Unimaginable God

Posted on by korgrocker

“But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.””
1 Corinthians 2:8-9 NLT

Worldly people, unbelievers in God, have no idea about God and His wisdom. A human being has no natural contact with the spiritual world, a super-natural place which we cannot see, touch, smell, taste or hear using our natural senses. And so anything a human being tries to work out about a mystical and elusive world beyond their senses is bound to fail. But a person rooted in a world driven by their senses bolstered by human reasoning and logic, comes up with a wisdom that falls far short of what God has made available. There is of course nothing wrong with human wisdom when properly utilised. That is why God has created humans with a brain that is amazing in its capabilities, but imaginative scientists and philosophers come up with much that pushes boundaries but inevitably finds limitations. Hardly a day goes past without some new discovery about our natural world, be it an atomic particle, or a new vaccine. Sadly, theories regarding the origins of the universe and the purpose of life itself change regularly and we find that human wisdom is woefully lacking, with significant limitations.

But what about God’s wisdom? Inaccessible although it is to mere unbelieving humans, we pilgrims are allowed a glimpse of the thoughts and plans of God. They are not available to people who fail to recognise Him and believe that He exists. But in those thoughts and plans we find God’s wisdom, and in His Word, the Bible, we find hints, glimpses, advice and assurances about this Heavenly world that we will one day find. Paul quoted a verse from Isaiah 64 in his Corinthian letter, which in the original reads, “For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!” (Isaiah 64:4). Paul’s memory came up with slightly different words, but the meaning is much the same. We have a loving Heavenly Father who is working for us and preparing a world, an environment, something and somewhere, but we cannot even start to imagine what it will be like. And even though the prophets of old were given tantalising hints of what was to come, no one can get anywhere near discovering what lies ahead. Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah and even the old Apostle John all had thoughts and visions inspired by the Holy Spirit, but there is a problem. What they “saw” is so far beyond anything seen or imagined that we will find they are not even close to what God has for us in His plans. 

So human wisdom, thoughts, imaginations, and discoveries are silent when it comes to God’s spiritual world. Jesus said to His disciples, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am” (John 14:1-3). We know that one day we will have a home where Jesus lives, because we know and believe that He is alive today, but what form that home will take we don’t know. Our imagination usually starts at the point of human knowledge but then ventures into unknown places. Places that “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined”. The Holy Spirit revealed something to Isaiah about God, ““My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). Human wisdom cannot bring us to the understanding that the Creator God loves His people and that He has prepared the glories of eternity to share with them. Our intellects will try and work it all out, but will come up painfully short. But we cannot trust in what God say He has for us without faith in Him. It is only by having faith in God, by believing the hints, glimpses and prophetic words contained in the Bible, that we will be able to be assured of our destination with our “unimaginable God”. The writer to the Hebrews wrote, “ … it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). 

But can we pilgrims start to feel a little excitement starting to build in our spirits? Are we feeling a little like a small child promised a trip to the seaside, feeling the anticipation starting to appear in our minds, our imaginations? What will the sea and sand be like? Will it be sunny? And so on. And of course we mustn’t forget the cry from the back seat – “are we nearly there yet?” The wise old pastor and expositor, John MacArthur, died recently and he will now be finding out if what he preached was in fact the reality he is now experiencing. Such revelation will also become available to all of us one day. But we pilgrims at least know where we are heading, having been given a glimpse of what is ahead. Pity all those who don’t believe because they are heading for a nasty shock and a future about which they can do nothing. All those poor people who have relied only on their human wisdom and knowledge, and who have rejected the King of Glory.

Dear Heavenly Father. Our human minds can never work out what plans You have for us in the future. But we believe in You and in the Words of Your Son Jesus, with a faith that will never be rocked by world events. We praise and worship You today. Amen.

Ordinary Folk

Posted on by korgrocker

Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 NLT

With whom do we identify in our societies? With those who live in big luxury houses in our suburbs, or those who rent a house or flat from the local council? With those who work in a “white collar” job in an office, or as a “blue collar” worker in a factory? Do we still separate people in our minds into “working class” or “professional class”, “middle class” or “upper class”? In these enlightened days we tend to avoid classifying people for fear of offending them, but distinctions still apply below the radar. TV programmes such as “Downton Abbey” highlight the distinction between the wealthy aristocracy “upstairs” and the working class servants “downstairs” in years gone by. Well, it appears that the Corinthian church had a congregation drawn from the “downstairs” demographic because Paul wrote, “few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy” when they became believers in Christ. These were ordinary folk, and in many churches and fellowships today we will find them well represented. Nothing wrong with that of course, and there may be a good reason for churches to be populated from the less well off in society. Those who have much are less likely to realise that they need God for their salvation. They believe that by their own efforts they have added to their wealth and have no need for any form of religion. A few years ago I found myself walking around the more affluent area of a Central Scotland town with a local pastor and we prayed much, lamenting that there was no-one from this area represented in the local church. They had their neatly manicured lawns and flower beds resplendent with colour. They had luxury cars sitting in their driveways, and money oozed from every brick of their big, architect-designed, houses. In Paul’s eyes, these would have been those who thought they were “wise” by human standards. But a short distance away was a housing estate made up of what has come to be called “social housing”, populated by people who had little, who often struggled to make ends meet, and who lacked the education and employment that would have elevated them into the same league as the “have’s” just down the road. But such people were represented well in the local church, and Paul would possibly have referred to them as those the “world considers foolish”. These were the people who were “powerless” and Paul said that God would use them to “shame those who think they are wise”.

