of Israel. His story is told in the historical books 1 Samuel starting at Ch 16 through 2 Samuel to 1 Kings chapter 3. There is also theological reflection on his life offered in 1 Chronicles from Ch 10 onwards. As you study the life of David you find him a bit of a mixed character. David loved the Lord his God, there is no doubt of that but there were times where his love was pushed aside by his zeal.

One set of incidents that demonstrate this is David’s attempts to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.

When David first became King of the southern tribes of Israel, he established his throne in Bethel. Later he was finally crowned as king of all Israel and in a brilliant stroke, captured Jerusalem, which had remained a Canaanite or Jebusite stronghold and never belonged to any of the tribes, and established it as his capital city. It’s a bit like Canberra being capital of Australia and not belonging to any of the states.

Having established the throne in Jerusalem David decided to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant was the ornately decorated box or chest that contained the tablets of stone with the 10 commandments on them and some other artifacts dating from the Exodus out of Egypt. Please do not take your understanding of the ark and its importance from the way it is depicted in the Indiana Jones movie “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” The ark was the symbol of God's presence with his people and had been kept at Kiriath-Jearim ever since the Philistines had returned it after capturing it when Eli’s sons had tried to use it as a magic talisman in a battle.

David’s first attempt to bring the Ark to Jerusalem ended in disaster. Uzza, one of the attendants was killed when he stumbled and accidently touched the ark and David was forced to leave the ark where it was for some time.

For his second attempt to bring the Ark to Jerusalem David first consulted the Lord and arranged for the Ark to be brought following all the elaborate ceremonies given by God to Moses. A new tent or tabanacle was prepared at Jerusalem to house the Ark and the priests and levites all cleansed themselves by following the proper rituals and making the appropriate sacrifices. The ark was accompanied by musicians playing all sorts of instruments, choirs singing psalms and people, including king David, rejoicing and dancing. This time the Ark successfully reached Jerusalem and was installed in the tabernacle prepared for it.

In 1 Chronicles 16 you can read the song of praise, written by King David and sung by the Tabernacle Choir led by Asaph the chief choir master when the Ark was brought into the tabernacle. Verses 23 to 33 of that song also ended up in the Bible as Psalm 96.

It’s the familiar Psalm that we sing from time to time:

Sing unto the Lord a new song

Sing unto the Lord all the earth

Sing to the Lord, bless His name

Tell of his salvation day by day

Psalm 96, in its stand-alone form, is a great missionary hymn and one commentator was amazed that the Jews could read or sing this Psalm and still maintain their exclusiveness when so obviously the Psalm is expressing God’s salvation to the whole earth, all the nations. This psalm reminds us that God always had designs of love for all the families of the earth and never inted that his grace, expressed in his covenant with Israel, should relate only to the direct physical descendants of Abraham.

As I looked at this Psalm I saw it as having three major themes which can be summed up in the first words of verses 1, 7 and 10 in our NIV translation.

1. SING

Sing to the LORD a new song

We are called to sing out about the glory of God our King

There is nothing listless or introverted about the way we are called to praise our God. The whole earth is to join in and it will be a new song. We met the idea of the new song when we looked at Revelation last year. In Chapter 5 the twenty four elders, representing the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles, and thus the whole of God's people, Old Testament and New Testament combined, all falling down before the Lamb of God, casting their crowns at his feet and singing a “new song”

It’s not just a newly composed piece of music, which this Psalm was when it was sung as the Ark was placed in the Tabernacle, but a response to God's mercies that are “new every morning”. New joys are filling the hearts of men and women, new life is proclaimed through faith.

Sing to the LORD, all the earth.

God made the earth and everything in it and his plan of salvation was for the benefit of all the earth. The earth itself and all its inhabitants.

Sing to the LORD, praise his name;

God’s name refers to his character, his reputation, his fame and we are to praise it, talk it up, publicly declare it, brag about it, boast of it. In the hymn “When I survey” we sing:

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,

Save in the cross of Christ my God

We are to boast not about ourselves but about our God. And what do we boast about our God. The psalm says God’s glory, his greatness, his worth, All other gods are but idols, man made objects of stone and metal and wood, or constructs purely of the human mind, but our God made the heavens.

2. ASCRIBE

In the next section we are told to ascribe to the Lord, glory and strength, the glory due to his name. That is to say we are to recognize, his glory and his power and to worship him. The word worship itself means to acknowledge the worth of something. We do this in our lives lived for him, in our giving of our gifts to him in grateful thanks.

We are to worship the Lord in the spleandor of his holiness. Nothing second rate. Nothing slovernly. Give only your best not the left overs. Worship must be heatfelt and real, reverent, respectful, sincere, ernest, pure in heart.

Tremble before him all the earth

The proper response in the presence of God is awe and trembling. The prophet Isaiah when he had the vision of God in all his glory as described in Isaiah 6 called out, “Woe is me. I am ruined. For I am a man of unclean lips.” It’s like when you were a kid and the message came over the PA “Philip Bassett report immediately to the headmaster’s office.” So you approach the office in fear and trembling wondering which of your recent crimes the head has found out about. The glory, the majesty, the holiness of God contrast so greatly with our sordid, tawdry lives that our only response in his presence is fear and trembling. Unless. Unless that is we have that boldness that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.

Another hymn “And can it be”

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in Him, is mine!

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine.

Bold I approach the eternal throne

And claim the crown

Through Christ my own!

3. SAY

Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns.” We are to proclaim the gospel in all the world. To declare that God is the true ruler. That he is the judge of all mankind. God himself, in the person of his Son, Jesus, has assumed the throne. When he comes to rule the earth he will do it with righteousness and truth.

When David penned this Psalm he was the king of Israel, the ruler on earth of God's people but he was conscious of the fact that God himself was their true ruler. With all the best will in the world he was sinful and fallible, as an individual and as a ruler. But God, the righteopus true ruler and judge is coming. His rule will so far surpass any earthly rule that the heavens, the seas, the cultivated fields, the wild forests, everything will sing in joy before the Lord.

As Christians, when we meet together we sing. Because our song is a “new song” of joy and hope and praise to our great and glorious God who has chosen us and blessed us in Christ Jesus.

So Let’s sing now!

It’s like that 1948 song “A You’re Adorable” by Buddy Kaye, Fred Wise and Sidney Lippman

"A," you're adorable, "B," you're so beautiful,
"C," you're a cutie full of charms.
"D," you're a darling and "E," you're exciting
And "F," you're a feather in my arms.
"G," you look good to me, "H," you're so heavenly,
"I," you're the one I idolize.
"J," we're like Jack and Jill, "K," you're so kissable,
"L," is the lovelight in your eyes.

I think the affliction comes from eating alphabet soup while you’re playing Scrabble.

We know this psalm was written by David and there are clues that indicate he wrote it in his old age. For example verse 25 starts:

I was young and now I am old

The psalm seems to reflect David’s life-long experience of the goodness of God, even though, as we all know, appearances often seem to be to the contrary.

One of the often encountered objections to the existence of our good God is the claim that the wicked seem to flourish while the good guys get a hard time.

The main point of this psalm is that the righteous are preserved in Christ with a special preservation, and in a peculiar safety. Psalm 37 shows this both by direct proof, and by answers to all the usual objections against the safety of the righteous.

David affirms in a number of verses that the righteous will be preserved:

Verse 3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Verse 17 the power of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous.

Verse 23 If the LORD delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm

There are a whole string of answers or solutions to the objections that are raised against the idea that God looks after his own:

Objection 1.—Wicked men flourish.

Solution.—A righteous man should never grieve at that, for we see in verse 2 " like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.”

Objection 2.—Righteous men are in distress.

Solution— Verse 6.— He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Objection 3. — There are great plots laid against the righteous, and they are pursued with great malice and their ruin is almost upon them.

Solution— Verses 12 to 15.tell us that he Lord sees all the plots of wicked men, and laughs at their spiteful and foolish malice and their own machinations will be turned against them.

Objection 4 The just have but small means. We don’t have the resources to fight against the bad guys.

Solution— Verses 16, 17.—" Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked; for the power of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous."

Objection 5.—But the righteous do fall. The wicked do seem to triumph.

Solution.— Verses 23-24.— “If the LORD delights in a man’s way,he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.”

Objection 6.—We see some wicked men that do not seem fall into adversity, but rather seem to prosper to their dying days.

Solution— Verse 28,29.— “the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off.”

Throughout this psalm there are another half dozen objections and their solutions. David is writing from the viewpoint of a lifetime’s experience. He is confident that if you love the Lord he will look after you. He has found it to be so in his own life and is encouraging his readers to also trust the Lord.

He makes some helpful observations:

1. That we must not unthankfully fret at God's providence.

There’s a sort of refrain that runs through the Psalm “Do not fret” We must not let worry take over and control us, wearing away at our mind. In fact in verse 8 he tells us that fretting leads only to evil. And fretting is often accompanied by anger and wrath.

Secondly, We must "trust in the Lord and do good'' It is so easy, when we see other people ignoring God or deliberately opposing him and appearing to do OK to be tempted to join them. David encourages us to keep on trusting God and keep on doing what we know to be right. Adam’s excuse, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” just doesn’t wash. We are individually responsible for our own actions and obligated to do what is right regardless.

Thirdly David encourages us to "delight yourselves in the Lord," and not place our contentment on earthly things. This is no mere passive thing. I’ve always said that “happiness is finding something you love doing and someone mug enough to pay you to do it.” Well I love going to church and I get paid to do it. Actively seeking the company of other Christians, feeling good about work done for the Lord, enjoying reading the scriptures, loving to sing God's praises are all part of delighting in the Lord. There will never be a conflict between our more human desires and God's will for our lives if we truly learn to delight in the Lord.

