Thursday Night Study

Join us this evening at 7 PM, D.V., as we conclude our study of I & II Thessalonians.  Do you love to get in everyone's business?  Paul has something to say to you -- and to all Christians about a need we have.

"Don't Worry; It'll Get Worse" Habakkuk 1:1-11

“Don’t Worry; It’ll Get Worse”

[Habakkuk 1:1-11]

January 21, 2018, Second Reformed Church

Even if you don’t have TV, it’s hard to escape the headlines, isn’t it?

Women and some men are coming forward about being sexually abused in Hollywood and in the political realm.  Some of our politicians see themselves not as servants, but as kings storing up wealth and pressing the people for more.  And we live in a country that finds itself able to legitimatize the murder of children.

Do you ever pray about these things?  Do you ever pray for these people?  Do you ever cry out to God and ask Him when He is going to intervene and do something?

Today, we open the burden of the prophet, Habakkuk – we begin a look at the prophecy of Habakkuk. We don't know much about Habakkuk, though it seems likely that he is writing during the sixth century B. C. -- around the same time that Jeremiah is writing. Habakkuk's name means "the embracer" or "the wrestler." And the prophecy that he delivers, the oracle that he speaks, is heavy upon him -- a burden. Habakkuk is a prophet who is burdened by what he sees and wrestles to understand God's response to him.

            Habakkuk complains – and prays – to the Lord:

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’

and you will not save?  Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.”

The prophet cries out to God, cries for help, and gets no answer. He wants to know where the Holy God is that He preaches.

“I preach and I pray, but Your people continue in their wickedness – in their sin – unrepentantly.  They live lives of violence – hurting and killing people – and You don’t intervene.  I see Your people sinning all around me, and You do nothing about it.  Your people are at each other’s throats.  But You don’t ever enforce Your Law.  You never bring justice.  You allow the wicked to overcome the righteous.  You’re allowing justice to be perverted.  Where are You?  When are You going to act?”

            Habakkuk knows God is there; God is just not answering. God is the One Who shows him iniquity and theft and violence and strife, and contention among all the people, and the prophet can do nothing to stop it. He preaches to them. He calls them to repentance. But before him, and before the Face of God, the people have neither respect, nor fear, because God has not disciplined His people.

            So Habakkuk cries out to God, "Do something! Defend Your Holy Name! Avenge Your Righteousness!" But God seems to do nothing, so God's Law becomes powerless and justice never happens. If God never sees fit to enforce His Law, what good is it to have the Law? Every righteous man is surrounded by wicked men, so justice is perverted, and the prophet cries out to God, "How long?" He cries out like the slaughtered souls under the altar are crying out even now, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10b, ESV).

            Habakkuk's ministry is almost the exact opposite of Jonah's: God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach repentance, but he flees, so God chases him down. And Jonah preaches to Nineveh, and they repent of their sins. Habakkuk immediately goes to the people and preaches to them and calls them to repentance, and they laugh and do whatever they want, and God seemingly does nothing about it.

            Does it ever seem that way to you?  Do you ever ask God where He is – when He will act – when justice will come?

And let us understand that we are right to be upset by the sin in the world and in our churches and in ourselves. The Psalmist writes, "I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands" (Psalm 119:158, ESV). Peter tells us that Lot, living among the wicked, "was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);" (II Peter 2:8b, ESV).

So we, as Christians, ought to be upset. Yet we also ought to be in prayer for those who sin around us – even for each other – especially for the people of God. We ought to earnestly pray for them -- pray with zeal for God's Glory. We ought to pray for those who sin, not so they can one day become wonderful people like you and me, but because the Glory of God is covered and kept from view by our sin. And it ought to be our greatest longing as Christians to see the Glory of God in all its fullness. So let us pray.

"But how can we pray for them when they joyfully, unrepentantly run after sin?"

            Daniel prays among the lions. Jonah makes his sanctuary of prayer in the belly of the fish. And Jesus prays in the Garden, even as the torches light up the evening sky. If we are the people of God, we will pray until sin is vanquished from the earth, because God is worthy, and to glorify God and enjoy Him forever is our purpose.

