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Episodes
Weekly sermons and Bible studies led by a retired pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Episodes
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
All of our Scripture readings this week have to do with the ending of the old and the coming of the new, in Jesus and what He does for us in this Lenten/Easter season.
The Old Testament lesson is from Isaiah 43:16-21. God says through Isaiah not to focus so much on the old things, because He is “doing a new thing,” with “drink” for His chosen people, like life-giving “water” and “rivers” in a desert wilderness. This is ultimately prophetic of Jesus, as he came and said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37-38).
For that to happen, God brought a remnant of His people back to the promised land, out of captivity in Babylon. Psalm 126 celebrates that joyful freedom, when God “restored the fortunes” of His people. There were still “tears” and “weeping,” but God “did great things for them” and finally sent, from them, the promised Savior, Jesus.
So sadly, many of His own people rejected Jesus when He came, and most of the religious leaders wanted to “destroy” Him, seeing Him as a threat to their old ways (Luke 19:47). In the Gospel lesson, Luke 20:9-20, Jesus then told a parable about God being like the owner of a vineyard who hired tenants, the people of Israel, to care for that vineyard for him. When he asked for “some of the fruit of the vineyard,” the tenants refused again and again, and even harmed his messengers. Finally, he sent his own son, and the tenants killed the owner’s son. In this parable, Jesus was predicting, as God’s Son, sent from God the Father, His own death, brought about by His own people (and our own sins, too). He quoted Scripture, saying that He was the “Cornerstone” of the new life and new way that God was bringing through Him, but if people kept rejecting Him, they would be “broken“ and “crushed.”
In the Epistle lesson, Philippians 3:4b-14, Paul speaks as one who had been a prominent Jew and had rejected Jesus and followed the old Jewish ways. He had tried to be “righteous” by keeping the “Law” and old Jewish ways. The risen Lord Jesus had turned his life around, though, and “made him His own” and he found “the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord” and Savior. He then had the perfect righteousness that came to him “through faith” in Jesus. He “forgot what was behind” and “strained forward to what was ahead” in His new and eternal life, confident in the risen Christ Jesus.
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Sermon for the 4th Sunday in Lent, based on:
Sermon originally delivered March 10, 2013
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
We began with prayer and a quick review of what was troubling the prophet Habakkuk as he spoke with God in Habakkuk 1:1-4. Jehoiakim was the King of Judah and was an evil man. The people were following him in going against God and His will.
Habakkuk was seeing much evil and violence and cried out to God, but it was as if his prayers for help were not heard or that God did not care about all the strife and contention and wrongdoing Habakkuk saw. This silence of God seemed to contradict what God had said in Isaiah 1:13, for example: “I cannot endure iniquity.”
There were some godly people, but they were surrounded by the wicked and their perversion of justice and the Law of God. (Does this not sound like what we see and hear about evil and violence brought upon people in Ukraine and in so many other places and in our own country, too? We pray, and the law is “paralyzed” - literally, has grown cold and numb - and God seems to be doing nothing and letting it all happen.)
Do note that what Habakkuk said was directed to the LORD, the one true God of Israel. It was, as the commentator Roehrs says, “a cry of faith, a troubled, groping faith, but still faith.” Habakkuk believed in God as a just God, but could not understand why God was not intervening and helping His faithful people. Habakkuk was speaking up on behalf of himself, but also on behalf of other believers in Judah.
God’s answer in Habakkuk 1:5-6 was that He was already at work, but not in the way Habakkuk had expected. Habakkuk was to “look among the nations” around him; and God then named the Chaldeans, the people of the new Babylonian empire that He “was raising up.” They were the ones who would bring judgment upon the evil people of Judah and its king. They were already know as a “bitter and hasty nation,” quickly destroying the Assyrian empire and Nineveh and winning victories over the Egyptians and now threatening the Kingdom of Judah, too. They could go and capture whatever they wished as they “marched through the breadth of the earth,” seizing whatever they wanted. (Historically, they would soon surround Judah and Jerusalem and make them and their king subservient to Babylon and force them to pay high taxes and give away a lot of their wealth to the Babylonians. They would also carry away promising young men of Judah, including Daniel and his friends, and make them serve the Babylonian kings. The Babylonians would not destroy Judah and Jerusalem until 587-586 BC, though.)