Perhaps in Paul’s days the same principle between the “have’s” and the “have-nots” applied, with those puffed up with their human wisdom looking down on those who were at the lower ends of society, the slaves and servants, considered of little relative value and therefore expendable. But Paul emphasised the fact that God uses those the world despises to do His work. There is a tendency of the earthly wise to have an overblown sense of their own worth, and in their pride and arrogance they have no time for the things of God. They instead adopt a critical view of Christians, remembering that it was Karl Marx who disdainfully referred to “religion” as being the “opiate of the masses”, implying that it was only ordinary people, who made up the “masses”, who would benefit from a belief in God. 

Paul put things into context when he wrote, “When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?”(Romans 9:21). All human beings are created by God with a similar appearance – two arms, two legs etc. – and all from the same lump of “clay”. As Jesus told in the parable of the talents, we are each given different gifts and opportunities, and no-one is better than anyone else. The people in the Corinthian church were a gifted people, because they were initially chosen by God and He used them, despised by the world as they were, to “to bring to nothing what the world considers important“. In the context of eternity, a short life span on 70 or so years is but the blink of an eye, and the message of the Cross, no matter how foolish it appears, becomes the most important account that human beings will ever need to hear. Death is a great leveller, because at that point all the wealth, education, and belongings will be left behind, souls traveling on into what for many will become a distressing experience. 

Jesus founded a movement that shook up the world in the First Century and it all started with ordinary folk. A few fishermen were the first called by Jesus, and we know what the “have’s” thought of them from Acts 4:13, “The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognised them as men who had been with Jesus“. Ordinary men transformed by the wisdom of God. Men not puffed up by their knowledge, but instead in love with Jesus, determined to follow Him regardless of the consequences. With God in their lives they went on to establish the early church, and today there are estimated to be 2.4 billion Christians on our planet. A phenomenal number of people and far beyond anything that could have been established by human wisdom.

Today, we pilgrims are “ordinary folk” who are sold out for Jesus. We may have all the human knowledge and wisdom in the world, but along with Paul we have made this a secondary factor in our lives. Instead, we promote what the world considers foolishness, the message of the Cross of Christ, wisdom indeed.

Dear Father God. You have upended the priorities in society and we are accordingly re-orientated. Your message of hope is now ours to share and we ask for Your help in leading us to the right people. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Signs From Heaven (2)

Posted on by korgrocker

“Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense. But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.”
1 Corinthians 1:21-25 NLT

Paul wrote that the message of the Cross was foolishness to the Jews because they “ask for signs from heaven” instead. But such a request for Heavenly signs is more common than perhaps we first think. We have an inbuilt desire to try and detect what is going to happen in the future, by what we observe today. Take for instance the weather. Jesus Himself referred to this in Matthew 16:2-3, “He replied, “You know the saying, ‘Red sky at night means fair weather tomorrow; red sky in the morning means foul weather all day.’ You know how to interpret the weather signs in the sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the signs of the times!” This is something we still do today, and more often than not we find that a wonderful sunset precedes good weather in the following day. There is also a tendency to try and anticipate a thunderstorm by the humidity level at the time. Farmers apparently can sense a change in the weather by observing cows lying down in a field but what that has to do with anything is a mystery to me. Then we have of course the eco-doom-mongers who predict major changes in the weather in years ahead based on the levels of greenhouse gases, facts that have spawned a cohort of activists and extremists who try and disrupt normal life in society to further their own ideological aims. To them carbon dioxide levels are an indicator of what is to come, and they may of course be right, but with much angst, humanity seems to be hurtling towards a much warmer planet in the years ahead, apparently powerless to do much about it. The UK is painfully heading for “net zero” while countries like China and India are building more power stations burning coal, a major greenhouse contributor. So the debate continues, but in the “signs of the times” that Jesus spoke about, He was referring to something else.

The message of the Cross, shared through our “foolish preaching”, is, however, timeless. Regardless of weather patterns there is something far more significant about the spiritual realms that Jews have always been aware of. They knew that the great events and miracles in their heritage and history had a spiritual basis, something that was timeless and would never be forgotten. God had performed mighty wonders for them at various stages in their history, and memories of these were meditated upon, as encouraged by Psalm 145:4-5, “Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power. I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendour and your wonderful miracles“. These “mighty acts” were remembered, and more were anticipated by the Jews, none more significant than the coming of the Messiah. In Isaiah 7:10-11 we read, “Later, the Lord sent this message to King Ahaz: “Ask the Lord your God for a sign of confirmation, Ahaz. Make it as difficult as you want—as high as heaven or as deep as the place of the dead””. Unfortunately Ahaz refused to test the Lord, but Isaiah told of a sign anyway, “All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’)” (Isaiah 7:14). There were other prophecies of signs of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament as well. Isaiah 9:6, “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace“. Then we have Micah 5:2, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf“. So not only was there an expectancy in Israel about the coming Messiah, the prophets of old provided details of the signs that would precede the event, signs that would reshape history as we know it. How did Jesus’ listeners in Matthew 16, the Pharisees and Sadducees, get it so wrong? Signs were provided and if they had bothered to check them out they would have found the evidence they required.

