AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH

AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH – June 21st., 2009

A CONTINUATION OF THE ORIGINAL THRUST AND BASE OF

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA,

ON CHANGELESS BIBLICAL LINES

      "IS THERE ANY WORD FROM THE LORD ?"

         Jeremiah 37:17 with Jeremiah 23:33ff.,
         34:8ff. Isaiah 37:1ff., 38:14ff., II Kings 22:12ff., James 2

(For a fuller coverage, including explanatory options, use this link.)

THE FAITH THAT ACTS AND PREVAILS
ON THE PROMISES OF GOD …

PART II

WHERE WORDS ARE GIVEN A HEARING
IN THE HEART DOMAIN

I Hezekiah’s Trip to the Temple, His Heart’s March to the Lord

Take the case of King Hezekiah as seen in Isaiah 37ff.. HE is told of the coming onslaught of an arrogant, cruel and haughty King, Sennacherib, and what does he do ? Yes, he too goes to seek the Lord, a wise counsel. He presents the letter sent to him, and to the Lord goes the evidence, carefully arranged, and he seeks Him.

To the prophet Isaiah the situation is made known, and Hezekiah without self-confidence, with no semblance of self-esteem, but deeming God most able to answer prayer, seeks Him where He may be found, in poverty of spirit, expectation of power and supplication on the basis of what he as King sought for his mission, his people and the name, honour and glory of the Lord.

The army of the Assyrians soon was smashed in an amazing divine intervention. It matters little what means, directly miraculous or systematically prepared long before for outcome at this moment in the foreknowledge of God: the thing happened to the army in view at the time when it mattered; precisely as it had done at the Exodus from Egypt. TO THIS MAN, the Lord declares in Isaiah 66, will I look, to him who is "poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word."

Notice that it is not all emotion, spiritual hijinks of an athletic kind, dramatic announcements of a 'word' and so forth. It is God who will ACT (cf. Isaiah 64:4-5), and actually MEET with the person who "rejoices and does righteousness." Stay and obey, repent and receive pardon, seek vision and vigour and do the will of God: there is no problem. It is He who acts. We serve: He performs (cf. Psalm 57:2, 72:18).

Cease prevarication, equivocation, procrastination, the trilogy of feeble folly.

v "Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
do not lean to your own understanding,
acknowledge Him in ALL your ways,
and HE WILL DIRECT YOUR STEPS!"

╬That is the word of the Lord from Proverbs 3 (capitals added).

It is a capital word, from the capital of the Kingdom of Heaven, in its Eternal Word, who with His Father is its coming Temple in Himself (Rev. 21:22), the light of the World, Jesus Christ. The curse that has captured 'nature' - that is man's terrestrial environment at the created level - this, Christ has captured and done so selectively, for all who come to His liberation. Where ? there on the Cross He cancelled sin for those who truly receive Him. Some may wish, like reluctant inmates of concentration camps in Germany as the US Army rushed into them at the close of WW II, to remain in those unholy hospices. Those however who receive the liberation of Christ, get it: no one else.

Hezekiah, then, had a dynamic word from the Lord: it is He who spoke AND acted! We come now to a later King of Judah, in fact near the end of the line before the Babylonian captivity: Josiah. Judah of the South had escaped the Assyrian onrush (though Samaria with its idolatry was ruined); yet warned and not heeding, Judah was kept till a later Empire brought up its own day of judgment. Mercifully, it was in that instance, not permanent but for 70 years exile ( foretold by Jeremiah in Ch. 25). It was this together with the devastations that lay between! lyrically exposed by a grief-stricken Jeremiah in Lamentations. But let us consider Josiah and how in his case, as with Hezekiah before him, deliverance was wrought by the word of the Lord.

It can come, issued into history like a CO's orders to his officers, in ways past finding out. Like mist it comes, like growth it comes. It must be sought, the Lord's action on His own promises; and they stand, and so do those who rely on Him, and on His word so expressed (cf. II Peter 1).