All this was coming, because of the sin and rebellion of God’s own people. Habakkuk then described in vivid images the “dreaded and fearsome” ways of the Babylonians and their own evil kind of “justice” that they would bring upon the Jews and other nations (Habakkuk 1:7). (My understanding of Hebrew is not the best, but scholars say that what Habakkuk wrote here was very good, poetic Hebrew that influenced later Hebrew prophets and writers, as God inspired them all.)
What God predicted here was really not something new. Read Deuteronomy 28:45-50, where God had already warned through Moses long before that if His people rebelled and refused to listen to His voice, another nation would be a “sign and wonder” against them and bring God’s judgment upon them. Read Habakkuk’s description in Habakkuk 1:8 of the Babylonian conquerors, using images of leopards, wolves, horsemen and eagles. Read also Jeremiah 4:13 and 5:6-9, and notice the similarities to what Habakkuk had written. These two prophets lived close in time to each other, but Jeremiah probably wrote a little later than Habakkuk. Both were predicting God’s use of the Babylonians to bring judgment on Judah and Jerusalem, though.
Habakkuk also described the Babylonian tactics in “picture” ways, quoting the Lord, just as history describes these ways. See Habakkuk 1:9-11. Habakkuk thought the people of Judah were very “violent” in what they did to each other. The Babylonians were even worse. They “gathered captives like sand” (Habakkuk 1:9), a way of saying how numerous their captives were, whom they deported to Babylon and other places, as they eventually did with many Jews, even as God had described the descendants of Abraham as “sand” in a similar way in Genesis 22:17-18. (The New Testament says that all believers, including us, are part of that countless group of spiritual descendants of Abraham by faith in Christ, no matter what our background is. See Galatians 3:28-29.)
The Babylonians laughed at their enemies and enemy fortresses. They built up huge earthen ramps to get over the walls of cities without having to knock the walls down. They conquered with great speed. The people of Judah were guilty of many sins, including worship of false gods. The Babylonians were guilty of that much and more. They worshipped themselves and their own power and pride as their primary god, along with other false gods (Habakkuk 1:10-11).
Pause for a moment and note that some of what we just read is quoted in the New Testament and applied to new situations, too. The phrase in Habakkuk 1:6 about the Babylonians “marching through the breadth of the earth” in battling others, including the people of Judah, is quoted in Revelation 20:9 regarding Satan and the forces against Christ “marching up over the broad plain of the earth” and then being utterly defeated by Christ and His power and cast into hell forever. As we will see, God did use the Babylonians to bring judgment and humbling of the people of Judah; but later, the Babylonians themselves would be judged and humbled and utterly defeated because of their own terrible wickedness and unbelief.
Habakkuk 1:5 is also quoted in the New Testament in Acts 13:40-41. The Babylonians being used to humble God’s people was an astounding surprise for Habakkuk, which we will hear more about. In the same way, God’s plan of salvation through the death and resurrection of His own Son was an astounding surprise for many Jewish people. Many thought that the coming Messiah would be a conquering hero who would overthrow the hated Romans. Instead, God the Son came as a true man, as well as God, to be a suffering servant, who would die for the sins of the world and then defeat death and rise in victory, and free people from the condemnation of the law of Moses, which no one could fully keep, except Jesus. (Read the whole context of Acts 13 to see how this was taught. Forgiveness of sins that brings eternal life, not political liberation, was to be the greatest gift of God, also for us.)