That thought brings us on to other things Jesus said, this time about His second coming. Jesus will indeed return to this planet and we know exactly how. Acts 1:11, ““Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!”” We also know where He will return from the next verse, which records that His ascension took place from the Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem. But it’s the “when” that is the problem for mankind. In Matthew 24, Jesus gave us a few indicators, signs, of what will precede His return. Matthew 24:5-8, “for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come“. ‭‭Another sign was given by Daniel and repeated by Jesus in Matthew 24:15, “”The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about—the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place.” (Reader, pay attention!)”. We’re not totally sure what this is, but I think we will know all about it when it happens. And then if we read on we find that natural events will be impacted, “Immediately after the anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken” (Matthew 24:29). Finally the thing that we have been waiting for occurs, “For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes” (Matthew 24:27). All these are signs of the End of the Age, and Jesus’ return to this planet. 

The Jews “ask for signs from Heaven” but we pilgrims should also be expecting signs as well. There are two parallel series of events taking place over the times since the creation of the world, one taking place in the physical realm and the other in the spiritual. One day the two will converge with the glorious return of Jesus, but this happened once before. The Cross was a cataclysmic event in which Heaven and earth collided in a moment that set the scene for the final phase of the history of Planet Earth. With excitement bubbling up within us, we find ourselves empowered to spread the Message of the Cross because it is the believers in this Good News that will find a door open before them, allowing them to gain entry to the Kingdom of Heaven before the old disappears. Consider that this Message is like a lifeboat rescuing the survivors from a shipwreck, moments before the ship plunges into the depths of the sea, never to be seen again. Only those who grasp the Message of the Cross with both hands, believing it without any doubts, with body, soul and spirit, will find their way to Heaven and the New Earth, yet to come. Are we ready? Don’t miss the boat, Folks, and don’t forget to spread the message so that our loved ones will be with us when the time comes.

Dear Father God. You sent Your Son Jesus to this world to rescue mankind from the consequences of their sins. For this wonderful yet poignant event we are so grateful, and we pray that we will never waver from our life living under the shadow of the Cross. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Signs From Heaven (1)

Posted on by korgrocker

“Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense. But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.”
1 Corinthians 1:21-25 NLT

Paul set out the response to “foolish preaching” from the various people groups present in his world at that time. He singled out the Jews “ who ask for signs from heaven”, the Greeks “who seek human wisdom”,and the Gentiles who “say it’s all nonsense”. That pretty much encompasses the peoples and nations in the First Century world. The implication, taking this in reverse order, is that the Gentiles, people groups who lacked a Jewish background and education, and who were not Greek intellectuals, discounted the message of the Cross as mere rubbish, considering it deluded messages from this strange and even fearsome, driven man called Paul. I always imagine Paul as being a John Knox type of person, a man so committed to delivering his message that he ended up in trouble with the authorities, beaten and whipped for his trouble. Much later John Knox also ended up persecuted because of his message, even spending time as a galley slave. 

The Greeks were great philosophers and thinkers. Well, the intellectuals amongst them, because they too would have had a population that got on with life eking out a subsistence-based living. But Greek thinking has dominated much of our thought today, with men such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others influencing even Christianity. For example, Aristotle’s emphasis on reason, logic, and the study of the natural world impacted Christian thought. His concept of a universe with an ultimate purpose and a prime mover (God) resonated with Christian theologians. But Paul knew what God knew, that Greek thought was based on human wisdom alone, and by being so rejected what they considered the foolishness of the message of the Cross. We pilgrims refer to a higher power, God Himself, for the wisdom we require. 

But the Jews were a nation much blessed by God and in their heritage they experienced many “signs from Heaven”. Take, for example, all the signs Moses produced before Pharaoh. The shepherd’s staff becoming a snake. The leprous hand, the water from the Nile turning to blood, the plagues of frogs and flies, and others. But then there was the big one, the first Passover, a festival still celebrated to this day by the Jews. God warned Moses that all the firstborn sons in Egypt were about to die, and the remedy for the Israelite slaves was to smear the blood of a Passover lamb on the door posts and lintels of their homes. We can read all about it in Exodus 12. And then we have the crossing of the Red Sea, the water from rocks in the wilderness, the food from Heaven called “manna”. Later on there was the miraculous relief from death for the three Jewish young men in the fiery furnace. Daniel in the Lion’s den is another story much loved by our Sunday school children. And we continue with David and Goliath, the floating axe head, and even the time when the sun and moon stood still in the sky to give the Israelites more time to kill their enemies (Joshua 10:13). But the expectation of the Old Testament Jews for a sign can be seen by the story of Gideon’s fleece, and in my early Christian days, there was one or two church members who claimed to get guidance from God by “laying out a fleece” of some kind. Their prayers went something like, “If You want me to do this God then please let the sun appear from the clouds at 11:15 this morning”. I was never convinced personally, but then it’s all about faith I suppose.

A good example of the Jewish expectation for a sign can be found in 2 Kings 20:8-11, “Meanwhile, Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, “What sign will the Lord give to prove that he will heal me and that I will go to the Temple of the Lord three days from now?” Isaiah replied, “This is the sign from the Lord to prove that he will do as he promised. Would you like the shadow on the sundial to go forward ten steps or backward ten steps?” “The shadow always moves forward,” Hezekiah replied, “so that would be easy. Make it go ten steps backward instead.” So Isaiah the prophet asked the Lord to do this, and he caused the shadow to move ten steps backward on the sundial of Ahaz!” God answered that particular request for a sign, but there were probably many requests that received no response from Heaven. 