II Josiah’s Kindly Death, Once the Mission is Manifestly Complete
A Timely Transference to Glory

Josiah’s case was unlike that of Hezekiah: for that was one which threatened his life. Yet the potential tragedy was turned into epochal triumph, and his life long continued after this. He was not early met with a threat of this kind. Rather it was complacency amid sounder seeming circumstances, or pride, that was the challenge, magnificently met by the boy King, Josiah.

In fact, over 18 years his glorious reign was to include vital elements, a sort of Reformation, such as this world received especially in the 15^th and 16^th centuries A.D., when a millenium of developing superstitions and traditions had made the ‘temple’ of testimony to be corrupt and cornered for many, in the money-seeking Romanistic body, one loaded with unloveliness and corrupt papacy. Josiah met the case, as later in the seasons of history did Wycliffe, that morning star of the Reformation, as did the beloved and burnt John Huss, and Luther, Calvin, and Tyndale, living on into the 16^th..

With Josiah, a vast change came upon the land. He purged evil, removed idols, cleansed and repaired the Temple, ensured honesty in accounting, sought the people’s hearts to return to the Lord, and purged sexual deviation in religion, showing a consistent and insistent zeal rarely found. From a young age, he had been a king in waiting, waiting on the Lord, ready to be tested. Just as Hezekiah, some reigns before him had thrust out rubbish from the horribly abused temple, which was shamelessly polluted from the syncretistic evil of his own earthly father – the appalling Ahaz, a spur to anti-ecumania now: so Josiah brought back a keen sense of the presence and mercy of the Lord. Moving in sober, spiritual, godly approach to Him, his thrust was in keeping with zeal for His word, testifying of His pardoning mercies in a vast worship occasion with historic impact.

In the midst of his operations, there FOLLOWED a test supreme. With him, the early beginning was the challenge, and the fruits came after this test, like a personal examination while still young. Now a further test of a sudden kind came to his chosen, zealous godliness.

How did this test come ? In cleansing the temple and repairing it, there had been found a copy of the the Book of the Law which brought to mind things long disregarded to the point that the master copy appeared not even known as to its precise location in the temple. Indeed, as for many a Bible in many a home now, it was a ceremonial object; and worse, a forgotten one; and in this case, like a Bible left in the garage and obscured by rubbish set upon it!

Josiah did not institute a committee, instal the equivalent of a Senate Enquiry, appointment, or make a Royal Commission to sum up the whole position in 400 pages. Instead he tore his clothes, symbol of a vast and inner distress and horror at tragedy, of woe before the Lord; and he wept. A young man of 8 on his accession, at 26, he was tender-hearted enough not to be anaesthetised by the dignity of his position, or stirred by the dreamy scent of royal succession and power. He asked someone to enquire from the prophetess, Huldah.

Back came the word:

“Because your heat was tender,

and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard

what I spoke against this place and against it inhabitants,

that they would become a desolation and a curse,

and you tore your clothes, and wept before Me,

I also have heard you, says the LORD.

Surely, therefore, I will gather you to your fathers,

and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace;

and your eyes shall not see all the calamity which I will bring on this place.”

It may seem strange, to die before old age, but better to glory in the sheer wonder of the Lord and to COMPLETE HIS WORK with purity and heart, bringing blessing to very many, than to live long enough to see the devastations coming when a parade of fickle hearts should seize the culture and an abhorrent situation grip the nation. After his time, this would become a sort of engine of injury to the soul, just as Tiananmen in China served this purpose, not only to the bodies of the young slain, but to the heart of the nation. It may be that now in Teheran, a replica is developing.

Indeed, the evil in Judah was soon to grow, till there was no remedy (II Chronicles 36:16). It is not how long you live, but whether YOU KNOW GOD AS YOU LIVE, and doing His will, adorn for ever the commission of Christ, like clothes that respond to His own movements, and follow Him with joy (cf. Isaiah 61:10, Jeremiah 13): it is this which matters, not date of moving from here to the next world in Christ.

III THE REALISM THAT RESISTS EMPTY FAITH

AND FAITHLESS EMPTINESS ALIKE

James has some words on this region of life. Having told us that all good things are gifts from God, who of His own will has caused Christians to be born again, he then traces this whole area of unseemly pretence, pretension and insincerity, obvious nonsense which many dare to practice in the very face of the Lord.