Go back now to Habakkuk 1:12. Habakkuk confessed again that he was talking with the one true God. He called God the LORD and his “Holy One” - a term used often by the prophet Isaiah in the past. (See, for example, Isaiah 31:1-3, where God’s people were turning to Egyptians, who were only men, and their horses, for help, instead of trusting “the Holy One of Israel.”) Habakkuk’s God is the “Everlasting” God. (See Psalm 90:1-2, words of God through Moses.) God was Habakkuk’s “Rock,” and Habakkuk seemed to understand now that God really did plan to bring “judgment” and “reproof” to Judah through the evil Chaldeans, the Babylonians.
That raised more questions for Habakkuk, though, as we hear in Habakkuk 1:13-17. How could the pure and holy God see all the evil and wrongdoing of the Babylonians and “remain silent, when the wicked swallow up” God’s own people, who were surely “more righteous” than the pagan Chaldeans. It made no sense to Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:14).
Habakkuk went on to say that the Babylonians were like those catching fish in the sea or crawling things in a net and “mercilessly killing nations,” including Judah, in the process. The Babylonians only cared about themselves and “living in luxury” and having “rich food” and having their own “joy and gladness.” They were worshiping themselves, “sacrificing” and “making offerings” to themselves, in honor of their own power.
Habakkuk even mentioned “hooks” that both the Assyrians and the Babylonians would actually put into the noses and other parts of captives to keep them under control as they moved them from place to place. (Habakkuk was horrified by such atrocities; but he also seemed to forget or downplay the warnings that he and others had been giving for a long time about the consequences of their own evil and sins. See Amos 4:1-2, for example, where God warned through the prophet Amos that even fellow Jews could eventually be “taken away with hooks” if they kept rejecting God’s will and kept abusing others, including the poor and needy (Habakkuk 1:14-17).)
Habakkuk then said he would stand and watch for God’s answer to him about his complaint to Him. The word for “complaint” is a strong one. It is almost as if Habakkuk felt he needed to “contradict” God’s plan and “correct” God’s thinking (Habakkuk 2:1).
Do we react in the same way to God sometimes? Why does He allow things to happen in our lives that seem so unfair? I think back to the 9/11 events in the US. There were some who dared to say, “Could God be trying to wake us up and tell us something?” The great majority of people, though, seemed to think that God would never use Islamic terrorists to say something to us. The bigger question for most was “Why would God or anyone else allow this to happen to our good country?”
We will look at God’s response to Habakkuk, and maybe to us, too, next week, as we read on in Habakkuk, Chapter 2. Think about two last things, too. Some point to the fact that Jesus Himself told a parable about a net in Matthew 13:47-50. This time, though, it is the Lord and His angels, on the last day, perfectly sorting out and rescuing the “righteous” believers and putting away the evil into “the fiery furnace.” Does this parable say anything to what we are talking about and the struggles that we and Habakkuk have, at times, in understanding and responding to God’s will
Finally, remember the words of Habakkuk in Habakkuk 1:12. In the midst of his questions and confusion about all that was going on around him, and what God was doing, he could still say, “We shall not die.” He knew that his everlasting Lord would care for him through this life, and even if he faced physical death, to everlasting life. That is our hope, too, in Christ our Savior, even if we do not have all the answers we wish to have. We have God and His promises to sustain us. We will hear more of that, above all, as our study continues. May we continue to hope in the Lord, above all, too.
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
All of our Scripture readings this Sunday speak of the blessing of God’s forgiving love, coming to us through the saving work of His Son, Jesus. In Psalm 32, David speaks of how miserable and deceitful he was, trying to hide his sins from God and others. Finally, he was brought to admit his sins and have their burden taken away in the Lord’s forgiveness. David encourages us not to be like a stubborn mule, but to listen to the Lord’s instruction and trust Him and His steadfast love, even for us sinful people. (We still use part of Psalm 32:5 in our confession of sins in Divine Services Three and Five in our hymnal.)
The Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 12:1-6, is a song of thanksgiving for “that day” when the “Root of Jesse,” the “Righteous Branch” predicted in Isaiah 11 would come. That One is God’s Son, who came to be our Strength and Song and Salvation with comfort and forgiveness for us, as we drink from His “wells of salvation” and trust in Him. His glorious work needs to be shared with everyone “in all the earth.” (We sing much of Isaiah 12 in a song that is part of “A Service of Prayer and Preaching” in our hymnal, p.261-262.)
