Guy does this thing with lists

I have enough of a job getting sermons into more than three parts but the exiled preacher has started a bit of a fashion for lists of ten things.

SNAP! 12

Psalm 24

From river-borne silt and from sea's wave-tossed sand
God fashions the earth and lays down the land.
He lays it all out for his people to have:
the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

So who shall ascend upon God's holy hill
with clean hands and hearts, obeying his will;
who will not, no, cannot deceitfully swear
but stand without falsehood to worship him there?

While seeking the face of Israel's God
and blessing receiving from salvation's Lord
our justification through faith we will claim;
the new generation that calls on his name.

Lift your heads up, you gates,
open up, ancient doors
that the King may come in
who's the greatest of lords.
Strong and mighty is he
bearing victory rewards.
Lift your heads up, you gates,
open up, ancient doors.

tune: Light up the Fire

SNAP! 11

Psalm 21

Lord, in your strength how the King rejoices,
you grant requests made with kingly voices.
In your salvation his heart is leaping;
his exultation safe in your keeping.

In this encounter rich blessings giving,
he asks for life and you grant the living.
Of crowning mercies you are the giver,
of length of days and of life forever.

Great is his glory through your salvation;
majestic splendour in celebration,
for you make him the most blessed forever,
glad in the union that none can sever.

All buried hatred your hand exhuming,
its burning wrath in your fire consuming
and from your arrows its children flying;
its plans frustrated, its mischief dying.

The Lord is faithful, the King believing;
God's love is steadfast, his King unmoving.
In heaven exalted with praises ringing;
on earth, your strength, Lord, your people singing.

Tune: An t-Eilean Muileach (The Isle of Mull)

SNAP! 10

An Echo for Psalm 20
for Callum Hall

I called in the day of my trouble,
I called on his Holy Name,
got answering help from his temple
for God-my-deliverer came.
The torchlight I held was engulfed by
the Spirit who answers with fire,
my wrong way gave way to the high road,
he gave me my heart's own desire.

With banners and shouts of 'Salvation,'
rejoicing in answers to prayer —
God's saving might reaches from heaven,
he saves his Anointed from there —
we trust in the triumph of Jesus,
before him all kingdoms shall fall,
we'll rise and stand upright to bless him
'Salvation' shall echo our call.

Tune: Crugybar

Selah 8

Psalm 9:20
Put them in fear, O LORD!
Let the nations know that they are but men!
Selah.

"With our firstborn sons our honour
and our strength set in our horses
it was double our disaster then
to find ourselves with none;
sons slain of a night's fever
and the cavalry all gone
to perdition in the space of just one hour
and our king reduced to merely-human curses."

"Who'd have thought that when we'd won
the battle that we'd live to rue it?
Their 'god-box' toppled Dagon
when we took it to his house,
then (a toss-up for the worse thing)
plagues of haemorrhoid and mouse.
Now the new cart's trip is done,
they've got it back and welcome to it."

"The instruction was, as always, pretty clear,
'Make sure he's really dead!' — I tell it from the blood,
it's the living ones are bleeders
for it don't flow when they're dead —
This one looked dead already
so I had them spear his side
and I saw the sun go dark and I heard the curtain tear
and I knew this dead man was the son of God."

Selah 50

Psalm 76:9
when God arose to establish judgment,
to save all the humble of the earth.
Selah.

We made a night-raid of it.
When dawn broke we were on our way
back, with victory in the bag,
the hostages in tow and all the booty.
The plunderers slept as we robbed them of their prey;
we're long gone and they're still feeling for their hands.

It was the arrogance of it;
secure in their lair, no sentry
stood. They, supine as a log,
for all their early start failed in their duty,
sunk in death's sleep as we freed our families.
Oppression ends as we reunify our band.

They made a meal out of it.
Light swallowed. Darkness in the day
time joined them. Hidden in the fog,
the tables overturned, the Victor, muted,
binds the strong man in his house with his own keys.
Resurgent, Just Deliverer occupies the stand.

Selah 49

Psalm 76:3
There he broke the flashing arrows,
the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war.
Selah.

Melchizedek brought bread and wine
and stopped the triumph in its track;
'Shalom' (for now) extends to Sodom's plain;
divinely blessed, Abram refuses gain;
the garland hangs on Mamre's Oak;
sons are not cursed near Eshcol's Vine.