Fourthly David instructs us that we must "Commit our ways to the Lord” There is a firm decision of the will here to decide not to be not just a godly person but also a person of God. In Psalm 119 vs 57-60 we read:

⁵⁷ You are my portion, O LORD;

I have promised to obey your words.

⁵⁸ I have sought your face with all my heart;

be gracious to me according to your promise.

⁵⁹ I have considered my ways

and have turned my steps to your statutes.

⁶⁰ I will hasten and not delay

to obey your commands.

David’s final exhortation is given in verses 37-40

Consider the blameless, observe the upright;

there is a future for the man of peace.

But all sinners will be destroyed;

the future of the wicked will be cut off.

The salvation of the righteous comes from the LORD;

he is their stronghold in time of trouble.

The LORD helps them and delivers them;

he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,

because they take refuge in him.

David urges the faithful diligently to consider people they know who fit the profile of the righteous man he has been describing. There is a future for the man of peace. Things will work out. God is the God of grace as well as the god of judgement. When we don’t wait patiently and quietly for God to work things out in his time and at his good pleasure, our faith can be sorely tried and even extinguished, and trust in the promises of God,can perishes with it.

This is why David exhorts us to observe and consider, for when our minds are preoccupied by the temptation toin the immediate present our hasty judgment is can be the cause of our being deceived. But if we extend our view, take the longer perspective, we will find that David has been saying is true: the outcomes for the ungodly and the righteous are at length very different.

We must learn to suspend our judgment and not jump to hasty conclusions, if God should not immediately accomplish what he has spoken. Too often we are caught up in the instant attitude of our present times. We want answers now. David is saying if we’re becoming impatient in our desires, let us moderate our minds by the reflection, that the end is not yet come, and that we should give God time to restore to order the confused state of things. So often God, after he has severely tried his servants, and exercised their patience, in the end converts their adversity into a blessing, while he turns the mirth of the ungodly into mourning.

The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord. The righteous will be saved, because they are in the hand of God, and can never be forgotten by him. No matter how great the affliction, the salvation which comes from God is infallibly certain, because God is eternal, and governs the world by his power; as Jesus Christ said, “My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all,” John 10:29.

David exhorts us to depend upon God, not only when things prosper according to our desires, but even when they we sorely afflicted. It is enough, if God only imparts sufficient strength so thatwe barely get through the difficulty. But David reminds us twice in the last verse, that God will deliver. God is the one who is faithful,

We can try to be the people we should be. To trust God, to delight in the Lord, to commit ourselves to His ways, to wait on the Lord, all those things that David encourages us to do, but in the end it is the Lord’s doing. We are weak and fallible but the Lord is trustworthy, faithful, true.

This psalm is full of promises from the Lord to the faithful

⁴ Delight yourself in the LORD

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

⁶ He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,

the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

¹¹ But the meek will inherit the land

and enjoy great peace.

¹⁸ The days of the blameless are known to the LORD,

and their inheritance will endure forever.

²³ If the LORD delights in a man’s way,

he makes his steps firm;

²⁸ For the LORD loves the just

and will not forsake his faithful ones.

They will be protected forever,

⁴⁰ The LORD helps them and delivers them;

he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,

because they take refuge in him.

Let us pray.

Teach us your paths,

Guide us in your truth and teach us,

For you are God our Saviour,

And our hope is in you. AMEN”

If you were really observant you may have noticed that a few moments ago I used a different prayer instead of the one I usually pray before preaching. For many years before I came to Toongabbie I used that prayer which is taken from verses 4 & 5 of Psalm 25 which is our Psalm for this morning, which I’ve titled “SHOW ME YOUR WAYS.”

The Psalm opens with a plea to God, that the psalmist, who according to the title is David, should not be put to shame, nor his enemies be allowed to triumph over him.’

When we pray for God's help in the circumstances of life we call upon God’s name as the justification for our prayers. When we say to God, “For your Name’s sake” , we are justifying our request to God on the basis that what we are asking for has to do with God's credence or reputation in the world. In other words, somehow if God doesn’t grant my request he’ll lose face or credibility. If we stop and think about this, we should make very sure that the things we are asking for are things that meet not our own selfish wants but truly are to do with the will of God.

We see a similar note in the last few verses of the Psalm.

Guard my life and rescue me;

let me not be put to shame,

for I take refuge in you.

May integrity and uprightness protect me,

because my hope is in you.

It is the petitioner’s trust in God that is the justification for God acting on his behalf. This trust in God is the opposite of the impatience that we often feel. Instead of committing our lives and the events in them to God, to be worked out in his time, in his way, we chaff at the bit. “Lord give me patience and give it to me now.” We worry about the outcome, we fret over delays as if we know how and what and when our prayers should be answered. God is there to do our bidding like the genie in the lamp who stays in the lamp until we rub it when we want him to do something for us.

So often we want our way rather than God's. Seeing this is a Psalm of David, consider the contrast betwewn David and Saul. In 1 Samuel 13 Saul couldn’t wait for Samuel to come to offer sacrifices to God at Gilgal before a battle so Saul offered them himself and Samuel told Saul, “Because you disobeyed him, the Lord will find the kind of man he wants and will make him the ruler of his people instead of you.”

In 1 Samuel 26 David had Saul at his mercy and could easily have killed him but said, “I know that the Lord himself will kill Saul, either of old age or in battle. The Lord forbid that I should harm the Lord’s anointed.”

Trust in God is a positive expectation rather than resignation. It is hope rather than impatience. The God in whom we trust will bring about his purposes.

The next major theme in this Psalm is Guidance. In those verses I used to pray:

Show me your ways, O LORD,

teach me your paths;

guide me in your truth and teach me,

for you are God my Savior,

and my hope is in you all day long.

It is a desire to follow God's ways that this is about, rather than a plea to be shown the answer to a particular dilemma. It’s praying “O Lord show me whether I need a new car at all” rather than “O Lord should I buy a Ford Falcon or a Holden Commodore?”

This plea for guidance is characterizede by three things:

1. Persistence:

Verse 5 “my hope is in you all day long.”

And verse 15: “My eyes are ever on the LORD”

Our reliance on God for guidance should not just be at the great cross roads of our lives but also when there is a barely discernible branching, which means all the time. It is easy enough to recognize the need we have for guidance when there are big decisions to be made but it perhaps is even easier to just drift into the wrong way through that lack of direction that comes from not seeking the Lord in everything and all times.

2. Penitence:

Verse 8 “Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.”

And verse 18: “Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins.”

It is our recognition that we ourselves, in ourselves, are apt to stray that is the starting point of our asking for guidance. If we do not humbly acknowledge our guilt, the fact that we are sinners, we will go on rejecting God's way in our lives.

3. Obedience

Verse 10 “All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.”

What’s the use of sign posts on the highway if people just ignore them? When we are trying to find our way to an unfamiliar destination we carefully follow the street signs or if you’re really modern hi-tech you listen to the GPS satellite navigator in your car.

If we love the Lord we follow his way.

This is no pagan search for omens or portents; this is not trusting in the astrology columns in a magazine; this is not reading the tea leaves (which incidently has dropped out of favour now we mostly use tea bags); it’s not studying the entrails of a sacrificial goat like the ancient Romans did. This is tuusting the ways of our loving and faithful God.

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when I spoke about the righteous man from Psalm 1? “his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” And “the LORD watches over the way of the righteous”. The righteous man, the man who receives guidance from the Lord is the man who normally walks in the way of the Lord.

The third major theme of Psalm 25 which undergirds the whole Psalm is COVENANT.

In vss 6,7,10 the word translated “love” is actually a Hebrew word which mens “Covenant Love” Sometimes you see it translated “loving kindness” or “steadfast love”

Verse 10 again: “All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.” David claims all the benefits of obedience to the covenant. In verse 7 he reminds God of the relationship he has shared with him in the past and asks that it may continue and and the justification for this is given in verse7& 8 as the goodness of God. David acknowledges that it is because of God’s covenant love, his kindness that he doen’t hold David’s past sins against him. It is not any merit of David’s.

Psalm 51 was written by David after the prophet Nathan came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba and his arrangement of the death of her husband Uriah. Through that Psalm runs the constant note of calling upon God's mercy:

Verses 1 & 2 Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion

blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity

and cleanse me from my sin.

The unfailing love that David is calling upon is again that covenant love. Always, what we need from God is mercy and forgiveness. If we claim our own merit it just doesn’t wash.

In verses 10 & 11 of Psalm 51 :

“Create in me a pure heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.”

A clean heart doesn’t come from our own efforts. It is a creation of God, acting in his mercy and forgiving and cleansing us.”

Time and again we are reminded in the scriptures that of ourselves we are sinners and that we overcome this purely by the mercy and loving kindness of God.

So back in Psalm 25. Receiving guidance from God is not a matter of facing a particular situation and praying to God to make the decision obvious to you. It is more a matter of consistently walking in God's ways. Following his paths. Acknowledging our own sins, failings, inadequacies and receiving God's forgiveness because of his mercy and covenant love.

Let us pray.

Question: What do you think of that? A good thing, bad thing . . .the decision to withhold his identity?
One can understand why such a decision would be made but personally I think it's a bad thing because it reinforces a common misconception that many people have about Christians and Christianity: namely that if you are a person of faith, you'll never question the goodness of god. You'll never experience doubt.
I mean, surely that would be a contradiction in terms, to say you are a believer and yet to experience doubt over God's goodness. And those who suggest that as a believer one should never experience a hint of doubt will often back their claims by turning to the Bible and citing examples of people there who seem to enjoy an unshakeable, unflappable, doubt-free faith in God.
For example take a look at v23-26 of our psalm today, Psalm 73
“²³Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. ²⁴You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. ²⁵Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. ²⁶My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Question: What does such a passage say to you, or do for you?
Well for many people this places a question mark over the validity of their own faith. It says me "If this is the normal Christian life then there must be something wrong with me and my faith because there are times when . . . "
And so the apparent absence of doubt in others - both the Christians around me and those whose lives are recorded in the Scriptures - actually serves to increase the level of doubt in my own life.
That being the case it comes as something of a relief to discover that A Grief Observed is actually written by C.S. Lewis. In a strange way that's almost an encouragement to me.
And what's more, the writer of this particular Psalm is no different.
Come back to the start and read vs 1-2:
Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.”

