Song of the Drunkards

JESUS FACED A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF OPPOSITION FOR HIS HARD WORDS AND UNFLINCHING DEVOTION TO YAHWEH. NO SURPRISE THEN IF WE FIND OUR NAME FESTOONED IN BARROOM BALLADS (CF. PS 69:12).

Speaking the Truth

April 3, 2022 in Bible - NT - Ephesians, Meditations, Tongue, Truth

Ephesians 4:25 

25Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another. 

Last week we noted that one of the distinctive features of biblical and Christian worship through the ages has been the confession of sins. In Scripture and in history, both privately and publicly, God’s people have routinely confessed their sin to the Lord. And it is this pattern of confession that our liturgy reflects week by week. Having entered the presence of the Lord in praise, having seen with Isaiah the Lord of glory, we are reminded of our frailty and sin.

However, because we live among a people of unclean lips and are often ignorant of our own sin, one of our practices is these exhortations which focus on particular ways in which we and/or our broader society transgressesses God’s law. In our prayer of confession for Lent, we are reminded from Psalm 5 that the “Lord destroys those who speaks lies”and abhors the“deceitful” man. And so we confess, “But O Lord, we are evildoers. We are boastful, deceitful and bloodthirsty.”

It is this sin of deceitfulness that Paul commands us to shun in our text today, “Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another.” One of the deeds of the flesh, one of the tendencies of our sinful nature, which we are to put off is lying. But it is not enough to put off lying, we are to put on truth. We are to be known for our honesty and integrity. Our yes is to be yes and our no, no. Why? Because, Paul writes, “we are members of one another.” Lies, in other words, destroy trust, they destroy relationships, and, hence, lies destroy communities. Lies undermine unity and bring dissension in their wake. “Lying in a relationship is corrosive, and it is the kind of corrosive that will destroy the relationship” (Wilson).

So let us consider some examples. Just this week, President Biden reinforced his administration’s commitment to transgender ideology. This commitment was likewise on display in the refusal of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown-Jackson to answer the simple question, “What is a woman?” Such a commitment to transgender ideology is a systemic commitment to deceit. If we indulge such fantasy, lying to a man and telling him that he can be a woman or lying to a woman and telling her that she can be a man, then we are not being loving – for love speaks the truth to another even when that truth is hard to hear.

But while we are no doubt upset about transgender lies, we often lie to one another in our homes and mimic this same deceitfulness. We need to speak truth to one another and to cultivate hearts that want to hear the truth. We ought not to lie in order to maintain peace – for we are members of one another. We are to strive for peace by speaking the truth in love.

So husbands, you have been commissioned by Christ to sanctify and cleanse your wife with the washing of water by the Word of God (Eph 5:26) – and the Word of God is truth (Jn 17:17). So when your wife goes astray, you are to speak the truth to her in love, to tell her that she is being petty or bitter or hopeless or fearful. And the wise wife will listen to her husband and turn to Christ for forgiveness and newness of life. 

Similarly, wives, you are to imitate Lady Wisdom and to direct your husband “in the way of understanding” (Pr 9:6). So when your husband goes astray, you are to speak the truth to him in love, to tell him that he is being unjust or irresponsible or lustful or selfish. And the wise husband will listen to Lady Wisdom and increase in learning. 

Likewise, children, you are to put away lying and speak the truth to your parents for you are members of one another. Lies will destroy your relationship with your parents. So, if you stole the cookies, speak the truth. If you hit your sister, speak the truth. If you were looking at naked pictures of others, speak the truth. If you lied to your parents earlier this week, go back to your parents today and speak the truth. Few things are more important in your relationship with your parents than truthfulness for truthfulness establishes trust.

So reminded that we are to put away lying and to speak truth to one another as members of one another, let us confess that we have unclean lips and that we dwell among a people of unclean lips, that we have been guilty of lying to one another and need the forgiving grace of God to empower us to speak the truth to one another. And as we confess our sin to the Lord, let us kneel as we are able and beseech the Lord to forgive us. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.

Confessing Our Nation’s Sins

March 27, 2022 in Bible - OT - Daniel, Confession, Meditations

Daniel 9:3–5 

3Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. 4And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, 5we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. 

One of the distinctive features of biblical and Christian worship through the ages has been the confession of sins. Indeed, one of the signs of the cancer ravaging the modern church is that the confession of sins is often absent. In Scripture and in history, both privately and publicly, God’s people have routinely confessed their sin to the Lord. So when Isaiah sees the Lord, lofty and exalted, seated on the throne of His glory in the temple, Isaiah confesses privately, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Is 6:5). And when Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and restore the glory of Jerusalem, the Levites led all Israel to confess publicly, “You [O Lord] are just in all that has befallen us; for You have dealt faithfully, but we have done wickedly” (Neh 9:33). Confession of sins is a routine feature of biblical and Christian worship.