When David's pride was overcome
and God's wrath halted on the height,
an altar built upon the threshing floor
— Moriah's Mound the testing place once more;
the oxen paid for, as was right —
sufficed to cancel out the sum.

When God's Anointed left his throne
and incognito came to Zion
at him were shot the arrows of the bow,
he, bleeding, broke them, broken, overthrew,
— Lamb's silence of a roaring lion —
for thus in Judah God is known.

Twelve Great Reasons for Accepting the Cessation.

Dr. Sam Storms has published a post entitled The Case for Continuationism in two parts. I've used the first part (12 Bad Reasons for Being a Cessationist) as a template for my rather opposite thoughts on the matter. So about the Cessation?

1 It is Scriptural: 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 teaches quite clearly that three things 'prophecy', 'tongues' and 'knowledge' would cease. Clearly these three words are used with restricted meaning (nobody thinks that the cessation of tongues means an end to all use of language, for instance) and each would cease when its 'perfection' was given. The cessation indicates a threefold perfection given to the church now.

2 It is God-honouring: Since belief in the cessation entails acceptance of the perfection of those things that have displaced 'prophecy', 'tongues' and 'knowledge' in the life of the church, God who gave those perfections is honoured by acceptance of the cessation. Furthermore, since the root of belief in the cessation is in exegesis of the text, God is honoured by the removal of the temptation to say that he cannot do such things, is bound to do such and such things or even that he has bound himself not to act in such and such a particular way depending on how else we derive our cessationism / continuationism other than by exegesis.

3 It is logical: For example, when the perfection of the New Testament was complete, the collaboration and correction of the prophets was handed over to the pastors and teachers of New Testament truth and grace. This handover parallels the succession from apostles (the generation who knew Christ 'after the flesh') to the evangelists. Honour ought not be given to the church as having given us Scripture but the prophets within the churches were those who gave us the authentication that Scripture was Scripture

Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. [1 Corinthians 14:29]

so no prophets today means that the church cannot meddle with what is Scripture.

4 It is Christocentric: The destruction of the temple in AD 70 marked the end of the transfer of the focus of gospel witness from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth [Acts 1:8.] At first it must have seemed as though the temple could have been rebuildable but as hopes faded away with the obliteration of all records of the priesthood so 'tongues' as a sign of judgement on Jerusalem faded away also. The completion of the transference to the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth through Christ in every place is sealed with the putting away of 'tongues.'

5 It is accessible: If one accepts the cessation, the apostolic doctrine is no longer subject to getting lost in the meanderings and wilderness-swallowed rivers of the so-called apostolic succession. The eyewitness knowledge of the apostles (not just of the twelve but of 'all the apostles' [1 Corinthians 15:7]) has given way, not to the perfection of 'the eternal state ushered in at the second coming of Jesus Christ' but to the interim perfection of being

… absent from the body, … present with the Lord. [2 Corinthians 5:8]

and of knowing even as having been known.

6 It is certain: Although we no longer have the witness of the apostles, i.e. the ability to 'receive the testimony of men,' still:

… the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. [1 John 5:9-11]

We have also the written Word of God [1 John 5:12f.] and the answer to prayer [1 John 5:14f.] and having these three makes our faith even more certain than the apostolic experience was itself [1 Peter 1:18f.]

7 It is foundational: Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone holds the eyewitness knowledge of the apostles and the confirmatory and ever-present witness of the prophets together and the cessation sets them all apart as a foundation for us to build on [Ephesians 2:19-22.] We can have no other foundation than Jesus Christ [1 Corinthians 3:10f.]

8 It is egalitarian: Just as we all have access to God

For through [Christ] we … have access in one Spirit to the Father. [Ephesians 2:18]

so we can call preachers to bring the gospel to us, pay double-honour to those who labour in the word and doctrine, dismiss those who do not adhere to the faith once delivered to the saints and never need feel that miracles are in the hands of 'special' people.

9 It is crucicentric: Just as the beginning of the epoch of Christ's first advent was marked by the appearance of an angel to Zechariah in the temple so the end of the epoch was marked by the cessation. The medium does not become the message and acceptance of the cessation helps focus on the cross as the centre of this significant cluster of divine activity among men.