The Epistle lesson is from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, where we hear that we have been reconciled to God through Christ Jesus. Our sins are not counted against us, and we are “a new creation” and counted as “righteous” by God through faith in what Jesus has done for us. “All this is from God,” as a free gift from Christ, and we are now “ambassadors for Christ,” sharing this Good News with others.
In the Gospel lesson, Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, Jesus is being criticized for associating with “sinful” people. He tells a parable, a story of two sons. One wastes his life and inheritance on foolish and sinful living. Finally, God helps him to realize how wrong he has been, and he returns home and receives the forgiving love of his father. The other son is angry that his father has treated this “prodigal son” in such a kind and forgiving way. It seems so unfair. This second son has to be reminded that he, too, is a forgiven sinner and has also already received many blessings from his father. Now it is time for him also to share that mercy and forgiveness with others, including his brother. For all of us were once lost and dead in sin, but have been found and made alive in Christ, in what he has done for us.
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Our new study is on the Book of the prophet Habakkuk. You can find this book near the end of the Old Testament with the other Minor (shorter) Prophets, just three books after Jonah. It is only three chapters long, and we know very little about Habakkuk himself, so this study should not take as long as some others.
I began with a little history of the time in which Habakkuk lived. If you followed the Jonah study, you may remember that Jonah did his work somewhere between 800 and 750 BC, when the Assyrians were the greatest power in the Middle East, with their capital in Nineveh, where Jonah went and preached. The Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and its capital of Samaria in 722 BC and carried many of the Jews of the 10 Northern tribes into captivity in other nations. Most of those Jews never came back to the Promised Land and have been called the “10 Lost Tribes.” Only the Southern kingdom of Judah was left. The Assyrians continued in power for a long time, twice attacking and burning Babylon, in 689 and 648 BC.
By the late 600’s, the Babylonians had become the dominant power and destroyed Nineveh in 612 BC. (They are called Chaldeans in this book. See Habakkuk 1:6.) But by the grace of God and a good king, Josiah, Judah and Jerusalem did not fall to them. Sadly, Josiah drifted away from God in his last years, and his son, Jehoiakim, has been described as “ambitious, cruel, and corrupt.” The Southern kingdom went far from God’s will during this time. Habakkuk probably served as a prophet at this time and wrote his book around 605 BC.
We know nothing about him, other than what is revealed in this book. He may have had priestly functions, as a part of the tribe of Levi. His work overlapped with prophets like Jeremiah and Zephaniah. His name may mean “one who embraces,” who gives help and comfort to others, as a prophet. (There are legends and stories about him from later times, but they have no Biblical basis. One is the apocryphal book “Bel and the Dragon,” which claims that Habakkuk was sent by God to help Daniel when he was thrown into a lion’s den for a second time. You can find this among extra writing included in Roman Catholic Bibles of the Old Testament. This and other such books were not included in Jewish Hebrew Scriptures and were not considered Scripture in the early church or, later, in Protestant Bibles.)
A unique thing about the Book of Habakkuk is that Habakkuk never preaches directly to the people of Judah. His book is a dialog between him and God, including many questions he has about what God is doing. God asks him then to write down what they had been discussing. That is how the message then gets to God’s people.
Look at Habakkuk 1:1. This book is called an “oracle” - a pronouncement or message that Habakkuk “saw,” which was revealed to him in a vision or in some other direct way from God. The King James Version translates it as a "burden” that Habakkuk saw - meaning that it was a heavy message that would challenge the people and their behavior before God, with a strong warning. In this, Habakkuk is also able to ask questions and God responds to him, too.