            And if we have already brought the Gospel to them, let us bring it again. If we still have breath, let us tell them again and again that there is salvation in Jesus Christ Alone, and He requires holiness from His people. Let us call them to repentance, warn them of their treacherous state until they believe -- or the time is past. And if they are Christians, let us exercise discipline, and receive them in love.

            That can be a great burden, especially when God seems to be far away. When it seems as though God is not listening. And we hear no word from God. One of the messages of the wrestling of the prophet Habakkuk is that sometimes God waits. Sometimes God says, "Not yet." Sometimes God says nothing and expects us to wait for the potter to work the clay.

            God does answer -- sooner or later -- in His time, as He is pleased, according to His Will. And we see beginning in verse five that God does answer Habakkuk:

“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!”

            "Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.” God says, "I will avenge myself for these sins, and you won't believe how I am going to do it."

            "For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans." It's as though God said, "Don't worry; it'll get worse." "I'm raising up the Chaldeans -- the Babylonians -- the Iraqis -- one of the most evil nations on the earth, and I'm going to send them after you. These are a people greatly to be feared -- they conquer nations, steal land and possessions -- they are completely arrogant and selfish. Even their horses are evil: they're swifter than leopards, more fierce than hungry wolves. They will come quickly and they will defeat you in an overwhelming defeat, like a hungry eagle swooping down to eat. They are coming for the joy -- the fun -- of violence. They will gather innumerable captives and take them back to Babylon. They will laugh at your kings, scorn your princes, blow through your strongholds. And they will sin and offend Me, by ascribing their power as their own god."

            God is right -- it is not the answer the prophet expected. He never would have guessed that God would solve the problem of one evil by allowing another, greater evil to conquer it. But He did. God says, "Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle" (II Kings 21:12b, ESV). And Jeremiah also prophesied, "And the Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city. They shall capture it and burn it with fire" (Jeremiah 37:8, ESV).

Here is a hard doctrine – a hard teaching: God sometimes uses one nation to punish another. Not only that, but God sometimes uses evil to accomplish His Will and chastise the wicked. God sometimes uses pagans to punish the Church. God knows all about our sin -- He knows about all of the sins of everyone who will ever be -- from before the creation of the world. Because God is Sovereign over our sin, and our sin is part of God's Plan.

            Now, let us not get confused: God does not sin. God is not the creator of sin. God does not force anyone to sin. When the Scripture tells us that God raises up the Chaldeans to slaughter and enslave God's people, we understand that God let the Chaldeans – who freely chose after the evil inclinations of their evil hearts – to slaughter and enslave.  God let them do what they freely and responsibly chose to do, and God did not stop them. God did not give mercy to His people, but allowed them to suffer justice.

So what do we do, how do we prepare, since God is not obligated to show mercy? Let us pray. Let us hate evil -- let us hate it with as great a hatred as we have zeal for God's Glory. And let us recognize God's Sovereign Lordship. God does not promise us health and wealth and beachfront resorts. This is a world full of sin, corrupted by sin, a world that is waiting and groaning with us for the restoration that will occur when God’s Kingdom has fully come (Romans 8:21-22). That is our hope; we wait and long for that glory to come.

So, perhaps it's not so astonishing that God would use an evil nation to punish a sinful nation. Perhaps it is not astonishing that God would use evil people to punish Christians – the Church.  Perhaps it makes sense -- sad, heart-wrenching sense – to see God destroy the world in a flood; to rain down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, even to raise up the Chaldeans -- it makes sense.

            What is surprising -- what is truly astonishing -- is that God does not wipe us all out. God decided not to throw us all into Hell. John is shocked with joy, "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are" (I John 1a, ESV). And Paul sings a hymn, "[Jesus], who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:6-11, ESV).

            What is astonishing is not that there is sin in the world and that sin has consequences. What's astonishing is that God the Son would incarnate and the Father would plan for the Son to be crucified by evil men, and that the Father would rain down His Wrath on His Beloved, Innocent Son for every one of the sins of everyone who would ever believe.  What is astonishing is that God would rain down the fullness of the punishment of Hell on His Beloved Son for each one of us sinners that He chose to save. It's not the plan that you or I would ever have come up with!

            And yet it is our hope and our salvation.

            As Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost:

            “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:22-24, ESV).