According to the first verse he's a believer. But he's looking back to a time when he came within a whisker of abandoning God altogether – “I had nearly lost my foothold.”
V15 tells us just how serious his doubts were: “If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed your children.”
- very similar to CS Lewis.
Yes! We do read of his great trust in God - vs 1 "God is Good" . and v23-26 "God is good to me", but it wasn't always like that. There had been a time when he had seriously doubted that God was good. And it’s at this point the Psalm becomes extremely relevant to you and me.

Two Questions
What caused his doubt?
What help him come through the other side?

1. The cause of his doubt
Similar to CS Lewis it arose out of the seeming contradiction he observed between faith and reason.

Look at vs 1 again. “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.”
Sounds a pretty reasonable creed doesn't it? It was the affirmation of any faithful Jew of his day: "God is good to His people".
And yet this man's experience of life seemed to contradict what he knew intellectually about God. Things had happened which had caused him to say to himself: "My trust in God is a nonsense!"
Look at vs 3. “For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” That’s where his problems started. It's the age old question of :

1.1 Why do the Wicked Prosper?
Why is it that so many who have rejected God seem to be doing so well in life? V4-12 provides a description these people.
They clearly have no interest in God - .read v11 “They say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?” and yet, they seem to be enjoying the good life!
If you look at the whole section from v2-12, he's not saying that everyone who rejects God has this kind of life; he's just pointing out that it's often like that. There are so many ungodly people for whom life just seems to be so good.
Somehow, that doesn't seem right does it? How can God let them get away with it? “God is good to the pure in heart”, but look at the lives of the wicked!

However there's more behind this mans doubt than just that! Look at vs 13-14.

1.2 Why must I Suffer?
Here's the straw that broke this man's back.
The Real Issue was not simply why do the upright suffer? but rather why must I suffer? Now it probably shouldn't be this way, but isn't it true?
The issue of the innocent suffering can be purely academic - until you are the innocent that suffers!
You can read every day of people being hijacked in their cars it may make you angry but you can live with it - until you get hijacked.
I think it's this factor that brought the writer of this Psalm to the edge.
I would assume that CS Lewis must have been aware of hundreds of people dying of cancer before it struck his wife, but only when it happened to him did it really become a massive spiritual problem. Why me?
That's the real issue in Psalm 73.
That's the question being asked.
You might be in a similar position at this moment.
You may be questioning the goodness of God.
It may be because of the evil in the world that you see around you, but it's probably because of your own personal experiences of things going wrong.

Now hear me when I say: it not wrong to feel that way!
In fact, I want to argue it's to be expected.
God's people suffering is part of the normal Christian life. And the pressure of this experience is often of a nature that it may cause us to doubt that God is good. That’s normal.
But it's when that question is ignored and overlooked that our faith may come under threat.

So, what's the cure? How do we deal with it?

2. The cure for doubt

2.1 Negatively
Look at v16 “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me.” It's not going to help to sit down and get all philosophical about it. The solution is not to be found in human reason. In fact, it's often the case that the more we turn to reason the more oppressive the situation can become.
Instead, what we need is God's understanding. And that's what vs 17 is all about: “till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny”

Now, this psalm is part of what we call wisdom literature. That’s books like Ecclesistes, Job, Proverbs, some of the Psalms. These sections of the Bible relate to our knowledge and understanding of life. The key to succesful living is wisdom, the key to wisdom is the Word of God.
And so the wisdom literature applies the Word of God to many of the big questions which plague us in life. That's what this Psalm is all about.
The "sanctuary" was the temple. Which represented the place where God dwelt. To speak of "entering the sanctuary" is to speak of turning to God. Turning to Him for counsel and guidance. Of allowing God to dominate our thinking. For example vs 16-17a (“When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God…”).

As he turned to God things began to fall into place.
But what did he learn?
I'm pretty sure these were not new lessons to him. No doubt these were things that had made him a believer in the first place but he had forgotten them and needed a reminder. There are three things he was reminded of. Firstly

A new Perspective on Human Destiny
Quite often, our trouble is that we have a hopelessly inadequate view of the world and life. We tend to ignore what we cannot see. We limit our thoughts to what we can see, touch, smell.
But the future cannot be known in this way and so we live as if it doesn't exist:

Think about the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:13-21). The context is that Jesus is talking about future things. Things like . judgement etc. A man in the crowd interrupts him, questions over a will.
Jesus responds with the Parable of the Rich Fool - A story of a man who was so pre-occupied with the here and now that he faced certain judgement in the future.
The person who lives their life with no regard for the future is a fool as far as Jesus is concerned. Because apart from anything else, the future reality is the Judgement from God!

This man writing our Psalm begins to see that he's forgotten all about that. “Then I understood their final destiny… surely you placed them on slippery ground. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.” (V17-20)
There's more to life than meets the eye!
Ever had a nightmare, where you wake up in a cold sweat, petrified? You switch the light on, and then you realise it was a dream, and you feel foolish to get so worked up over a dream.. That's the prosperity of the wicked, when viewed in the light of eternity.
One day we'll wake up and realise just how insubstantial that prosperity was. The Psalmist begins to see that.
And so he begins to now develop a:

A New Perspective on Himself
Read vs21-22 “When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.”
Part of our trouble once we get into the self pity trip, it quickly develops into a vicious circle.
We don't feel like turning to God
We don't feel like reading His Word.
We would much rather feel sorry for ourselves and feed our resentment against Him, with the result that we become more and more self absorbed and our darkness grows deeper and our doubt turns to despair.

All of which is one reason why the habit of church is a good thing. If we don't discipline ourselves to hear His word regularly, then when the times of doubt comes, how will we ever be brought to see things from God's perspective?
[What is it that Hebrews 10 says? “²⁴And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. ²⁵Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”]

That's this man's story.
It was in God’s presence that he began to see himself as he really was. “I envied the arrogant” “I was senseless and ignorant (ignoring reality)…”.
And something else he began to see about himself: Namely that he remained a child of God.
Vs 23-24 “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.”
So long as we are kept from God's Word we can hide this truth from ourselves… We can be our own worst enemies can't we? We think: ‘You're not really a Christian? A Christian wouldn't feel that way about other people!!’
But it's as we read God's word, that we begin to see ourselves as God sees us. And that can be a rebuke and an encouragement.
To be reminded that my Christianity depends not upon my performance but upon God's faithfulness.

A New Perspective on Real Values
This man had come to question the goodness of God back in v1 But that all depends on what you mean by ‘good’.
Does that mean healthy, wealthy, popular?
If that's what you mean then of course you have to come to the conclusion that God is very often not good to the pure in heart!

But you see, the truth is, that those kind of benefits, though they may be good in their own way, are not really what goodness is about.
It's one of the great tragedies of the modern church that people have allowed the pursuit of such things to rob them of the best things. The thing that v25 speaks of: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you”
Many people here, in the enthusiastic flush of youth held someone's hand and said "For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better for worse".
What were you saying? [You may well be asking yourself that very question]. You were saying that having that person in your life was more precious to you than any other good thing you could think of.
Now, if human love can be such a precious commodity that it makes you indifferent to material welfare, where should love of God fit on our scale of values.?
Look at v26. "richer, poorer… better worse…”
Some day we may have actually paid off our mortgage, but the house will eventually crumble.
We may get that car we so badly desire – but it will rust.
Are those really the things that make life good?

Well here's what this man discovered from God's Word:
“God is good to the pure in heart”. But let me define goodness.
Read v28: “But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”

That's real value. As our psalmist thought of God's deeds: the promise to Abraham, thought of how God had remained faithful to that promise all throughout Israel's history.
Of course, as Christians we have so much more to look back on. We look back to Jesus His birth, his whole life, and his death on the Cross. [Romans 5:8-9.]

Conclusion
This Psalm is a source of great encouragement to me during times of doubt.
It reminds me that this is part of the normal Christian experience.
It tells me that I don't have to live under a pseudonym, like C.S. Lewis did, in such times.
By the way, Lewis, like our psalmist, never did lose faith in God. In his book A Grief Observed, there are a few pages in which Lewis speculates that God might be wicked, followed by the following line. “I wrote that last night. It was a yell rather than a thought”.
And so like the psalmist, like C.S. Lewis, as I express my doubt I am to be looking to God's Word - for it's there and there alone that I will find wisdom and a new perspective of life and human destiny. Wisdom about who I am, on what the good life really is.
And the good life for us is, in the end, to be found only in relationship with God through his Son, the Lord Jesus.

“Gee thanks. It’s just what I’ve always wanted.”

“Well OK, but this chocolate is definitely my last.”

“Of course we don’t mind you staying with us another week.”

“No problem dear, I’ll fix that during the holidays.”

The last one seems a little harsh to me. And, last but not least, the fifth lie you might hear this Christmas:

“No darling! Of course it doesn't make you look fat!”

Maybe you’ve already heard one or two of those this morning. I hope not. But Christmas is a time of year when we might stretch the truth a little for the sake of keeping the peace in the family.