In Matthew 16:1, we read “One day the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Jesus, demanding that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority”. Jesus’ response was very telling, “He replied, “You know the saying, ‘Red sky at night means fair weather tomorrow; red sky in the morning means foul weather all day.’ You know how to interpret the weather signs in the sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the signs of the times! Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign, but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah.” Then Jesus left them and went away“. It is interesting that Jesus knew what was ahead of Him, and He used the story of Jonah in the belly of a fish as an indication, a type, of His death on the Cross. Jonah 1:17, “Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights“. As we know Jesus died on the day we call Good Friday, and He was raised from the dead on the third day, the first Easter Sunday. But the message of “the sign of the prophet Jonah” went beyond that. After Jonah was vomited out of the fish onto dry land, he proceeded to Nineveh as God requested of him, and we read, “On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow” (Jonah 3:4-5). And we read the outcome in Jonah 3:10, “When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened“. The Pharisees and Sadducees had observed at first hand a demon-possessed man who was both blind and mute being healed and yet they refused to believe this was a miracle from God Himself. What more did they want?

We pilgrims have faithfully believed the message of the Cross. To us it is not foolishness at all, as Paul wrote in Romans 1:16-17, “For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life””. We believe that Jesus came to fulfil God’s plan for the salvation of mankind, and nothing will convince us otherwise. The “foolishness” of the message of the Cross is the most exciting and life-changing piece of news this world has ever seen or heard. We must shout it out from the rooftops so that all will hear it and experience salvation as well. We don’t need human wisdom, signs from Heaven or anything else. Our lives are focused on Jesus. Forever.

Dear Lord Jesus. We thank You for Your wisdom, grace and love. please help us to stay closest You and Your teaching because through it we grown to be the people You want us to be. Thank You. Amen.

Foolish Preaching

Posted on by korgrocker

s the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.” So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.”
1 Corinthians 1:19-23 NLT

A mini-rant from Paul about the dichotomy between human and Godly wisdom introduces the theme in these five verses before us today. In his day Paul knew of men who, by reputation, were considered philosophers and who made their mark on the culture at the time. Men such as Seneca, who was a writer and advisor to the Roman emperor Nero. Then there was Epictetus, a Greek Stoic, who was born into slavery and later founded a philosophy school in Greece. Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, attempted to harmonize Jewish scripture with Greek philosophy, particularly Platonism. He believed that reason was a gift from God and that philosophy could be used to understand divine revelation. Three “wise” men, great thinkers of their day, but of whom Paul said God had made look foolish. Oratorical skills, brilliance of mind and thought, and a scholarly background all conspire to produce … a fool. Not because of their gifts, but because their thinking was all about human matters and, in the context of God and Heaven, had no value at all. A “brilliant debater” will not get into Heaven. Regardless of his words, he will still die and find a lost eternity.

Interestingly, Paul wrote that God said “that the world would never know him through human wisdom”. No-one can get into Heaven by their own efforts. I know someone who claims to have had a revelation as to what is there, and has even gone so far as to describe what God has revealed to him about Heaven. Such knowledge, he said, revealed to him that God had made Heaven with different compartments, each for a world religion. So the Buddhists would be in one place, Muslims in another and so on. The poor man, undoubtably intelligent as he is, suffers from delusions because his wisdom is earthly in its origins, and is based on his own thoughts alone, without fact or divine revelation. Part of my own testimony involves several months of trying to find God in the Bible purely by my own efforts, until, in the end, I discarded what I had thought I had found and instead called out to God for Him to reveal Himself. My prayer one Saturday night was something along the lines, “God, I can’t work this out on my own. If You are real then You will have to reveal Yourself to me”. I woke up the next morning with the assurance that God was real and through His grace He had indeed revealed Himself. That was the start of a journey, bumpy at times, but one from which I have never wavered. There is only one way to Heaven, as we know from John 14:6, “Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me“. And God in His loving graciousness has gently showed me the way, at a pace I can absorb, and He will continue to do so until I meet Him face to face. My wisdom and thinking was ineffective in its arrogance, but it was only when I came to the end of myself that God could start His work in a human being.

Paul wrote that God “has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe”. Is it foolish, to tell people everywhere about God’s saving grace? Most people we meet will say so, because their minds are limited by human wisdom. How do you introduce concepts of the spiritual world around us to people who have closed minds and who have rejected any thoughts of a “higher power”, who believe that we only live for a span for 70 or 80 years, and then enter a realm of unconscious extinction? People such as Richard Dawkins, a modern day philosopher and evolutionist, who said, “Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one.” People such as him have closed their minds against God and His Son, and instead deny any efforts to help them discover the truth. Such people will one day have a terrible shock, because they firstly will find themselves, not in a blank state of nothing, but as souls in a holding place called Sheol or Hades, and then secondly they will find themselves resurrected to stand before God to give an account of their lives. Why did Jesus describe hell as a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth? Matthew 22:13, “Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’”. The reason is that such God-deniers will have to spend eternity in a state of regret, that they rejected the One who saves and there is nothing that they can do about it. What a terrible thought!

So we pilgrims continue to be foolish in the world’s eyes as we preach to a people who are devoid of any vestige of God’s wisdom. People who are resistant to the idea of a spiritual world unseen by their natural senses, and who instead quote their human wisdom as the reason for their incalcitrance. But there is only one way that such people will ever discover God and that is through our “foolish preaching”. Paul wrote, “But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!” But not everyone welcomes the Good News, for Isaiah the prophet said, “Lord, who has believed our message?” So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ” (Romans 10:14-17). So let’s double our efforts to be as foolish as we can. We never know, because such foolishness in our stories of God’s love and grace might be just what someone needs to hear and experience.

