Allen Jackson - God Is Watching Over Us - Part 4
There's a lot of discussion in our world today about globalization and the impact of the international community and how we don't live alone on an island in the world any longer. In fact, this week, we've all kind of watched, with some anxiety I suspect, as the markets in the States plunged, that we were told the cause for that wasn't anything happening here, it was something happening on the other side of the globe.
It's rather disquieting to think the decisions that are made in China or someplace else on the planet have an enormous impact on the balances in your accounts or mine, that we're told it's the world we live in today. And we act as if that's a new conclusion, something new that's emerged in the 21st century or maybe the late 20th century. I don't think so. Look at Ezekiel 39, in verse 21, God speaking through Ezekiel the prophet, "I will display my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see the punishment that I inflict and the hand that I lay upon them".
Let's pause there for a moment. Ezekiel is a prophet in Israel. He's an ancient Near Eastern Hebrew prophet about five centuries before the birth of Jesus, an ancient Near Eastern prophet talking about all the nations of the world having a common experience. I would submit to you that was a very progressive idea for a man who's... the fastest means of communication available to him was a hand written note carried on a fast camel. And he's talking to us, he said, "All the nations will see the punishment that God inflicts".
I don't think he's speaking metaphorically. There's not a mountain in the Middle East tall enough that you can see the whole world from it. But he's describing an era in a season in which you and I live. We're accustomed to sitting and having a morning cup of coffee while we watch events unfold in France on a train or a review of the latest expression of violence in the plains of Nineveh in Iraq. Or we are intrigued by the markets of China and their impact on us. That's a common occurrence at the beginning of our day. For Ezekiel, not so much, but he looked across the centuries, and he said, "The day is coming when the power of God will be seen amongst all the nations".
Globalization is not a new idea. Before global awareness existed, God had it in his plans. Don't apologize because you're a Christ follower. Don't be ashamed or embarrassed because you believe the Word of God. Look at Matthew 24, again, Jesus is describing the* season before he returns. He said, "The increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold". It's a pretty accurate description of our generation, isn't it? For all of our talk about security and safety and all of the dialogue we have about protecting our children, let me ask you a question. You can answer it personally if you're over 12. If you're under 12, you can answer it, it's just your window of evaluation is more narrow.
If you're over 12 (and I barely am) if you're over 12, in your lifetime, has the trend of wickedness increased or decreased? More violent, less violent? Seems like to me it's increasing, doesn't it? When I was a little fellow, kindergarten and first grade, my parents put me out the front door of the house, and I walked a few blocks to school. I don't think they were trying to get rid of me. I think the prevailing wisdom, my memory of that was there were lots of kids out on the sidewalks and out on the streets, walking to school. It was okay to do.
Can you imagine doing that today? DHS would come to your home. For all of our dialogue about safety and security and monitoring how much sugar we ingest, seems like to me, wickedness has increased without shame or embarrassment. Jesus told the truth, he said, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved". We should pay attention to that, he's describing the season before he returns, and he said it will require of you and me to stand and to have a firm stance. It suggests that there'll be something buffeting us, that the only way to experience the salvation that is ours in Christ is we will have to stand to the end. People get heated up, they say, "Well, how do you know it's the end times? Everybody's always said it's the end of time. Do you think it's the end of time"?
I have an opinion, but my opinion doesn't carry the day. I mean, it's an informed, but, yes, I happen to think we are approaching the end of the ages, but I don't have a timeline, whether it's a year or 10 years or 100 years. But I can tell you this: as far as you and I are concerned, these are our last days. And, if you're gonna finish your last days and reflect the salvation that it is our God, it will require of you a firm stance. But, now watch, Jesus says next, "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come".
Jesus gave more than a dozen signs that are indicators that we're at the end of the age, but the penultimate sign, the sign, he said, above all the others, is this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world, then the end will come. Were you aware that the church of Jesus Christ has a critical component, a critical piece to play in precipitating the return of Jesus to the earth? The angels aren't gonna proclaim the gospel. The Spirit of God isn't gonna proclaim the gospel apart from human beings.