This Christmas I’d like us to think briefly about the very first lie ever told at Christmas time. We actually heard it read in the passage from Matthew. It’s in chapter 2 verse 8 where Herod said to the magi, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him”. Now that’s a lie! Herod isn’t interested in worshipping Jesus. You can tell that because, if we keep reading from Matthew, we’d have heard that the Magi aren’t fooled by Herod, they sneak off without tell him where Jesus is, and Herod is furious. Indeed, in a fit of rage, Herod attempts to kill the young Jesus by ordering the death of every boy two-years old and under in Bethlehem. Herod doesn’t want to worship Jesus. He wants to wipe him out!

Now why is that? What’s he so upset or threatened about? Around Christmas time we might stretch the truth for the sake of being polite and keeping the peace in the family. But what’s behind Herod’s lie? What’s going on in his head? Well, essentially it’s because there’s one thing about Jesus that Herod has understood. But there’s another thing about Jesus that he hasn’t understood. Herod is going off half-cocked because he doesn’t fully appreciate what Jesus is on about. Let me show you what I mean.

Firstly, the thing that Herod does’nt understand about Jesus (Matt 2:1-3). Herod doesn’t like hearing the news that a king has been born. You see at the time of Jesus’ birth, Herod was the Roman-appointed king of Judea and Herod is infamous for the viciousness with which he dealt with possible rivals to the throne. Herod actually killed his favourite wife and two of his own sons as a safeguard to holding on to the throne. And suddenly, you see here’s three magi asking to see the new born king. This is not what Herod wants to hear. Herod likes being the one who makes the decisions around the place. Herod likes to be the one calling the shots and giving the orders. But now a threat to all that has come into his world.

Now, in one sense, Herod is of course spot-on in his assessment of this. It in no ways justifies his behaviour, but Herod is right in the sense that someone more important than him has been born. Someone more important than any of us was born that first Christmas. Because Jesus is the son of God. That baby lying in the manger is in fact the Lord of heaven and earth. Jesus is someone who is so important that he has the right to tell us all how to live. Herod at least, has got that part spot on.

But where Herod goes wrong is that he thinks Jesus is a political opponent to him. He thinks that Jesus has come to gather an army to try and push him around. But that’s miles from the truth. Yes, Jesus is a king, but what he doesn’t understand is that Jesus is a king who’s come to serve and to save people. Not to push them around. We actually see this earlier in Matthew 1 where the angel said to Joseph. “She (Mary) will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Now you may not have realised that you need to be saved from sin. But, at the risk of offending you, you do. In fact we all do. The reason we don’t realise this is because we tend to think that the word sin only refers to really, really bad things like murder or rape or grand theft or the such. But in God’s eyes we are all sinners because none of us follow God to the extend that he deserves and demands. None of us give God the honour or the attention or the obedience that we should. Instead what we all do is basically ignore God. We get out of bed and our natural tendency is to think that we’re the boss of our own life. So we go through each day doing our own thing, making our own plans and decisions, rather than submitting to God. And some of us might certainly turn out to be nice, respectable people but in the end it’s only because we’ve decided to be like that. We’ve made the decision rather than acknowledging and obeying God’s decisions.

And that dismissive attitude we all have towards God is called sin and because of it we all deserve to go to hell instead of enjoying eternal life with God. Which puts us in a real mess. None of us are good enough to deserve eternal life - which is exactly why Jesus came: “You are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins”. Jesus is a king on a rescue mission to save us from our sins. And the way Jesus saved us was by taking our punishment for us. He did that when he was crucified. Because when Jesus died on the cross he took our place and he accepted God’s anger on himself instead of us having to bear it.

I read an interesting article a while back in the Sydney Morning Herald (Sunday Life 17/09/00) about movie stand-ins. They’re the people who replace movie stars in scenes that are dangerous or just uncomfortable. Like Glenn Duhigg, an ex-lawyer who worked as the stand-in for Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2 and 3. Glenn reckoned, “It sounds very glamorous saying you’re the stand-in for Tom Cruise but I don’t think many people realise the long hours and constant demands that deflate your ego very quickly. The days are long. Whatever scene Tom was in, I would be the one standing there, being him sometimes for ages as the crew set up the shot—getting the lighting just right and the props just so. I’d be standing there for hours out in the weather, getting drenched in the rain or sun stroke out in the heat. And then Tom would just walk on the set from his air conditioned caravan or out of his beautiful sports car once the scene was ready.” As one of the other stand-ins said, “I realised very quickly the difference between being a star and being a stand-in.” Now you see, on the cross Jesus was our stand-in. He endured the discomfort, the pain, the punishment from God, all in our place. He accepted God’s anger on himself instead of us. He was our stand-in. Amazing that he would do that, because really Jesus is the important one. You wouldn’t expect Tom Cruise to stand-in for that bloke Glenn Duhigg. No, Tom’s the important one. But with Jesus it’s the exact opposite. Even though Jesus is the important one, God’s king come to earth, yet he stood in for us. The star became the stand-in for us.

It is an amazing sacrifice, but of course one that Herod doesn't understand. Herod doesn’t see the salvation. All he sees is a threat to him doing what he wants. So he reacts with dishonesty and brutality. It’s an extraordinary reaction to a king, who’s only coming because he wants to help us. But Herod is blinded by his arrogance and his self-importance

And friends, I need to just gently ask you today, whether or not you might be a little like Herod? Oh you mightn’t be as vicious as Herod is about it, you're a lot nicer in the way you express it, but still the thought of Jesus being your king and telling you how to live your life still gets your bristles up. You like being the king in your life and so the idea of Jesus having the right to tell how to live annoys you. And so you’ve come along this morning so as to keep the other members of your family happy, you don’t mind a bit of religion in your life especially at Christmas, but in the end you know that your heart is hard against Jesus. You’re the boss of your life, you’re going to do things your way, and nobody’s going to come and ram Jesus down your throat even at Christmas time. Is there a part of you like that? Like Herod?

Can I suggest that there’s actually a much better way of reacting to Jesus? You can see it in the reactions not of Herod, but of the magi. For what Matthew clearly wants us to see is the contrast between Herod and the Magi. Whereas Herod sees Jesus as a rival king to be wiped out. The magi see Jesus as their rightful king to be worshipped. Whereas Herod goes to great time and energy, expense and inconvenience to try and find Jesus in order to to kill him. The magi go to great time and energy, expense and inconvenience to find Jesus so as to honour him.

You don't have to be a genius to see which one Matthew thinks is the right reaction to have. Don’t do a Herod, who’s reaction to Jesus is to reject him. Do a magi, seek Jesus out, gratefully accept his help and to submit to him. It would be tragic to not do that. One of the world’s most famous pieces of art would have to be the “Last Supper”, by Leonardo De Vinci. Most people have at least seen the image if only in the move “The Da Vinci Code”. It’s that picture of Jesus at the centre of this long table and all his disciples either side of him. Well, the Last Supper was actually painted by De Vinci as a fresco on the wall of the dining room in a monastery. Unfortunately poor old Leonardo hasn’t been too well served by history. The wall began to crumble almost immediately he’d finished painting it, because the monks had only built it with loose dirt. Some early friars even cut a door through the wall, right where Christ’s feet were. Then over time the chamber stopped being a dining room and became in turn a stable, a storage-room, a prison and a barracks! Can you imagine that, a roomful of donkeys, or convicts sharing space with one the greatest pictures in history? And finally to add insult to injury, when they finally decided to restore the painting up a little, some of the restoration was so sloppy as to be scandalous. One artist in particular was so casual about the task that he actually gave James six fingers on one hand! All in all the art world now mourns that such a treasure could be so neglected, so overlooked, so under valued and treated so poorly. But friends if its a tragedy to treat a picture of Jesus like that. How much worse is it to treat the person of Jesus like that, to neglect him, to overlook him, to undervalue and to misunderstand him. That was Herod’s mistake. He let his pride and his ignorance get in the way and so he missed the good news that the birth of Jesus was the coming of a King. A king who certainly does have authority over us but who also loves us enough to come among us and set us free from a punishment we deserve. The appropriate reaction to a King like that is to gratefully accept him and submit to him. That’s what the wise men did. That’s what wise people still do.

Have a wise Christmas.

There were people in the Thessalonian church who were claiming that the Day of the Lord had already come, but Paul in a sort of funny reversal, uses the fact that the man of lawlessness, who will falsely claim to be God, had not yet come, to reassure them that the Day of the Lord still lay in the future. In Mark 13:5-6 Jesus himself warned, "Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and will deceive many.” And in verses 21 & 22 “At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ !' or, 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect--if that were possible.”

The Apostle Paul’s response to these false claims that the Day of the Lord had already come was to say to the Thessalonian Christians 2 Th 2:15 “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” Paul is concerned to show the authenticity of his own writing and writes near the end of the letter, 2 Th 3:17 “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters. This is how I write.” It’s possible that other people has been writing letters and claiming they had been written by Paul saying that Jesus had already come, and that there were other ways to salvation than faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul condemns not just these other gospels but also those who write them for as well as not believing the truth they have actually delighted in wickedness. He thanks God that the Thessalonian Christians have been called by God to salvation through what he calls “our gospel”, the true blue authenticate gospel taught by the apostles. And he encourages them to 2 Th 2:15 “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.“

Now this is a very important principle. That we hold firm to the gospel that has come to us from the Apostles. It’s why we say in the Nicene Creed that we believe in the one, holy, universal and apostolic church. Our faith is based on the truth of Jesus Christ as recorded for us by the Apostles in the gospels and the other NT writings.

The Christian writers of the second and third centuries AD -- what is known as the sub-apostolic age, a time when the church was still growing rapidly, but the Apostles had all died -- had to fight to retain the authenticity of the Christian message as false teachers tried to substitute false gospels for the true gospel. And of course people who want to do this are still around today. People, for one reason or another, take offence at the true gospel and try to substitute something else in its place. At times the true church finds itself swamped by these false gods and false Christs.