10 It is historical: One cannot put a date on the cessation just as one cannot put exact dates on the completion of the canon, the destruction of the temple or the death of the last apostle but taking samples downstream from the source one finds neither churches functioning like the church at Corinth nor visitors to churches like Corinth with apostolic eyewitness knowledge of the life and resurrection of Christ. There was a cessation.

11 It is liberating: While one is free to listen to continuationist preachers, read continuationist writers and worship with continuationist congregations and profit one need never feel the pressure to submit to abuse, to suffer in silence or to stay beyond reason just because the abusers, the vocal and the loyalty demanders illegitimately exert these pressures (which were never the intention of prophecy, tongues and knowledge in the first place anyway) doing so on the putative grounds of distinctions within the people of God that have ceased.

12 It is enabling: Acceptance of the Cessation helps to use the means of grace without fear of bringing false fire. One can raise ones hands in praise without feeling like the thin end of a wedge, one can dismiss the most melodious noise (as being not-knowing-the-words rather than as a vital message which agonisingly can't be understood) to concentrate on five words with understanding and one can counter 'The Lord has told me that you have to let me do this' with 'Strange that the Lord hasn't told me the same thing.'

As it is Now and Ever Shall Be, (But for the Grace of God Now.)

Jude 14-16

14 • It was also about these that Enoch,
the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying,
"Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones,
15 to execute judgement on all
and to convict all the ungodly
of all their deeds of ungodliness
that they have committed in such an ungodly way,
and of all the harsh things
that ungodly sinners have spoken against him."

16 • These are grumblers, malcontents,
following their own sinful desires;

• they are loud-mouthed boasters,
showing favouritism to gain advantage.

The thing is that in a lost eternity all this ungodliness will be answered with as much a distance from God as could ever have been desired with no satisfaction in the result since the driving force is not the desire to be unlike God but rather the desire that there should be no God.

With all reason in hell to be malcontent grumblers, the lack of contentment and teeth gnashing will be in proportion to the discontented hedonism indulged in here.

In a place where the lost really will be able to say, 'I did it my way' the fearful scramble to toady any slight advantage whatsoever will be eternally frustrated to disappointment.

The Gloom of Utter Darkness Forever

Jude 12-13

12 • These are blemishes on your love feasts,
as they feast with you without fear,
looking after themselves;

• waterless clouds,
swept along by winds;

• fruitless trees in late autumn,
twice dead, uprooted;
13 wild waves of the sea,
casting up the foam of their own shame;
wandering stars,
for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved
forever.

Hell will doubly be a second death for those who make use of all the trappings of faith and the visible privileges of sonship in order to cavort heedlessly under the cover of a pretend faith.

The worst features of a fallen nature, as far from garden of Eden fruitfulness and order as chaos can swallow will be incorporated into hell as eternity swallows up wasted time itself along with all hypocrisy.

Standing Between the Dead and the Living

Jude 9-11

9 • But when the archangel Michael,
contending with the devil,
was disputing about the body of Moses,
he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment,
but said, "The Lord rebuke you."

10 • But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand,
and they are destroyed by all
that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

11 • Woe to them!
For they walked in the way of Cain
and abandoned themselves
for the sake of gain to Balaam's error
and perished in Korah's rebellion.

Moses had witnessed contention against him get to the pitch that after Korah's rebellion, which you can read all about in Numbers 16, Aaron had to run through the camp of Israel with a censer full of fire from the altar to 'head off' God's anger and prevent it from resulting in the deaths of all Israel. Now this happened the day after the ground had opened up and swallowed whole the followers of Korah with their families, their contention going down with them to the world of the dead, to Sheol. You would have thought that we would learn the lesson not to contend with God in this way but if, the very day after rebellion was swallowed up by the ground, the people could be complaining that the rebellion was the fault of Moses (and therefore of God) how can we expect that mankind will ever cease to shake his fist in God's face.