The role of the church in the earth is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, not simply to convene a bless me club. I'm not opposed to blessings, but the goal of the church isn't just to get our personal pain diminished and our problems resolved and a better parking place and the stores upgraded where we shop. We are here for the purposes of the kingdom of God. How many times have you read your Bibles, whether it's the Christmas narratives and the amazing story of those familiar characters or whoever your favorite Bible characters are... David or Daniel or Isaiah or Elijah, and you've thought to yourself, "How remarkable it would have been to participated with God in his story in the earth"?
May I suggest to you that's precisely the invitation before us. We can be a participant in that generation that facilitates the return of the Lord. There's some ideas you need, I think, to support that. One is, I just wanna remind you quickly, that God cares for people throughout the earth. It's very important to know that all people matter to God. Revelation, again, chapter 7, John has a vision of heaven, and gathered before the throne of God are all the saints of God. And he said, "I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count".
Now, that's not such a surprise, that you would find the saints of God before the throne. But John describes the crowd that he sees, and, based on the description he gives us, you understand what surprised him. It wasn't what he expected. Listen to how he describes the crowd, he said, "There was a great multitude that no one could count, and they were from every nation, every tribe, every people, every language, and they were standing before the throne and in the front of the Lamb".
Now, for you and me, that may not be startling, but John is a Jewish man. He was recruited by a Jewish Rabbi, Jesus from Nazareth. Everybody else Jesus recruited in the training session that John was engaged in was Jewish: Peter and James and Andrew and Matthew, the whole crew. Jesus's ministry was overwhelmingly directed towards the Jewish villages and cities of Israel. Every experience John had in the context of his race relationship with Jesus was directed towards the Jewish people.
On the day of Pentecost, after Jesus had ascended back to heaven and the Spirit of God was poured out in Jerusalem, it was overwhelmingly, again, a Jewish audience. The leadership in the church that John has known has been overwhelmingly Jewish. Now John is at the end of his life, and, although the church has begun to make inroads around the Mediterranean world, he's given a revelation of the end of the age, and God shows him his people. Now, John understands the covenant people of God to be the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
So, when he looks to see the people of God gathered before the throne, what does he see? You can hear his surprise. He said, "There were people from every nation, every tribe, every language, standing before the throne". What's the lesson to you and me? People matter to God, from every nation, race, language, and tribe. The church is a multinational, racially and ethnically diverse group. Long, long before it was politically correct or even imagined as economically beneficial to be a multinational corporation, God had launched the idea in his church. The Holy Spirit was our link for communication. The blood of Jesus offers equal benefit to all. The power of the cross delivers us from our adversaries.
The church is a declaration throughout the earth of the grace and the power of Almighty God. It transcends national boundaries and governmental decrees. It's why God says over and over the rulers of the earth get together and they rule against the church, God could care less. In fact, our truth is that the church has been ruled against, it has been banned, hunted, hated, and pursued. Isis is not a new idea. Lenin and Stalin hated the Christian church. Last time I checked, they are gone, and believers in Russia flourish. Mao hated the church, and the church in China is alive and well, in spite of the persecution. Many have taken their stand against the expression of God on the earth, God is not intimidated.
Listen to what Peter said to us, in 1 Peter chapter 2, he said, "You're a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light". We are bound together under the headship of Jesus of Nazareth and our allegiance to him as the Christ and our Lord. We should not be separated by sectarian differences or the color of our communion juice or the musical style we prefer or the material that the podium is made out of. That's nonsense. And until we understand what unites us and what our common ground is, we remain vulnerable and weakened.