In the early church the orthodox Christians overcame some of the false teachings by composing the Christian creeds. In them they summarised what true Christians believe. The apostles’ Creed had its origin as a baptismal creed. If you became a Christian from out of a pagan background you were given a course of instruction and required to recite the Apostles’ creed before you were baptized. The apostles’ creed dates back to about 140AD.

The Nicene creed was formulated at the Council of Nicea in Ad 325 when Constantine, the first Roman emperor to become a Christian called the council to deal with a particular false teaching that was spreading through the church at that time. The false teaching, or heresy, was that Jesus wasn’t God become man but just the first being created by God. This was known as the Arian heresy after Arius who was teaching it. The Arian heresy is still around today, taught for example by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Christadelphians.

Even in Paul’s time there were those who were saying that you have to obey the Jewish law as well as having faith in Jesus in order to be saved. This is what the books of Galatians and Hebrews are about. And versions of that heresy is still around taught by the Seventh Day Adventists and others.

The Athanasian creed, which was named after Athanasius who was the leader of the goodies at the council of Nicea was drawn up to counter wrong teaching about the Holy Spirit. And down through the ages churches have felt the need to write down what they believe in order to refute false teaching. The reformation produced our 39 Articles and the Westminster Confession as well as the longer and shorter catechisms which were all summaries of Christian faith written to refute the heresies of the time.

In recent years we’ve had a whole swag of people who have tried to persuade us that Jesus is something other than what is portrayed for us in the bible. Almost every Christmas or Easter a new book appears on the bookstands or there’s a TV documentary supposedly telling us the truth about Jesus.

Paul’s answer to this was for the Thessalonian Christians to cling to the Gospel that had been taught to them by the Apostle Paul. Our answer today is to cling to the Gospel that has been recorded for us by the Apostles in the Bible.

In the Sub apostolic age the true blue Christians even had to fight to preserve the integrity of what we now call the New Testament against those who wanted to chop bits out because they didn’t like what it was teaching. One guy called Marcion threw out all the Old Testament, all the gospels except Luke’s, substantial parts of Luke’s gospel, particularly those bits that referred to John the Baptist and to Jesus as the fulfillment of the OT prophesies, the Acts of the Apostles, all the letters except those of Paul and he only kept 10 of Paul’s thirteen letters. It was in response to guys like Marcion that the church acknowledged what books it believed comprised the true apostolic account that we call the new Testament.

At that time there were other so called gospels floating around that claimed to be true accounts of the life of Jesus but were patently false.

When these false teachings come from outside the church it’s easy to refute them. But when they are coming from within, from people who are in positions of influence and responsibility within the church it is more difficult. The Apostle Paul says stick to what you were originally taught by the Apostles.

The apostle John says, 1 John 2:24-25 “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us--even eternal life.”

These days we turn to the Bible to know what it is the apostles taught. We must fill our minds with the truth of God from the Bible in order to protect ourselves from the false garbage that people will try to teach us. Read the Bible for yourself. Belong to a bible study Group. Listen to sermons from reputable preachers. Read books by reliable Christian authors. Fill your minds with God’s truth because that is what will protect you from error.

Paul finishes up his second letter to the Thessalonians by warning them against idleness. 2 Th 3:10 "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." He says. And 2 Th 3:12 “Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.”

This is not an injunction against those who cannot find work, they deserve our help and compassion, but against those who will not work, who instead of being busy become busybodies.

There is also the possibility that such people had decided that if Jesus is going to return soon then what’s the point of working. But the way to live in these last days is to be ready to go when Jesus returns and in the meantime to get on with the work he has given us.

I’d like to finish this series from 1 & 2 Thessalonians with the prayer that the Apostle Paul prayed for the Thessalonian Christians. 2 Th 2:16-17 “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”

AMEN

Paul first gives a greeting, not only from himself but also from Silas and Timothy, who were well known in Thessalonica, having shared with Paul in the original evangelization of the city. He wishes the Thessalonians those greatest of all gifts, grace and peace, adding a reference to the source of these two blessings, God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1. The letter proper begins in vs 3-4 with a thanksgiving for God's grace and blessing on the Thessalonian church:

We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. There­fore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.

There is both a recognition of the Thessalonians' spiritual growth and at the same time he attributes their growth to God's grace.

Faith is a relationship of trust in God, and like all relationships is a living, dynamic, growing thing. There are degrees of faith, as Jesus implied when he said 'You of little faith' and another time 'I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith'. It is similar with love. We assume rather helplessly that we either love somebody or we do not, and that we can do nothing about it. But love, like faith, is a living relationship, whose growth we can take steps to nurture. Their progress is due to God's active grace within them. Paul attributes their spiritual health to God, for, instead of congratulating them on their faith, love and perseverance, he thanks God for these things. When he is talking to God, he thanks him for his grace shown to the Thessalonians and when he is talking to people he boasts of God’s grace shown to the Thessalonians.

There is an important practical lesson here. What should our attitude be to Christians, either individuals or a church who are doing well in some aspect of their discipleship or ministry? Some people resort to congratulations: 'Well done! I think you're marvelous. I'm proud of you.' Others are uncomfortable with this and see an incongruity. It borders on flattery, promotes pride and robs God of his glory. So, although they may thank God privately in their prayers, they say nothing to the person concerned. They replace flattery with silence, which leaves the people concerned discouraged.

Paul exemplifies a third way, which affirms people without spoiling them. He not only thanks God for the Thessalonians; he also tells them that he is doing so: 'we ought always to thank God for you ... we boast about you'. If we follow this example, we will avoid both congratulation (which corrupts) and silence (which discourages). Instead, we can affirm and encourage people in the most Christian of all ways: 'I thank God for you, brother or sister. I thank him for the gifts he has given you, for his grace in your life, for what I see in you of the love and gentleness of Christ'. This way affirms without flattering, and encourages without puffing up.

2. In vs 5-10 Paul gives a defense of God's justice

All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 'They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

Paul sees in the Thessalonians, he says, not only evidence of God's grace in their lives, but also 'evidence of the righteous judgment of God'. But what is it in the Thessalonian situation which Paul perceives as an a 'plain indication' that God's judg­ment is right or 'just'?

It is both fact that the Thessalonians are suffering for Christ and it is the faith, love and endurance which they are displaying in the midst of their sufferings.

In the gospels Jesus had taught that suffering was the unavoidable path to glory, both for himself and for his followers. Similarly, Paul had insisted that it is only through many tribulations that we can enter God's kingdom and that only if we share in Christ's sufferings will we ever share in his glory. So suffering and glory, tribulation and the kingdom, belong inseparably to one another. Therefore, since God was allowing the Thessalonians to suffer, they could know that he was preparing them for glory. Their suffering was itself evidence of the justice of God, because it was the first part of the equation which guaranteed that the second part, glory, would follow.

On the other hand, although God was allowing the per­secutors some rope, it was evidently in the Thessalonians that he was especially at work. He was on their side, sustaining and sanctifying them. He was using their persecutions as a means through which to develop their faith, love and per­severance, in contrast to the prejudice, anger and bitterness of their persecutors, and so was preparing them for his eternal kingdom. By these qualities they were not 'made worthy' of the kingdom, in the sense of deserving it, but they were counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which they were suffering.

This is an important distinction. We do not deserve glory simply because we’ve suffered. Many people who have suffered greatly are still under God's judgment because they have not turned to God in repentance and faith.

However, Paul states that because God is just, he will vindicate the Thessalonians publicly one day. He will reverse the fortunes of both groups, the persecutors and the persecuted, when Christ comes. He will pay back trouble to the trouble-makers and will give relief from affliction to his people who have been afflicted, including the apostles.

Of course it takes spiritual dis­cernment to see in a situation of injustice evidence of the just judgment of God. Our tendency is to see only the surface appearance, and so make only superficial comments. We see the malice, cruelty, power and arrogance of the evil men who persecute. We see also the sufferings of the people of God, who are opposed, ridiculed, boycotted, harassed, imprisoned, tortured and killed. In other words, what we see is injustice - the wicked flourishing and the righteous suffering. It seems completely topsy-turvy. We are tempted to rail against God and against the miscarriage of justice. 'Why doesn't God do something?' we complain indignantly. And the answer is that he is doing something and will go on doing it. He is allowing his people to suffer, in order to prepare them for his heavenly kingdom. He is allowing the wicked to triumph temporarily, but his just judgment will fall upon them in the end. Thus Paul sees evidence that God's judgment is right in the very situation in which we might see nothing but injustice.

We need the same spiritual discernment and godly perspec­tive as Paul had. In the Thessalonians' success, instead of flattering them, he thanked God for the evidence of his grace. In their sufferings, instead of complaining, he thanked God for the evidence of his justice.

Paul's assurance of the righteousness of God's future judg­ment naturally prompts three questions: (1) When will it happen? (2) Who will be punished? (3) What form will the punishment take?

So Question 1: When will God vindicate his justice and redress the present imbalance of human experience?

Answer: This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blaz­ing fire with his powerful angels. Jesus’ coming will be personal, visible and glorious. His first coming, which we’re about to celebrate at Christmas, was in weakness and obscurity, his second coming, when it comes, will be in power and public magnifi­cence.

Question2: Who will be punished when our Lord comes as judge. Answer: Paul writes in v8:

He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Both expressions describe unbelievers in general, indeed their willful rejection of both the knowledge of God and the gospel of Christ. This is a bit of a worry isn’t it. The popular folk religion of our society tells us that only really bad people go to hell. Alternately liberal Christianity denies the existence of hell altogether so everyone goes to heaven. But what the Bible clearly teaches is that God “will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” It is important that we remember everyone stands under God's judgment, no exceptions, and the only way to avoid it is through genuine faith in Jesus Christ.