Abraham, the epistle of James tells us, was indeed justified for BELIEVING GOD, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. The reality of faith being present, then the covenant of assurance, God at once enacted (Genesis 15:6,10ff.). Equivocation had no place. Faith acted, God acted: accounts met the light. Faith enabled the relationship to become active, dynamic, directive, protective and when later Abraham was tested, in graphic mode (Gen. 22) – would he even offer his son ? a ram was provided to depict cover for his son and indeed himself. When you take it, it enters your spiritual blood-stream. It is ALL GIFT (Romans:25ff., Ephesians. 2, John 6:47-54), propounded by God, received by faith, sealed by grace.

It was the ram which was thus provided as cover for his son and indeed for his own life. Making the gift dramatic, its nature as donation from deity apparent, God had even caused it to be caught in a thicket to make it easy to get, just as Christ was willingly caught in a thicket of ecclesiastical apparatchiks, a mafia of murderers, daring to use the name of the Lord as if it had something to do with their lives.

That 'catching' too was planned (cf. Psalm 22, Isaiah 49-55, Psalm 16, 69, Daniel 9:24-26). It is all GIFT by grace (Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:5-8). Nothing less could save any in polluted man’s plight (Romans 1-2, Eph. 4:17ff.); and received by faith, the thing is not grievous!

v It is gift OF DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS through abundance of grace (Romans 5:17).

v It is a gift of salvation BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH (Ephesians 2:1-12).

Not merely is the thing a gift; the mode is grace, undeserved favour in method; indeed, the cost is zero to the purse, but all to the heart. This must come to surrender and render fealty to the Lord through faith (Luke 14:27ff.), so that this gift of grace might be freely received, just as it is freely paid for all concerned, even as many as do receive Him (John 1:12, Ephesians 1). Reject it at your peril; refuse repentance and perish!

There is a warning. It is this. When faith, instead of being employed as a reception committee, is used as a smoke-screen, and a verbal prod to God, then the case is far different. If you really do BELIEVE, if your faith is not a DEAD corpse rather than a spiritual dynamic, if you avoid trusting in your own way and playing about with something you dare to call 'faith', but instead receive objectively the Lord's Christ, the Christ of the Bible's testimony, then with Abraham rejoice!

Yet if you are not showing this faith's reality by the team of your spiritual horses moving determinedly to the desired end, what in the world do you think you are doing! If you love, you don’t pretend. You don’t have to ‘work at it’. It flows. It needs no adornment; it exhibits itself naturally. To be sure it is not YOUR WORKS which make the difference; but the attitude of heart which shows that faith is a genuine condition, and not a verbal substitute for realism. ONLY God does wondrous works (Psalm 72:18), and you need not try to imitate Him; but if you DO have faith in Him, then look once more at Abraham, and what do you find ? It is this.

When the time of test came, he was willing to OFFER UP THE VERY MEANS OF DELIVERANCE, even his son Isaac; for it was through Isaac that the whole testimonial train was to run, to the Messiah, to blessing for all nations. He did not insist on what HE considered had to happen, but on the word of God.

Yes, there was a word of the Lord for him, which would test his trust in the power of God and His faithfulness; and he passed that test.

The very merits of the Messiah were thus able to come to Him in advance of the entire payment at Calvary and through all that led up to this to make it operative, in the sinless Christ (cf. Romans 4, esp. 21-25). Then, not in ram but in Royalty, not in Isaac’s loss, but truth’s gain, there came the sacrifice to reach beyond any time, to cover all who are His (Galatians 6:14).

Thus was it shown that his was not circumstantial faith, surrounded by possibilities and sundered by probabilities. It was instead a faith in God transcending all such things, and one which did not refuse translation into what SHOWED IT! He believed, he acted. He trusted, he travailed and he triumphed by grace; and Isaac, ready to be lost, was found. Moreover, being found, he showed that part of the way to the consummation in Christ, the sacrificial lamb in Person, the sacrifice to end all atonement, the eternal Redeemer to end all redemption, granting eternal life: the Lord over all lords, and king over all kings (Hebrews 7-10).