Dear Father God. There is nothing foolish about a child of God, because we have heard the divine call and have reached out to the only One who has the message of eternal life. Please help us to pass it on to the people around us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Headed to Destruction

Posted on by korgrocker

“For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the Good News—and not with clever speech, for fear that the cross of Christ would lose its power. The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.””
1 Corinthians 1:17-19 NLT

Who are these people who are “headed for destruction”? In the context of 1 Corinthians 1:18, these are the people who have rejected anything to do with Jesus and His atoning sacrifice for the sins of men and women. We pilgrims are believers who have put their trust for their eternal future in His hands, but most people in the Western societies have not. Instead they rely on the “wisdom” that has a purely human origin. To the unsaved, the essential truth of the gospel equates to meaningless hogwash because the worldly mind only values and appreciates human wisdom. We all know what worldly wisdom is all about. For example, very well, and expensively, educated individuals stay awake at night trying to think through the deficiencies ands contradictions in theories such as evolution, theories that deny any involvement of God in the affairs of this world. Such evolutionists adhere to the belief that any flaws in their theories are purely transient and that with the application of more human knowledge, problems will be explained away. And when presented with facts that can only be explained by the involvement of God in the natural world around us, they still refuse to believe that there is a God in Heaven who created our world. Such people call themselves wise and intelligent, but as Isaiah recorded in a message from the Holy Spirit long ago, “Because of this, I will once again astound these hypocrites with amazing wonders. The wisdom of the wise will pass away, and the intelligence of the intelligent will disappear” (Isaiah 29:14). A couple of verses further on, Isaiah wrote, “How foolish can you be? He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay! Should the created thing say of the one who made it, “He didn’t make me”? Does a jar ever say, “The potter who made me is stupid”?”

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary atheist, said, “If you’re an atheist, you know, you believe, this is the only life you’re going to get. It’s a precious life. It’s a beautiful life. Its something we should live to the full, to the end of our days. Where if you’re religious and you believe in another life somehow, that means you don’t live this life to the full because you think you’re going to get another one. That’s an awfully negative way to live a life. Being a atheist frees you up to live this life properly, happily and fully”. That’s the wisdom of the foolish, from a man who fails to understand that a natural life spent in God’s presence is free of the restraints his intelligence thinks are there, a life that is then followed by eternity spent in the presence of the One who created this world in the first place. As I said to a God-denier the other day, I look up into the skies at sunrise or sunset and see an amazing display of colour and patterns, and all I can do is say “Wow”, and thank God for the experience. The problem that this man had was that he didn’t have anyone to thank for the wonder before him. Sadly, he walked away, too “intelligent” to accept that there was an alternative to his lack of a belief in God.

In these verses before us today from 1 Corinthians, Paul underlines the stark contrast between human wisdom and God’s wisdom. The prophet Isaiah rebuked Israel for relying on the “wisdom of the wise” and the “intelligence of the intelligent” instead of God’s divine wisdom. The believers in Corinth were making the same grave mistake. Rather than trusting in the wisdom that comes down from heaven, they were depending on the kind of wisdom the Apostle James wrote about in James 3:5b, “ … Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic”.  In their spiritual immaturity, the Corinthian believers were still thinking and acting like unbelievers. 

James wrote much about God’s wisdom. “If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honourable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. …  But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favouritism and is always sincere” (James 3:13, 17).‭ When God populated this earth with human beings, He gave them the brains that would enable them to make wise and intelligent decisions based on His ways. But when sin entered the world, very quickly mankind decided to replace God with their own wisdom. Such foolishness can be read about in Genesis 11:4, “Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world””. We’ll not bother with God, they said, and instead we will make our own lives based on our own thoughts, inclinations and ideologies. Selfishness and a rejection of God became the basis for human wisdom, and God called it foolishness. Yet God kept loving men and women on this earth, and He sent Jesus to die for our sins, taking on the judgement and punishment that we deserve. To decide to believe in Jesus in wise and intelligent, because through Jesus we align ourselves to God’s wisdom and intelligence, which is infinitely greater than anything devised by man. So it is with sadness that God has committed human wisdom and intelligence to ultimate destruction. There will be no opportunity for Richard Dawkins, or anyone else, to say, “Sorry God I got it all wrong” when they stand before Him to give an account of their lives. 

We pilgrims know all about the power of the Cross, to save us from sin and death, and provide a life that will be spent with God in His presence. Forever. And ever. And what else can we do than thank Jesus for making it all possible? We praise You Lord!

Dear Lord Jesus, the Saviour of the world. Thank You for ll You did and still keep doing for mankind in every generation. We pray for our families, our children and grandchildren, and the generations following, that Your presence will be with them, providing them with the intelligence that comes from above instead of the intelligence that is purely human. Thank You, Lord. Amen.

The Power of the Cross

Posted on by korgrocker

“For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the Good News—and not with clever speech, for fear that the cross of Christ would lose its power. The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.”
1 Corinthians 1:17-18 NLT

Crucifixion was a terrible way to execute someone. To nail or tie someone to a wooden structure, and leave them there until they die is an offence to us Western peoples. The cruelty of such an act exposes the darkest and most evil side of human beings, and is the opposite of God’s message of love and forgiveness. Yet for many years around the time of Christ it was a common form of execution. However, because of Christ and His death on the cross, the meaning of the cross today is completely different. 