Question 3: What will their judgment be?

Answer: They will be pun­ished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the pres­ence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. That the final state of those who reject God and Christ will be awful and eternal is not in dispute. But the question whether their exclusion-destruction means conscious torment or ultimate annihilation cannot be settled by an appeal to this verse since the apostle does not here clearly allude to either. Whatever it is, just make sure that you avoid it by trusting in Jesus.

In contrast to the appalling nature of hell, Paul then goes on to portray the glory of heaven. For when Christ comes, he will not only judge those who reject the gospel, but he will also be glorified in his holy people and be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes the Thessalonians who, on hearing the apostle's testimony to them had believed. So not only will the Lord Jesus be 'revealed' objectively in his own splendour so that we see it, but his splendour will be revealed in us, his redeemed people, so that we will be transformed by it and will become vehicles by which it is displayed to the world. We won’t just be spectators of the revelation of Christ’s glory we’ll actually be part of it. We will not only see, but share, his glory. We will be more than a filament which glows temporarily, only to become dark and cold again when the current is switched off. We will be radically and permanently changed, being transformed into his likeness.

Take the Transfiguration as an illustration. On that occasion Jesus was glorified in his physical body. His face shone like the sun, while his skin and clothing glistened and became as white as light. In other words, his body became a vehicle for his glory. So will it be with his spiritual body, the church. The Body of Christ will be transfigured by the glory of Christ, not temporarily as at the Transfiguration, but eternally. One commentator wrote that if we could see ourselves as we will be when we are transformed by the glory of Christ, we would bow down and worship ourselves as the disciples wanted to do when they saw Jesus, Moses and Elijah in all their glory and the mount of transfiguration.

3.The last couple of verses of Ch 1 are a prayer for God's power

With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Although the future of God's people is secure, Paul does not presume upon it. On the contrary, the prospect of our final transformation is an incentive to the pursuit of holiness now. So Paul's eschatological vision, his vision of the ultimate triumph of God and the vindication o0f his people, leads him to earnest prayer. It is prayer which links the future to the present, the vision of what is to come with the reality of what is. Paul's prayer consists of two parallel petitions. The first is that our God may count them worthy of his calling.

We’ve already seen, that this doesn’t mean to 'make worthy' There is no possibility of our establishing or accumulating merit in such a way as to deserve God's favour. No, when God called us to himself through Christ, he did it in his free grace to the unworthy and the undeserving. Since then, he has been summoning us to 'live a life worthy of the calling' with which we have been called. He has also been working in us in order to narrow the gap between what we were when he called us and what we should be and shall be. Only in this way can we be 'counted worthy' of his call and so receive entry into his kingdom.

The second petition in Paul's prayer is that by his power God may fulfill their every good purpose and every act prompted by their faith. He is not asking God to fulfill every thing they ask or whatever whim takes them but everything that is good and is prompted by their faith and so will result in good deeds. And the purpose of this is that the Name of Christ may be glorified in them and also that they in Christ.

When by God's power God's people live a life worthy of his call, and when their resolve issues in goodness and their faith in good works, then Jesus himself is seen and honoured in them, and they through union with him are seen in their true humanness as the image of God. In other words we don’t have to wait until Christ returns for us to share in his glory. It is a breath-taking, present reality.

4.Conclusion: the glory of Jesus Christ

Throughout this first chapter of 2 Thessalonians are recurring references to the glory of Christ.

· In verse 7 the Lord Jesus will be revealed in his glory.

· In verses 8 & 9 those who reject Christ will be excluded from his glory.

· In verse 10 the Lord Jesus will be glorified in his people.

· In verse 12 Jesus Christ must begin to be glorified his people, in us,

In his farewell discourse in that upper room, the night before his crucifixion, Jesus taught this same progression. He prayed that he might be glorified by means or his death and resurrection and that his own people might see his glory in heaven. But in the meantime he made the astonishing statement 'I am glorified in them'.

What is the meaning of life? It is to prepare us for the glory of heaven, but we don’t have to wait until then for as we live our lives honouring Christ, that glory is already ours.

Let us pray.

2. Joel and the history lesson.
As we come to chapter three, you can probably see elements that are similar to chaps 1 and 2, but there are some new ideas creeping in as well. In previous talks, we’ve taken little peeks at how Joel’s words here are sometimes echoed by other prophets in the O.T. as well as being fulfilled in the N.T. (as we saw last week).
But to really get our heads around chapter 3 , we need to have a idea of why God used people like Joel and the other prophets.
So hang to your Bibles as we dive right back to Genesis 12:1-3 –look it up, because here we have in some ways, a three verse summary of the whole O.T.
Genesis 1-11 is really the story of the search for the special person whom God would use to bring a halt to the destruction, misery and death that sin has bought into the world. By Genesis 12 that’s been narrowed down to one man and his family: Abram.
” The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:1-3
To Abram three things are promised:
1. To leave his land and go the land that God had picked out – what we know as Palestine.
2. God promised that he would become a great nation, that he would father children who would go on to father a great nation of people more numerous than the sand on the beaches and the stars in the sky. And it came to be. A huge proportion of the world’s population call Abraham ‘father’. Quite extraordinary!
3. The third promise, which is a little strange, is that Abraham will be the channel for blessings and curses for the rest of the world – v3.
The whole rest of the O.T. is the story of the working out of those promises. God repeats the promises to Isaac – Abraham’s son, to Jacob who becomes ‘Israel’, and who has the twelve sons from whom the 12 tribes of Israel come, and so forth.
He repeats them to Moses in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, and in Numbers and Leviticus, where God actually turns the promises into a formal contract – a covenant! Where he sets out again to state that his people will be the owners of the land, that they will be a mighty nation, and all the other nations would be blessed – or cursed – through their association with Israel.
Of course under King David, it all seems to come true, because at the time of David they owned the promised land and David actually expanded the borders! They were a mighty nation! And they were a blessing to everybody in the region, for whenever nations formed an alliance with Israel, wealth and prosperity followed, and whenever people opposed them, they would be destroyed.
Solomon is the high point of Israel’s prosperity under the promise. But… from there on everything started to go pear shaped, it’s a steady decline downhill, and it’s because part of the contract God worked out with Moses required certain things of the people of Israel:
If they were to live as God’s people in God’s land, they had to be different, they had to be distinctive, they had to live as God’s people day by day, in all they did.
They had to keep God’s law – and they failed… miserably. And God had spelt out to Moses back in Deuteronomy: ‘This is what I will do if you fail to keep your side of the contract. I will destroy you’. I will destroy you by sending plagues, and pests and so forth.
And so we come to Joel… because Joel has recounted for us the locust plague sent by God as part of his judgement on his people.
Joel doesn’t tell us what the people had done wrong, but he does tell us that God is sending his day of judgement.
And now the locust plague comes, just as God has promised. The punishment on his people.
But remember, this locust plague was in indicator of something far greater, a bigger judgement, part of the day of the Lord, part of the end of the world. Like the thunder and lightening of a storm, they indicate that the storm was coming. But they’re also part of the storm, not separate from it.
So the locusts were to the day of the Lord, just the beginning. The beginning that indicates the end. If you think the locusts were bad, wait until the day of the Lord comes in it’s fullness – it will be worst than your worst nightmare!.
And so the locusts came with the prophetic word of Joel, and the people repent. Which is what they are called to in 2:12ff . And in 2:18-27 we see that God does relent, and as the people repent, God turns aside the locust plague, and replenishes the land. And once again they are the people of God, living in God’s land, enjoying peace and prosperity at his hand.
But know there is more this time. As we explored last week, in 2:28-32, there is something further this time, they are now going to receive the Spirit of God, something that is bigger and better than Israel had ever experienced, even at the heights of David’s day. They will have what Moses only dreamt of – they are going to have the Spirit of God living in them – all of them! Old, young, men, women. – they would all become prophets of God!
And everyone of them that calls on the name of the Lord will be saved on the coming day of judgement!

3. The next step…
And so, finally we come to chapter 3! And God is going to restore the fortunes of his land – Judah and Jerusalem – v1
The chapter looks forward to a wonderful time when God dwells in the land, when he would be in Zion – the hill in Jerusalem that the temple sits on – v17-18 “Then you will know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her. "In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the LORD's house and will water the valley of acacias”
God will come back to his land, and all his people will be there – v20. Egypt won’t survive, nor Edom, but God declares that he will be there in his land with his people. This is the great promise Joel is looking forward to, and can you see the connection to the promises made to Abraham?
God promises to take care of his people – v16 he will be a refuge to his people, a stronghold for them. Wonderful promises! Connecting right back to Abraham, and forward into the N.T. !
They are the highlights of this chapter.
But most of chapter 3 isn’t about the land or the people, most of the chapter is about blessings and curses – again harking back to the covenant with Abraham, but in a different way, because this is about the effect on the other nations around Israel, and most of it is actually about curses.
And so, despite the high points this is another pretty serious and unhappy chapter of the Bible, there’s a happy end to it all, but some misery to deal with before that…
This chapter is a call to gather the nations into the valley of Jehoshaphat –which means ‘the valley where God is the judge’ – v2, 12, 14. So this is like a huge courtroom on the day when the sentence is passed down, a judgement against the nations.
It’s against them in relation to God’s people, Israel (v2), for those accused have scattered God’s people amongst the nations and divided up the land, they’ve cast lots for God’s people (v3), trading boys for prostitutes and girls for wine.