Will we continue to be shocked and angered by the evil in this world? Yes, and we should be. Will we continue to be surprised by the way that God answers our prayers?  Yes, sometimes we will be as shocked as the prophet, Habakkuk is.  So, let us be a people of prayer, a people ever-ready to speak the Gospel, a people who know and believe that our God is Sovereign over all things, including our sin. And let our hope be in the astonishing Work of the Incarnation, and may it all be to the glory of the Father.

Let us pray:

Almighty and Sovereign God, make us hate sin more each day, cause us to rise up in prayer, putting our hope and trust in You, and in the Astonishing Work that saves us. For it is in Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.

"What Does Baptism Do?" Sermon: Matthew 3:13-17

“What Does Baptism Do?”

[Matthew 3:13-17]

January 14, 2018, Second Reformed Church

            This Sunday, we remember the baptism of our Lord.  Jesus is about thirty years old when He goes to John the Baptist at the Jordan and asks John to baptize Him.

            Just prior to Jesus ascending back to His throne at the Right Hand of the Father, we read, “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:16-20, ESV).

            Why did Jesus instruct them – and all believers – to baptize and be baptized?  Does baptism do something?

            I wonder what answers we would hear if we went around the congregation.

            People have said, “We baptize our children because it’s kind of like we’re dedicating them to the Lord, like Samuel, so He will care for them.”

            “We baptize our children because it is a way to get the church to see them and teach them how to be moral – how to be good people – by the time we come back to church for them around their thirteenth birthday.”

            “We baptize our children because that’s how God saves them.”

            No.

            When I was in seminary, I took a class that had about ten of us in it:  eight Methodists, a Nazarene, and me.  And whenever anything debatable came up in class, the eight Methodists would sit back and watch the Nazarene and me debate.

            You may not know that Nazarene doctrine states that, in baptism, the infant receives salvation.

            So, when we were talking about what baptism does, the Nazarene guy argued that an infant that is baptized receives salvation and the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, and should he renounce Christ later in life, he would lose his salvation.

            I disagreed and said that salvation cannot be lost, so that is not what happens when an infant is baptized who later renounces Christ.

            So, he asked me what happens to an infant in baptism if he eventually renounces Christ.

            I gave him the wrong answer.  It was a funny answer – I said, he gets wet.  But that’s not the right answer.

            Baptism does one thing relative to the infant who never savingly believes in Jesus Alone, and it does two things relative to the infant who does savingly believe in Jesus Alone.

            In our Thursday night study this week, we saw Paul comfort the Thessalonians by saying if you believe the Gospel – Who Jesus is and what He did to accomplish salvation – you are one of the people given to Jesus for salvation, you are one of the elect, you are really and truly, forever the property of Jesus.

            So, what does baptism do?

            Let’s begin by asking what John the Baptist was doing.

            John the Baptist was baptizing repentant people for the forgiveness of their sins.

            Matthew tells us in the text just prior to the one we read this morning:

[John the Baptist said,]  “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:11-12, ESV).

John says he baptizes those who come to him repenting of their sins.  John explains that just as water washes away dirt, the waters of baptism symbolize – they are a sign – that forgiveness – salvation – is only found through confession and repentance of your sins to God.

Baptism is a sign of the Gospel.  Baptism symbolizes that all humans are sinners and in need of forgiveness – of being made clean.  It symbolizes that forgiveness of our sins is not something we can do – we must go to Someone Else Who is sinless to have our sins washed away.  We must go to the One Savior that God has provided to repent of our sins – to ask for forgiveness and promise to turn around – to not commit those sins again – and that Savior – Who we know is Jesus – and He Alone – grants us forgiveness through His work, His Merit, His Authority, His death, and His resurrection.

This is what baptism does for every person who is baptized – even the person who never savingly believes – baptism puts the sign on them and before all those who witness it – that you cannot forgive your own sins – you cannot make yourself clean.  Someone Else has to cleanse you of your sins.  And no one who has received this sign can remove it.

In the TV show, “All in the Family,” Mike says to his father-in-law, Archie, that he renounced his baptism years ago, and Archie responds, “Try renouncing your bellybutton.”  In other words, Archie rightly says just as you cannot renounce your bellybutton, you cannot renounce the sign of baptism once it has been placed upon you.  All who have been baptized bear the sign of the need for a Savior.

But, you can bear the sign and not believe.  Being baptized does not cause you to believe in Jesus savingly.