Habakkuk 1:2-4 is then Habakkuk’s set of questions for God. He uses the special Jewish name for God - the LORD. He wonders how long he will have to cry out to God for help, and the Lord will nor hear him. He is especially troubled by a lot of violence going on in Judah. There is much “iniquity” (sin, lawlessness, unrighteousness in the uneven, chaotic actions of people toward one another). He piles up the words to describe how bad things are - wrong, destruction, strife and contention between people. It is as if the holy law of God, given through Moses and others, is “paralyzed” and having no effect among people. There is so much “perversion” of “justice.” “The wicked surround the righteous” and it is so hard to see good and to do good in such a “violent” atmosphere.
Worst of all, Habakkuk says to God, You don’t seem to care, when I cry to You. “You will not hear…. You will not come and help and save.” I am so upset, Lord God, when I see all this evil, and you just “idly look at wrong” as if you do not care and aren’t going to do anything about how bad things are among Your own people.
Do you and I ever have the same kind of questions? Don’t we also wonder the same things, even today, when we pray and don’t seem to get answers, when we see the horrors in Ukraine and starving people in Ethiopia and other places, and the struggles in our own personal lives, and we can’t tell if God is responding or even hearing us?
Next week, we will see how God responds to the challenges thrown out to Him by Habakkuk. God says that there will be justice, but in a very surprising way that Habakkuk does not understand and we may not, either. Habakkuk only has more questions for God, as we will see, also.
Maybe you can see already how practical and relevant this short book is for us, too. God wishes to bring us to greater faith and trust in Him and His wisdom and ways, even when we do not fully understand what He is doing. We can learn from the way God works with Habakkuk.
God’s blessings on your week, as you keep talking with your Lord, even if with tough questions, and keep listening for His answers in His Word.
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, based on:
Sermon originally delivered March 3, 2013
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
In the Old Testament lesson, Ezekiel 33:7-20, the prophet Ezekiel is told to speak just what the Lord has told him to say. For people burdened by sins and guilt, Ezekiel is to say, “Turn back from evil and live in the Lord… and your sins will not be remembered against you.” If people are rejecting the Lord and calling Him and His ways “unjust,” they are to be warned of coming judgment, unless they also repent and return to the Lord. For, "as I live, declares the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” God wants to have mercy and forgive repentant sinners.
The Psalm, Psalm 85, tells of how God’s people have received mercy, but there is always the danger of ”turning back to folly.” The psalmist prays for God’s “steadfast love” and “salvation” in troubled times. Then, “love” and “righteousness” and “faithfulness” and “peace” are personified and meeting together on earth. That literally would happen in the coming of Jesus Chris, who combined all these characteristics in Himself and “gave what is good” to us and the world, in His saving work.
The Epistle is from 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. Paul warns that “anyone who thinks that he stands (spiritually) should take heed lest he fall.” Paul speaks of the blessings that God gave His Old Testament people when He rescued them from slavery in Egypt and cared for them - yet how many of the people drifted away from God into evil. We will be tempted, too, Paul says, but “God is faithful” and He can help us “endure” and “escape” in faith in Him.
The Gospel lesson is Luke 13:1-9. Jesus spoke of tragedies in His own time and said that people should not think that they are better than those people who died, for we are all sinners who need continually to repent and be forgiven. Jesus then told a parable of a fig tree that bore no fruit. The one who cared for the tree asked for more time to work with the tree to see if it would bear fruit. If it went on and on bearing no fruit, it would eventually be cut down. The good news is that the Lord is patient and there is still time for those who have resisted and resisted the Lord to repent and be brought to faith in Him. The warning is that people do not have forever, and a time can come when it is too late to repent and receive faith.
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
Sermon for Midweek Lenten Service III
“Free Will vs. Bondage of the Will”
Sermon originally delivered February 27, 2013
Sunday Mar 13, 2022
Sunday Mar 13, 2022
In this final portion of our study of the Book of Jonah, we look at the comments of Jesus about Jonah. We look first at Matthew 12:38-41. Just before this passage, Jesus had healed “a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute.” The man could then speak and see, and the demon was cast out of him. The people were amazed and wondered, “Can Jesus be the Son of David?”- the promised Savior? The Pharisees claimed, though, that Jesus cast out evil spirits by the power of the devil himself. They rejected this miracle and many others that Jesus did, so that He could help people in need (Matthew 12:22-24).