4. Remember Abraham…
But remember Abraham…: ‘Whoever curses you Abraham will be cursed’. The nations of the world have gathered to curse God’s land and his people. They are now to gather together and God will judge them.
And the judgement is that the nations are to be destroyed by God.
This is another situation where some of this is in the ‘now’ of history. And some of it is in the end of the world – like the thunderstorm, it has stages to it, but it’s all part of the judgement of God.
Indeed, what is taking place now in the world is indicative of something bigger that is going to happen in a while.
And so looking back from where we stand, we can see Joel is writing about how there will be a reversal of the barbaric slave trade with Greece that v4-6 accuses Tyre and Sidon of. V7-8 talk of God’s judgement on those cities and people – the slave traders will themselves become slaves!
That’s going to happen, says Joel, in his future – but what we would now call history. But, just like on the other ‘day of the Lord’ scenes that we’ve been pondering, some of this goes beyond history and into our future – the end of the world, where all the nations gather together to war with God.
Hard to imagine a valley that will take all the nations of the world, and therefore how this will actually happen in our future, is a little unclear.
But v10 has God challenging the nations that would oppose him and saying, ‘come on then, put up a real fight! – turn all your farm tools into weapons, and come and fight me!’
Which is, of course just absurd! Ploughs and pruning hooks against the living creator of the whole universe!
v11 Hurry up all you nations, get yourself together and get yourself down to the valley, where I, the Lord God, will sit in judgement on you! Seriously scary stuff.
v 13 – the harvest time has indeed come, but (v15) the moon will be dark, the stars will no longer shine… it’s bigger judgement that is really in mind here… perhaps one in our future…

5. Joel fulfilled
Well, the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled. It was fulfilled back then in history, Edom was destroyed (you don’t any Edomites these days, do you?), And Egypt, the richest of all the ancient world cultures, has never succeeded again, it has remained a second rate power for centuries.
The slave trading out of Tyre and Sidon was indeed reversed, Alexander the Great came in the 4^th century and destroyed both cities, and 40,000 Sidonians were sold off in one day. It all happened just as Joel said it would happen.
But the prophecy was also fulfilled by Jesus!
Well… fulfilled and not really fulfilled!
Even allowing for the poetic style of v18, those things haven’t been fulfilled even to this day… A fountain hasn’t come forth from the house of the Lord – the temple in Jerusalem. That was destroyed in 70 ad and all that remains today is a single wall.
So how did Jesus fulfil the prophecy of Joel 3?
We know that Jesus didn’t do those things of v18… but when he came, he died and he rose again, and poured out his Spirit on his people, for Jesus is part of the Day of the Lord, Jesus is part of the judgement of God on the world.
Jesus in his death, was the judgement, the centre of the thunderstorm. For there, all the fury of God was spent on that one man. Then the power of God raised him to new life, and he poured out his Spirit upon us. So that all the people of God would no longer be the physical descendants of one particular man – Abraham, but the spiritual descendents, those who are born again by the Spirit of God.
And all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus, are indeed saved, and God has dwelt with his people from Zion – not the hill in Jerusalem, but the heavenly city of Zion.
For the fulfilment that Jesus bought is not the physical fulfilment, but a spiritual one. Still real! But spiritually real!
For the promised land was not Palestine, nor Jerusalem – that’s not the city of God, it’s only a symbol of the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem that Revelation 21 speaks of .
The Jerusalem in Palestine today, has nothing to do with the fulfilment of Scripture. Because it’s in Jesus that God has established his people in heaven, with him!
It’s the Spirit of God in me that makes me a ‘descendant of Abraham’. I’m a citizen of the city of God, I’m one of God’s people who live in that heavenly city!
But… we need to remember that the judgement seat is there also, for all who bless the name of Jesus are blessed, and all who curse it, will be cursed themselves. Since Jesus, it’s not just Israel, but all nations can find blessing in him, and those who reject him will be cursed.
When Jesus was around, he looked at the hard and unrepentant hearts of his own day in Matthew 11:21-22 “²¹"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! [People with the blood of Abraham coursing through their veins, people who lived in Palestine, the Promised Land, God’s land! But people who had rejected the Messiah when he came] If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²²But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you” –
The people who bless God because of the great son of Abraham, Jesus, will be blessed. And the people who curse God and reject his son Jesus, will be cursed.
The judgement is well and truly underway people.
We are in the latter part of the thunderstorm. And places like 2 Peter 3 shows us that there is still more to come, and there’s a big clean up operation yet to happen. But how is all this going to happen? We don’t need to worry about it, because it’s all been worked out for us.

Joel saw it in the locust plague. He saw that you if you turn with all your heart, God in his mercy, forgave.
But he saw that there was more to happen – the Spirit of God was to be given as well, and that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord would be saved. And he saw that this wasn’t just for Israel, but would have implications for all the rest of the people on earth too.
We who live on this side of the death and resurrection of Jesus know even more about it. Not that the basics have changed – repenting, and calling on the name of the Lord Jesus is still the way to be saved. We know more because we have received the Spirit of God into our lives, which changes us and transforms us into the people God wants us to be. We know more, but only more of what God has already told us.
And we know the judgement of God to be real, because we know that Jesus bore the judgement of God on himself. That’s how we know we are forgiven if we call on his name – but that’s also how we know that we will be lost if we reject him.

Joel’s task, under God, was to speak to his generation, warn them of the coming day of the Lord, and urge them to repent. He also spoke of the day when God’s Spirit would be poured out on all people who call on the name of the Lord Jesus, and are thereby saved.
All those things he spoke of, speak to us today – just as powerfully, but with an even deeper sense of urgency. That we and all we know might call upon the name of the Lord Jesus and be saved before that great, but terrible day of the Lord finally comes in all it’s glory and destruction.
Let us not sit on our hands , just waiting for that to happen…

2. The real Spirit.
Now, of course, the Holy Spirit is very real and in the Bible he does do all manner of miraculous things. But we must resist the temptation to allow popular culture and even our experience to define who the Holy Spirit is and what role he plays in our lives.
As always, we must understand the Holy Spirit as he is revealed to us in the Bible. And if we are to understand what the Bible is saying about the spiritual world, and spirituality, we have to consciously put out of our minds what the world is saying about these things, and not let them confuse us and lead us away from the truth.
One of the most important statements that the Bible makes about the Spirit of God is in the reading we had from Joel 2:28-32...
Why this slightly obscure passage from a little OT prophet? Because in Acts 2, on that great day when the Spirit comes upon Peter the other disciples, these verses in Joel are what Peter quotes as being fulfilled.
Acts 2
Turn to the Acts 2 passage that we read earlier.
There they are, the disciples, 50 days after Jesus death and resurrection, waiting in Jerusalem for the something that Jesus has spoken of, to happen. The Spirit comes upon them, and they start speaking in languages of the people around them, so that those people can hear and understand what Jesus has done for them. The scared, huddle of 120 are suddenly turned into a group of thousands by the end of that day, all following Jesus as Lord and saviour.
People say to Peter ‘Are you drunk?’, and he explains that it’s something far more significant than that: It’s the fulfilment of what Joel said would happen, and then quotes the passage we read tonight.
Joel 2
Let me very quickly remind you of the context of these few verses at the end of Joel 2.
If you recall 2:1-11 is the warning about the coming locust plague. There’s the powerful picture that Joel paints of an army of destruction coming upon the land. An army of almost superhuman character, v6 “At the sight of them, nations are in anguish, every face turns pale, they charge like warriors, they scale walls like soldiers ” and so on... A formidable army, that cannot be defeated. Joel sees this locust plague as the day of the Lord (v11), the day of God’s judgement. God is judging the nation of Israel with a plague of locusts that will destroy everything in it’s path.
And so the challenge of the next section – v12-17 is to repent. And repent in a profoundly significant and life changing way “rend your hearts not your garments” v13 says, “return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love” and who knows, he may turn and have pity. Turn back to God now and maybe God will hold back from judging his people!
Then v18-27 we read of how God does rescue them from the plague of locusts, and further, that he will replenish the land, sending abundant rain and lush crops: v26-27“You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.”
Now, the book of Joel could actually end at that point. It’s nicely rounded out, it’s at the end of an argument, and most of us wouldn’t notice if the book stopped there. But it doesn’t, and Joel goes on, because God has given him something more to say. V28 “‘And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” God is going to do something afterwards, over and above replenishing the land, over and above sending away the locusts. God is now going to send his Spirit upon his people.
But it’s more than just that. God is going to send his Spirit on people so that they will dream dreams, and see visions. All God’s people will prophecy – that is what is now going to happen!
This wasn’t a new idea in Scripture – although it probably is to many of us.