The Jewish Passover was a festival commemorating the time when the angel of death “passed over” the homes of the Israelite slaves in Egypt, homes identified by the smearing of a lamb’s blood over the doorposts and lintels of the house. The process was set out in Exodus 12 and we read that the lamb chosen was to be a one-year-old male with no defects. But as we turn to John’s Gospel, we hear John the Baptist’s announcement, recorded in John 1:29, “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”” God’s plan was to provide His Son, Jesus, to be the sacrificial lamb, ensuring that the sprinkling of His blood (in a spiritual sense) would ensure that God’s judgement “passed over” the ones who believed in Jesus and who have looked to Him as their Saviour from the wrath to come. We pilgrims know and understand that it is only through Jesus that redemption can be found, and He went through the pain and humiliation of death on a cross to make that happen. 

So the message of the cross is a powerful spiritual declaration, saying once and for all time that there is a way back to God regardless of the devil’s protestations and plans. The Cross of Christ “is the very power of God”, but ignored and even ridiculed by those who fail to understand its message. Firstly, through Jesus’ death on the Cross came the power of God to forgive us from our sins. Words of Paul from 1 Corinthians 15:3, “I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said“. Secondly, through the Cross we are reconciled to God. Paul again from 2 Corinthians 5:19, “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation”. And it is worth noting that we pilgrims are on a mission to share the power of the Cross with those around us, in the hope and expectation that they too will be reconciled to God. 

Thirdly, it is through the power of the Cross that we are renewed. As the power of sin and death is broken, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, who enables us to live lives marked by love, joy, and peace. This renewal isn’t merely superficial but penetrates the core of our being and leads to a transformation of character and a renewed purpose. But there is more. A fourth benefit for us believers is through healing. Peter wrote in his first letter, “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed” (1 Peter 2:24). While this doesn’t mean that God will fulfil every request for healing, it does mean that we can have confidence when we approach God in faith to request healing. This is because we are simply asking for what Jesus has already purchased for us. 

The power of the Cross brings the promise of eternal life. John 3:14-15, “And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life“. We know the story of the bronze snake from Numbers 21. The Israelites were grumbling about their food, which they called manna, and we read what happened. “So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died” (Numbers 21:6). And then a couple of verses further on we read, “Then the Lord told [Moses], “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!” So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed!”. That bronze pole and snake were a type of what was to come when the Son of Man, Christ Himself, was lifted up on the Cross, providing the power for people to live, with a life that is eternal. 

As believers we have a responsibility and a calling, as Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me“. Romans 6:6-8, “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him“. From Matthew 16:24-25 we read the words of Jesus Himself, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it”. We pilgrims identify with Christ’s Cross, because it was there we left, nailed in place, our pre-redeemed selves. The problem of course for many believers is that they constantly return to the Cross and take down their old selves, returning again to their old way of life. But that’s another story.

We could go on. The very loving act of Jesus who willingly died a horrible death so that we could live with Him forever, is an act of love never before seen in this world. Quote from C S Lewis, “The Son of Man became a man to enable men to become sons of God“. We will be eternally grateful for Jesus and the Power of the Cross. And His shed blood will keep on pouring, a fountain of redemption available until the end of time. What a privilege we pilgrims have in knowing what we know. And we share our knowledge with others at every opportunity because there is no limit to the numbers of believers that can be accommodated in Heaven. 

Dear Father God. We love you and worship You, bewildered by Your grace and love, but eternally grateful for all You have done for us. Thank You. Amen.

Preach the Gospel

Posted on by korgrocker

“Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not! I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, for now no one can say they were baptized in my name. (Oh yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas, but I don’t remember baptizing anyone else.) For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the Good News—and not with clever speech, for fear that the cross of Christ would lose its power.”
1 Corinthians 1:13-17 NLT

Paul was confident that he had a Christ-given mandate to preach the Good News, the Gospel of salvation through Jesus. We all remember the conversion that Paul experienced on the Damascus Road, where a Light, Jesus Himself, blinded him, and turned his life round with the question. “ … Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”” (Acts 9:4b). A man called Ananias was tasked with laying his hands on Saul, so that he could see again. He was obedient regardless of his fears – ““But Lord,” exclaimed Ananias, “I’ve heard many people talk about the terrible things this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem!” (Acts 9:13), and we subsequently read, “But the Lord said, “Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake”” (Acts 9:13-15). What a mandate Paul received! To be commissioned to take the Gospel “to the Gentiles and to kings“, the message coming straight from Jesus Himself. To the Galatian church, Paul wrote, “Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning. I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11-12). And suffer Paul did in the process of sharing the Gospel – just read 2 Corinthians 11, where we find a brief history of all Paul’s sufferings. He was imprisoned, whipped, beaten, stoned, and shipwrecked. He experienced hunger and thirst, and other privations that I hope and pray none of us will have to face. And all for the sake of carrying the Gospel into lands where the people were resistant to the message Jesus commissioned Paul to share. 