It is this that we observe in our text today. Daniel is in exile in Babylon, meditating on the prophecies of Jeremiah. As he does so, Daniel is overwhelmed by Israel’s sin. So he sets himself to seek the Lord’s face with prayer and fasting and confesses Israel’s sin. He “made confession, and said… ‘we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.” As we consider Daniel’s words, I would like you to note that Daniel was not personally guilty of the things that he here confesses. He had not rebelled against the Lord nor departed from the Lord’s ways. Indeed, the book of Daniel extols Daniel as a man of faith and faithfulness. Yet Daniel confesses the sins of Israel: “we have sinned… we have done wickedly” not, “they have sinned…” So why does Daniel speak this way?

The answer is that Daniel, unlike many of us, was not a radical individualist. He knew that he was not a mere individual; he was part of  a people, an Israelite. Hence, Israel’s sins were also his sins. So he confesses them on behalf of the nation, petitioning God to show mercy to Israel and modeling what all Israel should have been doing.

So too in our prayers of confession. Often we will find ourselves confessing not only our own personal sins but the sins of our people. Why? Because we are not mere individuals; we too are part of a people. We are Americans and America’s sins are our own. So we confess these on behalf of our people, petitioning God to show mercy to us and modeling what all America should be doing. 

So note our our prayer of confession for Lent. In just a moment, we will confess: “O Lord, we are evildoers. We are boastful, deceitful and bloodthirsty. We have taken the lives of the innocent, abused the poor and the needy, exploited the helpless, approved perversity and immorality.”

I hope and pray that these things are not true of us personally; nevertheless, they are true of us all covenantally. We are a guilty people. We have taken the lives of the unborn, exploited the poor through the welfare state, used the power of government to confiscate by taxation what rightly belongs to others, undermined the covenant of marriage by legalizing no-fault divorce, and perverted God’s gift of sexuality through pornography, fornication, adultery, and LGBTQ deceit. We are a guilty people. As the church, we are to model a righteous response to such sin – and what is that response? It is to turn from it and to confess it as sin, seeking God’s forgiveness in the Name of Jesus.

So reminded that as we enter into the presence of the Lord today that we confess not only our own sins but the sins of our people, let us kneel before the Lord and beseech His mercy upon us and our people. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.

The Curse of God

March 20, 2022 in Bible - OT - Malachi, Meditations

Malachi 4:5–6 (NKJV)

5Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 6And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

When God created the world, He created it a realm of righteousness and peace – a place of blessing. Yet God warned our first parents that were they to reject His Word this good world would fall under a curse. This should have been no suprise. God Himself is the source of life and light. Hence, to turn away from Him is to sever ourselves from all that is good and right, from that which gives us blessing; even as an electric lamp depends for its light upon an electrical outlet, the world depends for blessing and joy upon the living God. Hence, to reject God and yet imagine that we can preserve peace and joy is foolish. The ultimate end of rebellion is always death and judgment.

Yet our first parents listened to the lies of the devil and rebelled against God. Thus the entire creation became twisted and distorted, it came under judgment. Where once there was only blessing now curses touched all creation. And this had been the devil’s intention – to destroy all creation, to destroy that which God had designed and made, by bringing it like himself under God’s wrath and curse.

But God had other plans. God intended to reveal His glory by rescuing the world; He would not abandon it to the folly of our first parents or to the malevolence of the devil. And it it this intention that is announced in our text today. God promised to send Elijah to prepare the way for the Messiah’s arrival and to restore family harmony under Christ, “Lest,” He declares, “I come and strike the earth with a curse.” John the Baptizer was this Elijah. God sent John as the forerunner of His plan of salvation, His plan to rescue the entire creation from the curse of judgment.

So Jesus declared to Nicodemus. “For God so loved the world – the kosmos, the creation which He had so lovingly and thoughtfully crafted – that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him may not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world but that the world through Him might be saved” (Jn 3:16-17). God acted in Christ to rescue all creation from its bondage to decay, from the curse of death. 

So how did He accomplish this? He did this by making Jesus a curse for us. The ultimate end of rebellion is always judgment; God could not just overlook our injustice. To uphold justice, rebellion must be judged in order to uphold justice. And so, wonder of wonders, the eternal Son of God took on human flesh and gave Himself over to death for us; He became a curse for us, bore the just judgment that was due to us for our rebellion. And then Jesus rose from the dead, broke the power of death, and reversed the curse that once enslaved all creation. He died and rose again lest the earth be struck with a curse; He died and rose again to reconcile all things to Himself in heaven and on earth.

So now what of you? The ultimate end of rebellion is always judgment. Either we face that judgment ourselves – the end of which will be condemnation and death – or we turn in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore God’s judgment for His people, and so receive the blessings of justification and life. As we enter into His presence this day, He commands us to seek refuge from judgment through Jesus lest we be struck with a curse. 

So reminded this morning that we can only escape the curse of judgment if we trust in Jesus who became a curse for us, let us confess our sins in Jesus’ Name, trusting that God will indeed forgive and bless all those who come to Him in faith. And as you are able, let us kneel as we confess our sins. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.