3. All God’s people prophecy.
Back in Numbers 11, Moses was looking after all the affairs of Israel, and it was too big a job. So God suggested that Moses should delegate and share the load. He did. And God gave them His Spirit (Num 11:17), and the chosen helpers prophesied. But Joshua, Moses’ offsider, was worried about this, and whether these elders would take something away from Moses’ leadership. Moses’ answer is a classic. Number 11:29 “But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”
Moses wished that all God’s people would become prophets of God, which is the same as saying that everyone of God’s people would have God’s Spirit living in them. What Moses wished is what Joel is prophesying will happen!
Joel is saying that there will be a day when God’s Spirit will live in all of his people, when all God’s people, young, old, male, female, will know God as the prophets knew God, that all God’s people would speak God’s word as the prophets speak God’s word.
But there’s more!
Joel continues in v30 to say “I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
In other words, the turning aside of the locust plague which was the day of the Lord, the start of the ‘thunderstorm’, does not mean that the day of the Lord won’t happen! It’s still coming! And in that coming of the Day, a new element is going to take place – the Spirit of God is going to live in the hearts and minds of God’s people. But the Day will still come. And in that judgement that which is to be great and terrible, is there any hope?
Yes!... v32 “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.”
Those whom God calls, who call on the name of the Lord, they will be saved in the day of judgement.
That is, God’s people are promised salvation because they call on the name of the Lord, and they are promised the coming of the Spirit.
These kind of promises occur in other prophecies as well.
Isaiah 54 speaks about people being taught by the Lord himself (54:13).
Jeremiah 31 talks about the new age when God is going to put his law in the minds and write it on the hearts of people, so that people will know God, as the prophets knew him.
Ezekiel speaks about something similar.
But the question is when will these things happen?
When is Joel talking about? What is the timing of these events? When is the ‘afterwards’ of v28? When is this judgement and pouring out of the spirit so that we might be rescued going to happen?
There were numerous historical events that were judgements on Israel – other locust plagues, invasions and similar calamities – culminating in the destruction of the political nation of Israel by Assyria and Babylon. All at God’s hand.
But of course, God also raised up other armies to rescue them out of Babylon, and to restore them to their own land.
But the pouring out of the Spirit of God had not yet taken place. The day of judgement had not finally come. The end of the world had not yet arrived, and the day in which God’s people all became prophets had not come.
Indeed, the reverse had happened, and for hundred’s of years, there were no prophets in Israel! The closing of the O.T. is several centuries before Jesus, and before a man called John the Baptist appeared, who was the last of the O.T. prophets even though he lived in N.T. times!
But with Jesus, things took a change. For with Jesus, he died and in his death, the sun was turned to darkness for several hours. The image of judgment, the locusts, turning the sky black, it was found in the judgement of the world that took place in the death of Jesus.
True, there’s more to the judgement of the world than the death of Jesus. He’s coming again to wind up this universe, but Jesus’ death was the battle that won the war - when Jesus paid the penalty for sin, and Jesus rose from the dead, to defeat death, the enemy of all mankind.
And all through the description of the death of Jesus, the language of Joel is used. In Matt 24 we read of the sun being darkened, and the moon not giving it’s light. In Mark 13 and Luke 21 Jesus talks about the end of the world in Joel language.
Just as the book of Revelation often speaks of locust plagues and the darkening of the sun to describe the end of the world.

But the really important fulfilment of Joel is in Acts 2. So lets turn back there now.
Acts 2:14ff that was read for us earlier. But notice how Peter changes v17? It was ‘afterwards’ in Joel, he now says, “in the last days”. For Peter, the fact that the risen Lord Jesus had just given his disciples his Spirit was a clear sign that the end of the world had come. The sign that God’s judgement was on the universe now. And that God’s people had now all become God’s prophets, and each one of them would now know the Lord just as Moses and Jeremiah and the others knew him.

4. Joel and Jesus.
But, I hear you saying, hang on, if this was the end of the world, why are we still here, two thousand years later?
Well, it’s because we are still living in the end of the world, in the last days. There is no more to come after the time we are in. We have BC – Before Christ, and AD – which is Latin for ‘The year of our Lord’. There is no ‘after AD’!
If you watched a footy game with the Eels playing, you watched the first half and second half – there is no third half! We are in the second half now... if not, extra time.
The last days are running out.... But notice that after the quote from Joel, Peter doesn’t seem to talk about the Holy Spirit.
He goes on to talk about Jesus – v22ff his death and his resurrection... Why?
Well, because a clear sign pointing to God’s chosen one, the Messiah, was that he would rise from the dead. And Peter quotes King David as prophesying that in v25-29.
So with the coming of the resurrection, comes the end of the world. With the coming of the resurrection comes the Messiah, with the coming of the Messiah comes the Kingdom of God.
Peter and the others are all witnesses to these key facts: That Jesus had risen from the dead – just like David prophesied!
And more than that, we know that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, because look what he’s done: he’s poured God’s Spirit into our lives.
Joel has already told us centuries before, that the giving of God’s Spirit to his people would be a sure sign that the Kingdom of God had arrived, that all God’s people, young old, male, female, would start prophesying – and that’s just what’s happened in front of all these people in Jerusalem!
It’s all there in Acts 2:33... but the punch line is a little further on in v36. Read it: “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
And remember that verse back in Joel 2:32? “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved;”... Who is the Lord? Acts 2:36 makes it very clear: the Lord is Jesus!
So Joel’s punch line becomes “And everyone who calls on the name of Jesus will be saved...”
And Peter’s audience are deeply moved by this and ask what they should do, and Peter responds with v38 “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This promise is not just for us, it’s for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.
Peter clearly sees Joel referring directly to Jesus in his death, resurrection and pouring out of the Holy Spirit. That Jesus is the one whom we call on for salvation.

5. The last days are now.
Jesus was no flash in the pan. He didn’t arrive on earth out of the blue. Rather, his whole role in dying, coming to life again, and the giving of his Spirit was foreseen centuries before by Joel. Which is why even today, if you call on his name, you will be saved. If you call on his name, you too will receive the Spirit of God!
And so we come to the last days. And sitting in this room here today, are some people who haven’t realised that fact.
There are some people here today who are living BC and some who are living AD. I don’t mean that we have some 2000 year old people here! But rather, that some of us are living ‘Before Christ’ and some of us are living ‘in the year of the Lord’.
For some of us here have never called on the name of the Lord Jesus, and have never received his Spirit into our lives, so that we would know God and speak God’s word.
And there are others of us here who are living in the year of the Lord, for we know the Lord is Jesus. He is the one who has died for our sins, he is the one who has overcome evil, he is the one who has risen from the dead. And in calling on his name, we have received the Holy Spirit. And have come to know God personally.
Which one are you? Which group do you belong to?
For those that call upon the name of the Lord, when the time of judgement comes upon them, or upon this world, you will be saved.
And those who do not call upon the name of the Lord, do not have the Spirit of God now, and when it comes to the day of the Lord, the Day of judgement, will be lost.
If you do not know Jesus as your Lord, why not ask about it today? Ask a Christian friend, or come and talk to me, or someone you know and trust.

I love watching summer thunder storms. You get great thunderstorms in January! And if you are on the coast particularly, it’s just a great thing to watch a summer storm brewing.
You see the clouds gathering on the horizon, the great columns of Cumulus Nimbus building higher and higher, getting darker and darker. As the storm gets closer, and the clouds spread across the sky, you can see the electrical activity inside the clouds. And all this is long before any rain comes, but the deep, ground shaking rumble of thunder tells you that something is on it’s way.
Summer storms often promise relief from heat and humidity – although that relief will probably be fairly dramatic and perhaps even traumatic.
And as the clouds continue to build and block the sun out, as the rumbles of thunder get louder and more dramatic, you may even see lightening strikes to ground in the distance. Then you see those first really big drops of rain strike the ground, and you think ‘here it comes!’, as they splatter the ground and make loud thumps on the car roof.
But those big drops often only last a few seconds though and then go away, and some people might think that they misread the signs and the storm will come to nothing.
But of course, that’s not the case, and often what might come next is smaller drops but much heavier, and then perhaps hail – and that’s really good to watch isn’t it? Unless they are really big hail stones and your car is parked outside!
But the hail is often only on the edge of the storm, and after the hail comes the serious rain, beating down hard and fast, and the lightning activity ramps up, so that the thunder can almost become a continuous noise pounding your eardrums!

2. The coming of the day of the Lord
The coming of the day of the Lord is like a thunder storm. It’s like a storm, in that you can pay attention to all the details, and yet forget that a storm is coming.
You can pay attention to the sequence and forget the really important stuff.
A guy at the weather bureau admitted that the other day. Responding to criticism of a lack of notice given about an early hail storm in Brisbane, he admitted that sometimes the weather nerds at the Bureau get so wrapped up in watching a big storm develop – recognising the shift in temperature and air currents, etc, etc , that they forget that they are watching a destructive, violent storm develop!
It can be like that with the day of the Lord, because there are all kinds of things that go to indicate that the day of the Lord is coming, but they don’t indicate when he is coming.
And yet, when you watch the ‘end of the world movies’ and TV series, and listen to any number of ‘end of the world’ preachers, there are endless people who spend their time trying to work out the sequence of events, and so pinpoint the timing of the day of the Lord.
But thunder storms don’t often follow the same sequences of events... Sometimes, there’s lots of lightning, sometimes little. We don’t always have huge building up of dark clouds, and so on.
The day of the Lord is like that. All kinds of things indicate that it is coming... more than that, indicate that it is coming soon, that it’s on the way... But those signs and indication still don’t tell us exactly when.
We know it’s coming because there are already plenty of signs to indicate that – if you know what to look for.
Joel saw it in the locusts.
He saw it in the locust plague that he describes so wonderfully in 2:1-11. It’s the day of the lord... “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for... the day of the Lord is coming.. it is close at hand.”
v11: “The Lord thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number, and mighty are those who obey his command. The day of the Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it?”
Joel sees in the locusts, the day of the Lord.
It’s a symbol of the day of the lord... but more than that, it’s part of the day of the lord.
It’s like the lightning. The lightning is a symbol of the storm, but it is also part of the storm. The storm hasn’t come, but it is coming. It has come, in the sense that I can see it, I can even feel it in the air, but it hasn’t really arrived yet. I’m not wet yet! But if I stand around long enough, the storm will arrive fully, and I will get very wet!
The locusts were like destructive hail in a storm... Do you remember the violent storm that hit this area in February 2002? The hail stripped plants and trees of all their leaves. Pummelled small plants into the ground, left large dings in unprotected cars.
But according to the SES, hail damage is always light compared to what usually follows: ie, downpours of rain. Hail is destructive, but floods are much more so. The deluge that follows even severe hail storms can cause much wider, and much worse damage than the hail itself.
So Joel’s locusts – they aren’t the end of the world, but they are the beginning of the end of the world, they are part of the end of the world. They can do tremendous damage, as v3 indicates
But there is still more to come. The locusts are just the start.

3. The hand of God
And as we saw last week, the locusts are not a natural disaster - Joel clearly sees here the hand of God.
You and I, we read the news