Certainly, Moses could see a history of such behaviour going right back to the beginning of time. At the time of Korah's rebellion they had yet to face the effects of the non-Israelite prophet Balaam's attempt to get round his inability to curse Israel by introducing an anti-God fertility cult to the heart of the Israelite camp in order to destroy them all — You can read about that and how Phinehas, Aaron's grandson stopped it in Numbers 25 — but Moses could have pointed back to Cain's murder of Abel and how the rebellion and the words spoken in it were expressions of nothing less than unbelief in the very face of God's provision of life and reconciliation.

Lest we should think that the message from the story told by Jude about Michael the archangel contending for the body of Moses is given to show that angels know better we had better note who it is that Michael was contending with. The rebellion of unbelief that shakes its fist in the face of God's grace and is swallowed up whole into hell itself has been Satan's from the very beginning. Michael's care in not giving as bad as he got is because Lucifer's fall could have been his.

Let us be exceedingly careful as we handle things that we don't understand because there is a principle in mankind while still at enmity to God that has us blaspheming God simply because we will not seek understanding nor put our trust in him while at the same time those leads which we instinctively follow lead us, as it were, to be still contending with God as the ground opens up and swallows us.

While the Judge to be is Still our Advocate.

Revelation 20:11-15

Last Judgement — Final Transition.

In British courts of law the route to becoming a judge is to serve first as an advocate (quaintly called a barrister in England) and we find the same progression in heavenly courts leading up to the Last Judgement itself:

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. [1 John 2:1]

Now is the time to make use of his advocacy and the access we have through him to the Father.

Last Judgement — Final Transition.

Revelation 20:11-15

The Great White Throne
Judgement by the Book
The Bottom Line

Seated as Judge at the Last Judgement will be God's appointee, Jesus Christ the Righteous, on whose proceeding to the judgement, an irresistible summons to attend will be sent out to all those who are to be judged.

Every person who ever lived will be in the assembly for the trial and the assembly will be separated immediately into two groups to hear first the deeds of each individual laid bare and then the pronouncement of liberty to all those whose names are written in the book of life.

Those thus summoned to an eternal reward will join with the Judge in judgement of the world before the sentence of damnation is pronounced and consignment to the lake of fire, which is the second death, takes place.

The Bottom Line

Revelation 20:14-15:

14 • Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

• This is the second death, the lake of fire.

15 • And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life,
he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Since we are incapable of seeing beneath the surface of a lake of fire so we can only get any idea of the horrors of its depths by comparison with known or imaginable things. For example the sea's flooding has a deadly tenacity but the flood will have been so much less tenacious than the fire will prove to be.

The lake of fire is called the second death because, since Death and Hades are thrown into it, there is to be no retreat back to the intermediate state of merely being dead. Hades is thrown in (and so too its space, so to speak, as well as its torments) to be assimilated into the lake of fire. If the first death is temporal (and indeed 'mortal' is in some ways synonymous with 'temporal') then when Death is thrown into the lake of fire its characteristic passage of time is also thrown into eternity and we may consider the second death to be a dying that never dies.

Those whose names are written in the book of life will not even taste the second death. Even now, for those who are 'asleep in Jesus', the torments of Hades are unknown because they and the pleasures they enjoy are separated from Hades by a great chasm that is fixed.

Although we can't look into the depths of the lake of fire the horrors of the road that leads inexorably there ought to be enough for us to determine not to go that route. We have much the same circumstance in reverse with wanting to be counted with those whose names are written in the book of life for we can't trace out those deeds done in the body with any certainty but certainty does come from getting to the bottom line so we simply ask, 'Is my name written in the book of life?'

Judgement by the Book

Revelation 20:12c-13:

• And the dead were judged by what was written in the books,
according to what they had done.

13 • And the sea gave up the dead who were in it,
Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them,

• and they were judged,
each one of them, according to what they had done

The sea's grip on 'her dead' is proverbially tenacious. We are neither to think of Death and Hades as two separate places nor that the souls of the sea's dead are held in some other place apart from Hades, the world of the dead. The cumulative effect of the repetitions is to insist that all the dead will be at the great white throne and will be judged. Neither previous judgement, such as the flood that destroyed the world that was, nor death itself will prevent an appearance there.

The judgement is emphatically to be 'according to what they had done.' That is the case for each one of us and what we have done and are doing is being recorded right now. By contrast with the book of life we could call these books the books of the knowledge of good and evil, noting that another reason for the earth and the sky fleeing away is the whole world's inability to contain such books but also that, perhaps with this, the making of books is finally at an end.