It's unfortunate. It's very easy to look at the conditions and the circumstances on our own nation these days and imagine that judgment is imminent for us. You don't have to be a great prophet to imagine that, and I don't know that it's a wrong imagination. But I don't think we can afford to look at our nation without looking at the nations of the world and understand that, globally, there is an expression of anti-Semitism and the spirit of antichrist that is daunting. The ungodly behaviors in the world are overwhelming in China, often celebrated, and we refer to China as a great civilization with a great heritage, and there are certainly many commendable things about the history of the people there.
But the current expression of government and authority in China is oppressive and repressive and authoritarian. They force abortions on families. It's not limited to China. We can go many places on the map. You go to the Middle East and pick the nations where Christians are being hunted and sought out and sought after, violently oppressed. North Korea, India, Russia, many, many places on our planet. Yet, in all of those places, there are people that are precious to God.
When the Bible says that the rulers of the earth gather together and make their plans against God, it's not just poetic rhetoric, it is an expression of the world in which we are living. And there is an unprecedented opportunity for the church to be the church. It takes courage and strength and a willingness to be identified with Jesus of Nazareth. You understand this, whether you do it consciously or subconsciously, to stand for Jesus in the workplace, in your neighborhoods, in the school systems, in the courtrooms, in the corridors of the hospital takes some courage.
You should know the Bible tells us God uses people who are uniquely dedicated to him. It's not about unique gifts or unique abilities. It's about a choice you make towards the Lord. Look at 2 Chronicles 16:9, it says, "The eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His". It's as if God is doing a Google search, and he's looking for people whose hearts are fully yielded to him. And his objective, when he can identify one of those persons, it says, he wants to strongly support them. How many of you'd like to be strongly supported by Almighty God? Isn't it good to know it's not about the color of your hair, the length of your nose, or the accent with which you speak or the school you attended?
It's about the condition of your heart. You know what I love about that is no one else can affect the condition of your heart, you have the ultimate authority over that. You may have been treated unjustly, you may have not had all the opportunities you want, you may have been the victim of hate and unfairness and all sorts of things. But you can still choose to give your heart fully to the Lord, no one can take that from you. And, if you will do that, God's strong support will be expressed on your behalf. That is such good news, it's an invitation to everybody. It transcends every barrier that we would use to separate ourselves. The foot of the ground of the cross truly is level.
In Ezekiel 22, there's a very different scenario presented. It says, "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I wouldn't have to destroy it, but I found none". It's very clear in scripture that every generation isn't characterized by people whose hearts are fully yielded to the Lord. Every generation doesn't have an Abraham or a David or an Isaiah. In every generation, there isn't someone who's willing to pay the price to be a person of God.
I want to encourage you to make that choice. Don't imagine that someone else will pick up that baton, make that decision for your family system, make that decision for your office, make that decision for the block on which you live, make that decision for the the families that are influenced by your children, that your children interact with. You decide to be that person. Don't lament the condition of the world, turn up the light in your heart. Don't rage against the darkness, decide to be a person of godliness. You will make a difference. I'll take one more point, and then I'll leave the balance of the outline for this evening's lesson. I'm not gonna finish, but I did much better than last weekend.
This notion of a Christian nation, we've had the luxury, the United States has been a Christian nation. It's been our heritage as a people, not to the exclusion of anyone else, not to say that everybody that's lived in our nation has chosen to be a Christ follower, that everything we have done has been right or appropriate. But, if you had to define the United States, we've been defined as a nation whose predominant faith has been the Christian faith. I assure you the other nations of the world have looked at us in that way. And I would submit to you that, because of that, the blessings of God have come to us, that we've enjoyed an influence, an abundance, a prosperity, a freedom, and a liberty. We have had a continual movement towards good things, as we have continued to emerge as a nation, as we have honored God.
In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus said, "You're the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You're the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. People don't light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house". Jesus is communicating, it's a part of the Sermon on the Mount, this idea of a salt losing its flavor or of light being hidden, suggesting that the circumstances that once existed could be forfeited or diminished, intentionally or not.