Now, we turn back to this morning’s Scripture, as we notice that John the Baptist doesn’t think it is right for Jesus to be baptized by him:

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he consented.  And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’.”

John’s baptism is a baptism for sinners who recognize that they are sinners and repent of their sin and want to be forgiven and know they need to look outside of themselves for forgiveness.

So, Jesus comes to His cousin, John, and asks John to baptize Him.  Jesus comes to John, who was filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb and jumped up and down in the womb in pure joy at recognizing Jesus, the Savior, in the womb of Mary.

This is John who exclaims and explains:

“The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.” I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John bore witness: ‘I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God’” (John 1:29-34, ESV).

John certainly understood more after Jesus’ baptism, but he understood enough that when Jesus comes to him and asks him to baptize Him, John says, “You are the only One Who doesn’t need to be baptized – You have no sins to forgive – I need You to baptize me.”

How does Jesus respond?

“Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

What does that mean?

What is “righteousness”?

Righteousness is being morally perfect, sinless, having kept all of God’s Law.

How does being baptized by John help Jesus to be morally perfect, sinless, having kept all of God’s Law – remembering that Jesus is sinless, and baptism is only for sinners?

It may help to remember that we read earlier that Jesus said that we are to go out, preaching the Gospel, baptizing in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

John Calvin explains that there are at least four things happening in Jesus’ baptism – in His fulfilling all righteousness:

First, in being baptized, Jesus fully obeys His Father.

We remember from our study of the Gospel of John that Jesus did not come to do His own will but the Will of the Father.  Jesus came to save the people the Father gave Him by obeying and submitting to everything the Father commands.

Jesus says, “but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. …” (John 14:31a-b, ESV).

Even to the end, Jesus prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39b, ESV).

Second, in being baptized, Jesus submits to God’s Law.

As we have already seen, Jesus says we are to be baptized.  Since Jesus has to be like us in every way – excepting sin – to be our Substitute, He also is baptized.

Third, in being baptized, Jesus consecrates and institutes baptism as a sacrament.

This we see in the Great Commission.

And fourth, in being baptized, Jesus makes baptism a seal of the believer’s salvation.

Paul writes, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4, ESV).

And now we understand the two things that baptism does for the believer:  first, baptism is a sign on and to the believer that Jesus lived a righteous life and died to pay for our sins, and second, baptism is a seal of that salvation of and to the believer.

The Heidelberg Catechism explains what the sacraments are:

66. Q.  What are the sacraments?

A. The sacraments are holy, visible signs and seals.

They were instituted by God

so that by their use

he might the more fully declare and seal to us

the promise of the gospel.

And this is the promise:

that God graciously grants us

forgiveness of sins and everlasting life

because of the one sacrifice of Christ

accomplished on the cross. (http://www.heidelberg-catechism.com/en/lords-days/25.html).

When Martin Luther was feeling accosted by the devil with temptation, he would respond, “I have been baptized.  I am a Christian.” (https://yinkahdinay.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/luther-baptizatus-sum-i-am-baptized/)

In other words, I have been baptized – I bear the sign of the work of Christ that justifies and makes righteous all those who believe in Him.  And I am a Christian – and that baptism is a seal of my salvation because I am a believer in Jesus Christ Alone for salvation.

What does baptism do?

For everyone who is baptized, it is a sign of what Jesus did – that He lived a perfect life under God’s Law, died for the sins of everyone who would ever believe, and physically rose from the dead, and ascended back to His throne.

And for the believer, baptism is that sign as well, but it is also a seal – a confirmation – an assurance – of that salvation.  So we can look back on our baptism and remember, as Paul says in Romans 6, that we who believe savingly in Jesus have been buried with Him through baptism and have now been raised to new life, which can never be lost or stolen away from us.

So let us pray:

Almighty God, we thank You for the sacrament of baptism that Your Son instituted while He was on earth.  We thank You that baptism is a visual representation of the Gospel – it is a sign that says what Jesus did to save His people.  We thank You that it is also a seal of the Gospel – that all we who have believed savingly in Jesus can look back on our baptism and what it symbolizes and be assured of our eternal salvation through the work of You Son.  And we thank You for sending God the Holy Spirit that He would cause us to believe in Jesus Alone for salvation.  For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.