Notice that Paul wasn’t tasked with anything else in his journeys. He was not a pastor or teacher, and the baptising of converts he left in the hands of others. This was not a part of his mission, and Paul was crystal clear in only doing what Jesus had asked him to do. He was solely a missionary and evangelist, and in addition we are grateful for his diligence in writing follow up letters to the churches and fellowships that he founded, thus providing invaluable theological insights that help us in our pilgrimage to Glory. Perhaps Paul was comfortable with the thought that baptism wasn’t essential to ensure a person was saved. He wrote to the believers in Rome, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved” (Romans 10:9-10). Baptism is a public declaration that a person makes, of his belief and faith in Jesus, but the penitent thief on the cross next to Jesus never had the chance to be baptised, and yet was soon to join Jesus in “Paradise”. 

Paul also was wary of what he called “clever speech”. We have all heard preachers who are good with words, men and women whose sermons are strong on rhetoric but lacking in power. Speakers to whom people travel far to hear what they have to say, but the leave their presence unchanged. Paul avoided such an accusation, and allowed the purity of Christ’s message to hit home with the power of the Cross of Christ. Paul had an extremely good knowledge of the Old Testament and used that to good effect in his discussions with people in the towns and cities he visited. In Thessalonica Paul found a synagogue and there we read, “As was Paul’s custom, he went to the synagogue service, and for three Sabbaths in a row he used the Scriptures to reason with the people. He explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead. He said, “This Jesus I’m telling you about is the Messiah“” (Acts 17:2-3). In the next city, Athens, Paul’s address before the Athenian council was a masterpiece. He started, ” … Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about” (Acts 17:22-23). Quite simply he got their attention by connecting their culture with the message of the Cross of Jesus. No clever speech, just Holy-Spirit-inspired words to a sceptical audience, and at the end of his preach we read, “but some joined him and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the council, a woman named Damaris, and others with them” (Acts 17:34). 

We pilgrims are also commissioned to preach the Gospel. The world around us is full of people heading to a lost eternity and that is the last thing that God wants for His creation. There was a time when many disciples left Jesus because they couldn’t accept His message. We pick up the account in John 6:67-69, “Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God”“. Peter hit the nail on the head when he spoke up on behalf of all the disciples, because he realised that only Jesus could give eternal life. That is our message to the lost souls around us and we pray for opportunities to tell them the Good News. Someone once condensed the Gospel into, “Hell is hot, Heaven is real and Jesus saves”. That is the Gospel in a nutshell. We don’t have to enter into intellectual discussions and debates about Christianity and what it means. We instead allow the Holy Spirit within us to give us the words that we already know, but which are tailor-made to touch our listeners with what God wants them to hear. We mustn’t forget though that although we share Jesus’ words of eternal life, it is the Holy Spirit who brings conviction in the hearts of our hearers. John 16:8, “And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment“. 

Father God. You are not only the Source of the Good News, but You are the Good News, We thank You that You cared enough for us to send someone to introduce us to Jesus and we pray for opportunities to do the same. In Jesus’ holy name. Amen.

Free From All Blame

Posted on by korgrocker

“Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:7-9 NLT

Something significant is embedded in these three verses. Have you noticed that the Corinthian believers have not done anything to contribute to their salvation as they “eagerly wait for the return of the Lord”?God has supplied “every spiritual gift” for them. Paul wrote that God will keep them “strong to the end“, “free from all blame”, and that He is faithful with an invitation “into partnership with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord”. And that is the same for us believers today. Our amazing God gives and gives, and never stops giving, all through His grace, love and mercy. 

As we read on in this epistle, we find that there was much that the Corinthian believers could have been blamed for, but we won’t get ahead of the text. The well read verses in Ephesians 2 set out why – “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it“. I meet so many people who think they will stand before God blameless because of their self-assessment that they are “good people”. Such a person comes to my mind. I met a young woman some years ago who was in a lesbian relationship. I was sharing my testimony with several people at the time but this young woman was vociferously confident that if there was a God then she would be acceptable to Him because she behaved well in her society and had done nothing to be ashamed of. Some other people I have met cannot even be bothered to think about the enormity of going to Hell, having a misguided, devil-inspired, view that Hell won’t we all that bad a place. In fact, one man I met thought it would be a place of partying. But I keep chipping away at these sinful bastions of humanity, in case there will be an opportunity to introduce someone to Jesus. 

But I’m sure we pilgrims are all “good people” as well. After all, we have been called out of the darkness of sin into the light of God’s grace. But that is the issue. Like everyone else, we lived a life of sin, our “goodness” falling far short of God’s standard. There was a day when someone introduced us to Jesus. Or it might even have been a day when we had our own Damascus Road experience. It might have been a time such as experienced by John Wesley, who was a clergyman in the Church of England but a self-confessed spiritual pauper. In a church meeting in 1738 someone was reading the introduction to the Book of Romans by Martin Luther, and in that moment, Wesley described feeling his heart “strangely warmed”. He felt a deep sense of God’s love and assurance that his sins were forgiven through faith in Christ alone. But regardless of other people’s experiences of God, our testimonies of how we discovered God’s grace are deeply personal and can impart an important message to those who are yet to be saved.