Instead, the Pharisees wanted Jesus, in Matthew 12:38, to do some other kind of “sign” for them, according to their own wishes and desires. Jesus responded by saying that “it was an evil and adulterous generation” that demanded “signs” on their own terms (Matthew 12:39). It was a pattern that could be seen among the people of Israel in the wilderness wanderings and many other times in the Old Testament. Moses said of his people, “They have dealt corruptly with God; they are no longer His children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation” (Deuteronomy 32:5).
In Psalm 95:7-9, we hear the warning, “Today, if you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts, as…. when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.” God’s people had seen so many miracles already in their rescue from slavery in Egypt and in the way God provided for them as they traveled to the promised land. Yet for too many of the people, it was never enough, They wanted more “signs” before they would trust and follow God as He asked.
This was the very kind of temptation that the devil gave to Jesus when He was in the wilderness in Matthew 4:5-7. The devil said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down” from the pinnacle of the temple. Angels will surely take care of you; and what a great proof this would be to all the people who would see you rescued. Jesus simply replied, quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16, “It is written: You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Jesus simply lived “by every Word that comes from the mouth of God,” as He also quoted to the devil from Deuteronomy 8:3. He listened to and followed His Heavenly Father and not the devil or anyone else. So, in Matthew 12:39, Jesus told the Pharisees that no sign would be given but the "sign of the prophet Jonah.”
As Jesus explained more, He clearly believed that the story of Jonah was a true story, from beginning to end. “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). Remember that we have already seen that this meant that Jonah was in the great fish for parts of three days and then was rescued. This was a prophecy pointing to Jesus, who was to die and be buried, but be raised to life on the third day. See passages like Matthew 16:31 and Luke 24:45-46. The death and resurrection of Jesus would be the central evidence, the sign of the completion of Jesus’ saving work for the world - not any other “sign” that people might want or demand.
Jesus went on to say that the people of Nineveh really did repent at the preaching of Jonah, by God’s mercy, just as the Book of Jonah said. They can rise up on the day of judgment in condemnation of the many people who did not listen to and believe the words and work of someone “much greater than Jonah” - Jesus, the Son of God, who did die and rise again to be the Savior of the world (Matthew 12:41). (We will talk about verse 42 when we look, in a moment, at Jesus’ comments in Luke, also.)
The religious leaders did hear what Jesus had said about dying and rising again, the sign of Jonah, as the center of God’s plan for Him, as Savior. They heard it often, and did plan to kill Jesus, but would not believe that Jesus could rise again. They were afraid, though, that some disciples might steal His body and pretend He had risen. Read their plans in Matthew 27:62-66. They could not stop the resurrection of Jesus, though. Read what happens in Matthew 28:1-4, and how they tried to cover up what really happened in Matthew 28:11-15. Their rejection of Jesus continued, no matter what, for too many of the people. And it continued on and still goes on today. (See other descriptions of a “faithless and twisted generation” in Matthew 17:17, Mark 8:31-33, Philippians 2:14-16, Acts 2:40, and Psalm 78:8, for example.)
Notice also how the religious leaders asked again that Jesus show them a “sign from heaven” in Matthew 16:1. Jesus reminded them that they could predict weather conditions, but could not see the real “signs of the times,” and told them again that the only sign they would see would be “the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 16:4). God had already given a sign from heaven, long ago, when the star appeared that led the wise men to Jerusalem. The chief priests and scribes had been there and had helped identify Bethlehem as the predicted place of the birth of the coming Messiah, the Christ. But it seems as if none of them bothered to go with the wise men and find out more about this amazing sign of the star or to see what child had been born. The leaders only wanted to do things their way and ignored everything else. (See Matthew 2:1-12.)
