out to those who witnessed the crucifixion on Friday only to be jolted back to reality in regard to the events of three days later?
Name:Tom Baker
Pastor Tom,
it is continual that you continue to pick out such difficult passages and make them simple to see.
But having said that I now quote some similar and say, Which way is up?
2Ch 15:3 For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law,
2Ch 15:4 but when in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them.
2Ch 15:5 In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands.
2Ch 15:6 They were broken in pieces. Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress.
2Ch 15:7 But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”
And, how about this one:
1Pe 1:6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
1Pe 1:7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith–more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire–may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Well, say it ain’t so, PLEASE LORD, SAY IT IS NOT NECESSARY!!!
But, before I go, I have to admit that I am a HALF-Faith, man of Faith.
Huh?
Yes, that’s what I always say after reading Hebrews 11.
The earlier Saints of “great” Faith are the ones I want to associate with, but these guys, no way!
Heb 11:35 Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.
Heb 11:36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
Heb 11:37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated–
Heb 11:38 of whom the world was not worthy–wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
Heb 11:39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised,
Michael
Eureka, Ca.