AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH November 8, 2009
A Presbyterian Church following the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord Jesus Christ without Compromise
by Faith
THE UNIVERSAL
HEART ATTACK, AND THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE, JESUS CHRIST
The Shaking of the Shakeable Powers
and the Strengthening of that which Remains
Hebrews 12:25-29
THE SHAKING OF THE SHAKEABLE POWERS
Hebrews 12:25-29 provides our topic text today, as the themes are expounded from the Bible. It tells us not to refuse "Him who speaks", for if those on earth in Moses' day did not escape when God then acted, how much less will those who now turn from Him who speaks from heaven: and this, after such a sacrifice and resurrection, so long foretold, so long applied, as now applies. Hebrews then cites Haggai 2:6, where God indicates His intention to shake heaven and earth, the seas and land, and then they will "come to the Desire of All Nations" (the Messiah as in Isaiah 11:10, whose resting place shall be glorious for the Gentiles, as there stated).
That is impending, and already started. The typical effort to ignore the inevitable is well shown this week in the revelation that Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa, has lost 85% of its ice sheet since 1912, and 26% since 2000! Volume of ice lost and extent of the coverage have similar figures. The scientist researcher notes that one year the residue will be small, and in the next it will all be gone. Further, they found that for millenia, there has been no such loss on the mount.
Hitler profited in England's torpor in the 30s and man's due reward for his iniquity against the Lord mounts because he shuts his eyes, many still in a whirl of fairy-tale hope about climate change. It has to grow torrential and torpid, as the Bible said so. How long to wake up! (Luke 21:25, Revelation 16:8).
We move now to the day when the "powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (Matthew 24:29). Possible asteroid collision with the earth is merely one option (cf. Revelation 8:10, 16:21) with fragments and major impacts. Moral loosening is another of the deregulatory downfalls awaiting man, and now well under way. With revelations of sexual tempests in high places; of nervous disorders and financial manipulation for personal gain; of elevation of the horror of the Koran, in its vehement use of force from the first, in the realm of religion, by the Prince of Wales, possible successor to his mother in the Church of England; of perversion in the programmatics of major denominations, and of growing youth grotesquely inculcated with the doctrine of survival as an ethic, and self-fulfilment as a guide: there is in all this, a loosening of what binds.
Even in England, not so long ago, one commentator was noting, as immigration increases and demands for other ways increase, that the glue that holds England together and makes it cohere, is increasingly missing. What has exalted itself and lost hold nationally on Christ is being shown now as just another nation - except for the residual grace yet left in measure!
In fact, II Timothy 3 itemises, as in principle does Romans 1:17ff., the total disorder, unfaithfulness, high-riding tongues and loose-living ways of many people and even peoples, intoxicated with themselves and their cultures, lost in the crowd of dissipating dynamics, which leave small nations with vast power, rich nations impoverishing themselves with self-indulgence and war becoming as in Revelation 6, a way of life for mankind, not only in moments of sudden impulse, but even as a method of behaviour, an esprit de guerre. Violation and vileness compete, and landslides or oceanic invasions are not only in islands of the sea, and vast in scope, but with earthquakes share with their parallels in personal living and social life on the mainland (Matthew 24:7).
In Timothy, then, we read of the road's end with its attributes, such as those who specialise in being
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"lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." |
Often these will be found, enough indeed to be a characterisable feature in this last days of the Age situation, to have "a form of godliness without its power." In parallel, in the prognosis of Romans 1:17ff., tracing what is the development when man turns from the living Creator to the worship of and reliance on the things that are made, this their 'source', those so afflicted, though seemingly wise, actually become fools. Items here to match those of II Timothy 3 include: the practice of being willing "to dishonour their bodies among themselves", having "exchanged the truth of God for the lie," so that they are found to have "worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator."
Hence there comes a further battalion of symptoms: "For even their women exchanged their natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman." They are seen as having "burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error" as due. To be sure this is a tracing of a program and prognosis; but since this Age is ending in the very acme of this departure from the living God, of necessity such is the end of this distress in disease of heart and body, mind, spirit.
To these add further ingredients of depravity: God gives them over to "a debased mind," so that they are "filled with all unrighteousness", while "covetousness, maliciousness" plunder the peace and "murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness" abound. Meanwhile, those who are "whisperers, backbiters, haters of God," and those who are "violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents" continue to set the tone.
It is as in all these things, as foreseen and characterised, so now found.
The powers of the heavens are being shaken, and ALL that is heaven and earth, is being shaken and is going to be shaken so that, as Hebrews 12 declares, there will be a striking contrast. It is this: that between the fate of reliance on "things that are made", and that divine and divinely accepted, so that "the things that cannot be shaken may remain." Chief among these are God's divine righteousness and nature, and the grace-grant of salvation (Isaiah 51:6), which nothing can de-stabilise or ruin even if the earth depart, as it will (Matthew 24:35, Psalm 46:2-3). Meanwhile the power of the Spirit of God keeps the saints on the foundation of Christ in peace and preparation of heart (Psalm 46:4, John 7:37-38, Ephesians 2:17-22) and operates in keeping with His divine commission from the Godhead (cf. Isaiah 59:18ff.).