There was that day when we came to the cross of Jesus, confessing and repenting of our sins, and feeling that peace within us, knowing that we were now blameless before God. We too experienced hearts that were “strangely warmed”, assured of our salvation and eternal life with God Himself in Heaven one day. But to be blameless, we also had to be given Jesus’ righteousness through God’s grace. Just stop and think for a moment. No matter how dark our lives had been, we could be “free from all blame” through Jesus. What a wonderful Saviour! Just a note of caution however, and a sobering thought. If we now stand before God, righteous in His sight, what does that mean for the way we live our lives? It’s somehow easier to repent of our sins, than live a life of righteousness, God’s way? Hmmm…

David wrote, “For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not turned from my God to follow evil. I have followed all his regulations; I have never abandoned his decrees. I am blameless before God; I have kept myself from sin” (Psalm 18:21-23). In the New Testament we read, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight … ” (Ephesians 1:4). We pilgrims were destined to be God’s children, without any baggage of blame and sin. We pilgrims are indeed blameless in God’s sight, but it would be grossly dishonouring to Him if we proceeded to live a sinful life, ignoring our responsibilities as His children. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light“. Peter went on to describe our status and responsibilities in God’s Kingdom – “Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honourable behaviour, and they will give honour to God when he judges the world” (1 Peter 2:11-12). As “God’s very own possession” we have the responsibility to live our lives God’s way. Some would say that we are not under such a heavy burden, because we have been set free by the Holy Spirit. Although there is some truth in that, having been set free from the Law, but in my heart can I really not live a life honouring to God? There is a critical balance between legalism and freedom, and one we work out with our amazing and gracious God, day by day.

Father God. We love You, our wonderful Heavenly Father. Our worship is Yours by right, and we are deeply thankful for being Your children. Please help us to live lives honouring to You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.


 

Eagerly Waiting

Posted on by korgrocker

“Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:7-9 NIVUK

What do we pilgrims feel about the return of Jesus? Does the thought full us with dread or a pleasurable anticipation? I suppose it all depends on our circumstances, exposing the dilemma facing us Western Christians. We have so much in terms of material wealth that we have a reluctance to let it all go. Even those who complain about their lack of money and difficulties in making ends meet in a society experiencing a cost of living crisis, probably have more possessions available to them than many of the Corinthian believers. It is all relative. Of course there are many, too many, people who suffer from poor mental health and who would welcome relief in a new world that would accompany Jesus’ return, each set free at last from the depression and other conditions that blight their lives. But in the main we fill our lives with more and more “stuff”, clogging up our clarity of thought and vision of a new order in God’s presence. 

The early First Century Christians were convinced that Jesus would return in their lifetimes. In fact, in their expectations He could return at any time, and His imminence focused their minds. They woke up in the morning, thinking “is this the day”? In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14, Paul reassured the believers that those who have died while they wait for Jesus would not be disadvantaged. He wrote, “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him”. But the days passed and Jesus did not return. But that did not stop them living as though He would come in the next hour or day. And so they eagerly awaited His return, not lacking “any spiritual gift” and assured that Jesus would “keep [them] firm to the end”. 

But here we are two thousand years or thereabouts later and Jesus still hasn’t returned. In Matthew 24:3 we read of a conversation between Jesus and His disciples. “As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. ‘Tell us,’ they said, ‘when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’” The first part of their question referred to the Temple and Jesus’ prophecy that it was going to be destroyed (this subsequently happened in AD 70). But the disciples were also concerned about the end of the age. Jesus’ answer started in the next three verses with a discourse following of the end time events, “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth-pains”. History records the signs Jesus warned us of, signs that He said were just the “birth-pains”, preceding the End Time events. Recent happenings in the Middle East have caused some speculation that we are in the same situation as the First century Christians, awaiting Jesus’ imminent return. Even some well known and respected pastors have been inclined to comment through social media postings that we could be just about at the time of the “End of the Age”. But Jesus later said, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened” (Matthew 24:34. That has obviously not happened so there have been several opinions expressed by theologians over the years about what Jesus meant. We must remember the dual question asked by the disciples and possibly Jesus was referring to the  destruction of the Temple when He said this. Or He might have been referring to a future generation that would still be alive when He returned. But come what may, as a Bible commentary states, “Both views, as well as many others, agree that in at least one sense, Jesus is right now at the gates, ready to return. Nothing stands in His way, and He waits only for the Father to send Him, at the moment only the Father knows. He could arrive at any time”. 

In Matthew 24:42, we read that Jesus said, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come”, and in the next chapter Jesus gave three illustrations of the importance of being ready for His return. We have the parables of the Ten Virgins, the Three Servants, and then the Sheep and the Goats. The conclusion in the first parable included the five virgins who were not ready for the return of the Bridegroom, and we read, “Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside, calling, ‘Lord! Lord! Open the door for us!’ “But he called back, ‘Believe me, I don’t know you!’” (Matthew 25:11-12). And Jesus finished with, “So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of my return” (Matthew 25:13). But the story of the Sheep and the Goats is more than a parable, more than just another Biblical story. It is a stark warning of what is to come and what Jesus will be expecting to find when He returns. 

So back to the question I started with. What do we feel about the return of Jesus? The Corinthian believers were “eagerly awaiting” His return. Are we, and if so, what are we doing about it? We can’t just sit on a Sunday pew, comfortable in our Western Christianity, praying that nothing will disturb our status quo. We have to do the things Jesus has asked of us. And if we dread His return we must look closely at our relationship with Jesus, and pray that He will once again empower our lives through the Holy Spirit within us. 

Father God. We repent of our lukewarm faith, without power and effect. Please forgive us for our spiritual lethargy, and help us once again to find our first love, that time when we first encountered You and were infused with the excitement of knowing You. May we too be like those early believers, eagerly awaiting Your return. In Your precious and holy name. Amen.