I think it's worth reflecting upon in our own nation. There was a time when the United States held up a set of values and morals and principles that were derived from a Christian worldview, and we held those out to the nations of the world. I'll add one more idea to this. In Daniel chapter 2, Daniel has had a remarkable victory. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and when he awakened in the morning, he couldn't remember his dream, but he demanded of the wise man that they tell him his dream and its interpretation. And, when they said, "That's not fair," he said, "I'll kill you". So, Daniel said, "Can I have until the morning"? And he prayed, and God revealed to Daniel the dream and its interpretation.
So the wise men of Babylon were spared, including Daniel and his friends. And, out of that victory, Daniel offers a prayer of Thanksgiving that gives us insight into the character of God. It's what I want you to see, it's in your notes, it's Daniel 2, in verse 20, he said, "Praise be to the name of God forever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them". Daniel understood, rightly, that God is involved in the rise and fall of nations, of empires. In fact, the scripture refers to Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, a pagan, as a servant of the most high God. God raises up nations and empires.
I would submit to you God raised up our nation, that it has served a purpose in the unfolding plans of God in the earth. And that we have been beneficiaries of that, not only in our access to the Christian faith, but in the abundance and the liberty and the freedom and the many things that define our lives. We didn't earn them, they simply came to us. Well, in Luke 21, this is Jesus's prophetic discourse again. He's describing the end of the age. Now he's speaking of Jerusalem again, and he said, "The Jewish people will fall by the sword and be taken as prisoners to all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled".
From the year 70 CE until 1967, Jerusalem was under the authority of a succession of Gentile nations and empires, non-Jewish nations and empires. 1967, for the first time in 2,000 years, Jerusalem came under the sovereign control again of the Jewish people. For the last several 100 years, the leadership of the church has been in the Western nations, and, for the last 100 or 150 years, the United States has been a stronghold of Christianity in the West. We've seen it deteriorate in Europe, but the U.S. has retained its Christian heritage.
My pastor friends that are a decade or two ahead of me in the UK and other places in Europe say, "Our young people no longer remember Bible stories. They don't know who Jonah is, they don't know who King David is". And he said, when I visit... they say, "When we visit the United States, we recognize that there is still a residual heritage of the faith here that we have lost". Now, I would suggest that our strength as a nation, resulting from the blessings of God, has given protection to many other nations where Christianity has flourished.
In that way, we have had the privilege of being something of a lighthouse, a beacon. But I want to submit to you that it's possible, we are watching, in unprecedented ways, the implosion of Christianity in our culture, fundamental Christian values are being set aside. We're standing at odds with the law of the land in ways we've never stood before. I believe, if those principles continue, the diminishment that will come to our nation will be unmistakable. And it's possible to understand that as exactly what Jesus was talking about, the times of the Gentiles being fulfilled.
I think if the Christian world, global community, is diminished in their places of authority and an opportunity to speak, I think we will see God begin to raise up a voice from the Jewish community in a new way. Now, I'm not telling you that that came from the mountain carved in stone, but it's one way of understanding what's happening in our world. Now, I know God can induce change, if his people, the Bible says, will humble themselves and pray and seek his face. God redirects the courses of nations. But to presume that our stability and our security rest upon an individual or a particular government or a political party is a mistake. Our future is secured by Almighty God. He is watching over us. Amen?
All right, I brought you a prayer, let's pray it. It's on the bottom of your outline, we could stand together. One of the most hopeful things I see in the midst of this congregation is your growth as a people of prayer. A few years ago, you might have worshiped here and said, "You don't pray". But it's much, much more difficult to say today than it was then, that is a sign of tremendous hope to me. Let's read this prayer together:
I rejoice in the majesty of my God. Your strength is on display in all the earth. Today I offer myself as a living sacrifice for Your purposes. May the thoughts of my heart and words of my mouth be pleasing in Your sight. Let righteousness break forth in this generation. May humility and the fear of the Lord fill the hearts of Your people. Let the name of Jesus be lifted up before all nations, in Jesus's name, amen.