Accordingly, as the Lord shows through James 2, the faith which, if it does not operate, is a dead kind of a thing, yet by contrast, being alive and authentic, in Abraham showed itself living; and although of course the righteousness was given to the patriarch WHEN the faith first operated as James indicates so clearly in this 1:23, yet the reality of the faith was attested later, when the test came. Faith without works is always dead.

You are saved without works (Romans 3:23ff., Galatians 3, 5, Ephesians 2), but not without faith and faith works! It does not trust in its works; it does not trust in the ammunition and praise God as a formal after-thought. It TRUSTS (after all, it IS faith), relies God to DO what is needed, but praises God in anticipation, in unmitigated joy of heart, and meets the test of purity of motive because being alive, IT IS THERE!

Through faith, man is not using God to get an easy advantage (Christ did not turn the stones to bread, taking no 'special case' arm-chair position, since He was a real man, in humility tested in His incarnation). The man of faith is believing in God to move through him and throughout his life, and that of whomever else He may select, to ACHIEVE the needed result. HE will do it (Phil. 1: 6).

IS THERE ANY WORD FROM THE LORD ? Remember the cry of King Zedekiah (Jeremiah 37:17), alas found fidgetting because his life was alive with unrepented sin! It is not always that such a case arises; but what does arise is tested.

Therefore as Peter instructs us, let us not be dismayed by the trials and tests like fire that come, for God can purify what is mixed and secure what is clean (I Peter 1:7, 4:12-19).

But again, let us answer the question. Is there a word from the Lord ?

Of course there is: it is ALL written, the beginning, the core, the Christ Saviour, the suffering, the false sentence, the crucifixion, the bodily resurrection, the progress of this world in hideous regress, the signals that His coming is near. It is all there: so set about obeying it, following Him not in word only but in deed, not subverted or subverting others by making up new morals, or a new christ, like the sects, with new easy ways and alluring arm-chairs for watching some kind of 'spiritual' TV! Work then, not to gain eternal life, but because you have gained it. IF YOU HAVE SAVING FAITH in the Lord Jesus Christ, God as man and alive from the dead and to be KNOWN (John 17:1-3, Romans 10:9, I Corinthians 15:1-4ff.), then rest in Him, while serving and rejoice always.

No amount of words can turn a photograph into a person, so it is useless just to have doctrinal jabber ALONE, and imagine this saves you. It is no less useless, however, to have a vague feeling, void of content, and with no authority from the word of God. These areas must be conjoined, not disjoined. They are environmental elements in the operation of biblical faith.

The words refer to FACTS, to ACTUALITIES, to GOD HIMSELF. Being referred to the realities of the Lord, you find Him ... by faith (cf. John 5:39-40). You do not sit under the sign-post, like a prisoner regarding the shape of the hole in the wall. You act on it. You then make the friendship of the most glorious Being through the Person of Christ and the operation of His Holy Spirit (cf. John 16). Cultivate His acquaintance, therefore, follow His word and behold ... you will know. Does He not say it ?

v "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.
And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father and I will love him and manifest Myself to him …

v “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word and My Father will love him,
and We will come to him and make Our home with him."

Such is the way of God, true from the first, available to the last, when judgment sits.

It is well that with Him is pardon (Isaiah 55:6-7, Micah 7:19-20); and it is well that pardon produce its fruits, as roots are formed, the plant of life is set in the ground of faith and the water of the Spirit makes it grow (not the faith, the plant)!

Faith ? a minute seed of this is sufficient. It is the One in whom you place it, that matters, the right One, the God of glory, creation, atonement, pardon, reconciliation for man through redemption, the God of love, truth and mercy, who sent His only begotten Son not as an image for spectacle, but as the Life that gives itself in sacrifice, as an offering for sin, so that those who by faith plead grace and free gift from this, might be made anew, into new people (Romans 6:23, 5:17, Ephesians 2). Such people, with hearts that receive, know and find love, adoption as children of God (Ephesians 1:5), like the patriarch. They find eternal life itself, and transmit this love because it is simply too much to hold within.