Turn now to Luke 11:29-32, where Luke tells also in his Gospel that there would be no sign but “the sign of Jonah” for the “evil generation” in which Jesus lived. Jesus added that Jonah himself was “a sign to the people of Nineveh,” who repented at his preaching. In the same way, Jesus Himself was “a sign to His generation” and to all generations, especially through His death and rising again to life, just as the Book of Jonah predicted.
Luke also tells that Jesus gave the example of “the queen of the South” - a reference to the queen of Sheba. Read in 1 Kings 10:1-10 how she came to visit King Solomon and was amazed at his knowledge and wisdom and was also amazed at His God, the God of Israel. She could tell that the Lord was a Lord of love for His people and concerned about justice and righteousness and wisdom for them. If she could learn so much from Solomon, Jesus asked, should not the people of Israel learn from and listen to Jesus, who is much greater than Solomon?
Look also at John 2:13-22. Very early in His ministry, Jesus had “cleansed” the temple, chasing out the sales people and money changers. Right away, people were demanding that Jesus show them a “sign” to give evidence that He had the right to do this “cleansing” (John 2:18). Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). They did not understand that He was talking about “the temple of His body.” Even His disciples did not understand what He meant until after His resurrection. But wasn’t He talking about the same thing that the “sign of Jonah” meant -that central to His whole ministry was His dying and rising again, just as the sign of Jonah signified?
See Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. “The Word of the cross is the power of God for us who are being saved” (v.18). “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek (human) wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified” (v.22-23). The death of Christ to pay the penalty for our sins was essential for the saving plan of God. “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures,” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:3. Equally important is the fact that “He rose from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:4). We need the whole of the sign of Jonah, and Jesus provided it all for us, in His love for us. Jesus is our hope and joy, in all that He did for us.
A few last thoughts, as we close our study of the Book of Jonah. The three questions God asked Jonah in Jonah, Chapter 4, are worth our pondering about ourselves, too. When God provided a plant for shade for Jonah and then chose to take it away, in His wisdom, Jonah was angry. God simply asked, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?”
Jonah was only angry because he had lost the personal benefit of that plant. Do we sometimes also put too much emphasis on things that we like that are really not so important and miss things that are much more important for us?
Jonah was especially misunderstanding the mercy of God. When God asked him, “Do you do well to be angry?” Jonah was particularly angry about God’s mercy for certain groups that Jonah did not like and that he felt were not deserving of mercy. But who is deserving of mercy? Do we deserve it because we are somehow better than others, even though we have our own sins and failings in our lives, too? Can we want God’s mercy for us, but want to deny it to others? God wanted Jonah (and us) to think, as He asked the third question, “Should not I pity Nineveh” also and all the people there?
Ultimately, we all have hope for our future and for eternal life only by the mercy and forgiveness and grace of God, earned for us by the perfect life of Jesus in our place and His death on the cross, paying the penalty for our sins, and His mighty resurrection, in victory over sin and Satan and death. “Grace” means undeserved love and favor, and John reminds us, “From the fullness of Jesus, we have all received grace upon grace”
(John 1:16). Even faith in Jesus itself is “the gift from God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). And clearly, God wants not just us who now believe to have faith in Christ. We are very grateful that we have been brought to that faith; but “God our Savior desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:1-4).
We must try to keep all this in mind, even as we need to speak out against evil in Ukraine and so many other places in the world, including Yemen. (I read this week that many scholars think that the Queen of Sheba, about whom we heard in this study, came from what is now Yemen, and where there has been terrible civil warfare for years.) Sin is sin, and we cannot approve of it; and there will be be judgment for those who reject God and His will, as did later happen to many in the Assyrian empire and Nineveh when they turned away from the Lord. But we speak, always knowing that we are simply forgiven sinners ourselves, through Christ Jesus. And we try to hope for a merciful outcome, over time.
Sunday Mar 13, 2022
Sunday Mar 13, 2022
Sermon for the 2nd Sunday in Lent, based on:
Sermon originally delivered February 24, 2013