The Great White Throne

Revelation 20:11-12b:

11 • Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.
From his presence earth and sky fled away,
and no place was found for them.

12 • And I saw the dead, great and small,
standing before the throne,
and books were opened.

• Then another book was opened,
which is the book of life.

No place was found for earth and sky at the great white throne in John's vision because nothing can compete with the the majesty of the one seated on the throne. A man (Jesus Christ) will sit there because, first of all, the dead of humanity are those who are to be judged. Judgement is to be made outwith time and space on the things done in space (on the earth) and in time (governed by celestial movements) so, in the vision, no place was found for earth and sky at the great white throne.

The book of life is given a special mention to draw attention to its name and to distinguish it from the other books without dismissing them altogether. The focus is placed on what it is that we really need to be asking: 'Is my name written in the book of life?'

There will be a judgement beyond death, time and space, that will be made according to what is being written down now. The one who presides at that judgement will have authority over death, time and space so that all the human dead from all time and from everywhere will be summoned there, will be there and will be judged there, when the books are opened.

The Business of the Day

Matthew 25:31-40

The Eternal State

The Parable of the Pounds presents the evocative picture of a nobleman going away to a far country to receive a kingdom and then return.

Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, 'Engage in business until I come.' [Luke 19:13]

So, since we are the servants waiting for the King to return, what is the business that we ought to be engaged in in preparation for the eternal state?

• While in the world we ought to be not of the world; we cannot be separate from the world but as long as we keep close to the cross of Christ we will live separated/separable holy lives.

• Since Christ the King will return in glory we should glorify him now by making a study of how he conducted business in his Father's house here in his time on earth and especially how he finished the work that the Father gave him to accomplish on the cross.

• Since the inheritance that we will come into when the King returns is God himself we ought to share the blessing as much as we can in anticipation. There is a supply for every need so we cannot begrudge freely giving what we have freely received. This is an opportunity for investment in the future that God has planned for us but it is beyond our imagination to describe what that future will be like because we can't extrapolate from the price paid in Jesus' blood on Calvary's cross to all the blessings that flow from it. Those things that make a small difference here on earth echo the huge difference Christ made on Calvary so the returning echo to our 'cup of cold water' is a whole river of righteousness and we can't anticipate what shall be obtained then by merely doing what is fitting here and now.

Hastening the Coming of the Day

Matthew 25:31-40

The Eternal State

… what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, … [2 Peter 3:11-12]

If we're talking about the new creation in the eternal state then surely we're done talking about the Law of God and the Ten Commandments? Not so, because we find ourselves always talking about what happens then in relation to what happens now. If we are to live lives of holiness and godliness — in other words, if we are to hasten the coming of that day that we are waiting for — then we must love the Lord our God with all of our heart and we must love our neighbour as ourselves. Both tables of the Law make demands on us as we seek to glorify God here on earth but how are we to reconcile the conflicting demands of God and my neighbour?

Here's how. Who is both God and my neighbour? Simple answer is Jesus Christ but the more complex answer, waiting for the return in glory of the King of the Ages, is

'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'

We get ready for the separation of the sheep and the goats on that day by this day reconciling the tables of the law in our behaviour by loving God who is my neighbour.

Listen to the Shepherd

Matthew 25:31-40

The Eternal State

We might well be bothered about our inability to distinguish the Shepherd's voice when he comes but any fears we might have about listening for the Shepherd ought to be allayed by the practice of listening to the Shepherd.

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. [John 10:16]

We have the opportunity to hear the voice of the Shepherd:
• as we receive answers to our prayers
• as we learn to keep in tune with the Spirit of God
• as we read the Word and meditate on it.

The Eternal State

Matthew 25:31-40

To Make Up His Treasured Possession
The SheepfromGoats Protocol
As Close as we Come to as Good as it Gets.

Although the details of what we shall be in the eternal state are not yet known to us, nor can we (with the use of whatever kind of science) hope to grasp what hasn't even entered into the fringes of the imagination of the heart of mankind, we can anticipate its glory somewhat from such data as our own bodily experience here in the world of now, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of our inheritance and the promise that, when we see him, we shall be like him, whom to know is already life eternal.