THE DIS-ASSEMBLING OF THE SELF-MADE
These things show, both positively in Christ and negatively outside Him, that there is indeed scope for the divine rebuke to those who trust in themselves, their culture, man-made creed, cross--bred religion, secularist fantasies and their imaginary prowess, by showing that just as He MADE things orderly in logic and life, in thought and the elements of life, so He can not only curse the earth for man's folly, but also open the heavens from their norms of wonder and collaboration for this earth, and spell troubles above and below. Indeed, He both can, will and does so loosen the fabric of life (Matthew 24:22), psychically, morally, ethically, financially, oceanically, astronomically and geologically that it becomes frankly unlivable.
The movement onto the troubled scene comes to be like a universal psychic and social heart attack, with inward exemption for Christ's own, whom He keeps to the end. The devastating dynamic, so long held back, now at last comes spewing like released lava, first in impending ruin from multiple upset sources and resources, then in the finale of the follies, direct confrontation internationally with the Lord. This shudders into action at length when He comes to judge the raging lions of anti-love (Revelation 19:19) of , anti-Christ and anti-righteousness (Isaiah 59, II Thessalonians 1, Matthew 25).
There is an end to it all.
At the personal level, you see the results of all the drama and subterfuge, in Matthew 25, the next chapter to the one which we have been studying. Here the nations are seen in the aggregate, and the individuals are to be found from the flocks of sheep and goats. The goats, deliciously innovative as they may be, are not renowned for wisdom (as in 'silly goat'), while the sheep, for all their lack of panache, are good at following, and when it comes to God, HE is the leader and privilege indeed is it to follow HIM! (as in Isaiah 55:4); for though all the persons of our race would try to lead, yet there is but one worth following with the heart and the life.
In Matthew 25, we see that each sort of creation is examined. Sheep of course are already apparent: they have been BRED as sheep, and that is what they ARE. This is the index, and when it is applied to its meat and meaning of Matthew 25, it indicates regeneration, rebirth to have come to all those of His flock of which HE and HE alone is THE SHEPHERD (Matthew 23:8-10). Their good works are remembered and they are congratulated (25:40); but this is not what makes them sheep. A tree is not made so by its fruit, but instead shows what it is by its fruit. Their errors are not mentioned; for they are covered by the grace of God who in Christ died for the difference between the uttermost perfection and the actualities of each of His children.
Meanwhile, the goats appear: each is already apparent as to what he IS, a goat. This is not the required format and being, and is in itself shown for what it is. Accordingly, these, signifying rejecters of grace and salvation through faith in the face and place, works and wonders of Jesus Christ, are itemised not for their good deeds, but for the bad ones. Since they want it that way, disdaining the merits of Christ given freely (Romans 5:17), then they have to pay not only for their presumption and their arrogance, ,but for their folly.
Free payment is available: they spurned it. With what will they pay for the evil, since good is merely what is required, and evil requires payment ? There is nothing and so their misdeeds are cited. Fascinating is the focus in this depiction, for the love which cares is crucial (Matthew 25:41-43), especially towards those of the faith; and the loitering failure which does not, is crucial, towards His brethren.
Thus come the disorders given as fitting rebuke to those who imagine these marvels of mind, matter and spirit just make themselves, and then team up: the irrationalists. Their trials first, and their end at last, these become a fitting exhibit of their folly. Suppose, then: it is as if the Lord were saying:
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What if I were to remove
this restraint, this constraint, this law, this control of the stars, |
Read Proverbs 1 for an indication of the Lord's ire and irony, when all being done, those who need His wisdom and ways freely provided, take none!
THE RESTORATION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
There are, by contrast, two ways in which righteousness now is thrust strikingly upon the scene. One is by the call to "strengthen the things that remain" (Revelation 3:2). Here the saints are endowed, enabled, reinforced, sent forth by the power of the Holy Spirit, rescued from falling, thrust into the victory as they attest the truth, resist the persecutions and by the power and grace of God, through the Gospel and the word of God rescue the lost, bless the slipping and seek refreshment for the weary.
Were this spiritual action and restrained removed (as it will be when the Lord personally returns with the clouds of heaven, while His angels gather the elect for their communion with Him in heaven, before all proceed to earth as He comes in judgment), there would be an even more total depravity, declivity and depression of the conditions of men on this earth. How often the saints of God restrain by example, word and spirit!
The second way in which righteousness will be restored, this time not on an individual basis as God brings each to his work and His wonder, is in the production of a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Liberty has been wonderful, yet has been abominably soiled and spoiled by man to the extent that some become so mesmerised that they think there is none, and for themselves, pathologically, alas this may become so! Now however, those who in liberty love the Lord, and these only, will be in all their millions from all the Ages, in this blessed estate. It is one where the fruits of liberty misused no longer appear - AT ALL! Here no evil will enter in (cf. Revelation 21:8).
What glory to be free of the curse on the earth and of those who curse and revile, while they proceed shod with self, soil on their cluntering feet, to judgment. How brilliant that day in His way when new heavens and earth regale the delighted eye that blesses the God of creation and destiny!
Let us then seek to strengthen the things that remain as we proceed to the dis-assemblage, bringing blessing to HIS Church, His people and seeking refreshing times for His own (Acts 3:19ff.), together with Gospel preaching power for His teachers and ministers. Let us look with delighted prospect as the day approaches, to the reconstruction, the new heavens and earth, when there is no more loosening and no more loss, when, quite simply, it is all over, and perfection proceeds in peace, the people of God beholding the face of God Himself (Revelation 22:4, Hebrews 12:23). It is He who with the Lamb is the very Temple!