The Need For The Prophets
Christians do not live in a vacuum. We may wish we did, but the truth is that we live in the world – a world God created, a wonderful world marred by sin and our many wrong choices. We are not unaffected by all that happens around us; we are not immune to sickness, fear, troubles and temptations.
The prophets operated in the real world, being affected by injustice, war and judgment just as everyone else was. But they also lived with one foot firmly in God’s kingdom, with their eyes firmly fixed on an invisible but benevolent God. They proclaimed God’s sovereignty, love, mercy, holiness and judgment in the real, messy, uncomfortable world. Their vision of what life in God’s kingdom, where God rules, may appear hopelessly utopian to us, but its truth has stood the test of time. Nations have come and gone; invincible superpowers lie relegated to the history books. God remains on the throne.
What does this have to do with us? Everything, I would argue. We live in messy, difficult, frightening times, when the whole world seems obsessed with a coronavirus which actually appears little different from many others we have previously faced, despite the rhetoric and prevalence of fear and the measures taken to deal with it. We live under threats and loss of freedoms, dictated to by a government whose motives seem mixed and whose methods ring so many alarm bells that at times the sound feels deafening. More than ever, the courageous example of the prophets, whose lone voices cry out to us from a large proportion of Scripture (over a quarter of the Bible is dedicated to these men), is needed. Their passion for God’s ways, their refusal to ‘buy into‘ the worldview of their time, and their hope in the sovereignty and reality of God provide anchors for every troubled time.
Don’t dismiss the prophets as irrelevant, eccentric and unimportant, but learn from them, as we are urged to learn from all parts of Scripture, and understand that God is still speaking through His prophets to the church and to the world today.
Not Our Own
Slavery and the trafficking of slaves is, alas, a modern problem as much as ever it was. In 2004, 23 cockle pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay; they had been trafficked and lured by the promise of good jobs in Britain, but were forced to work seven days a week for just £10 a day. There are many more shocking tales of such injustices and it is thought that worldwide, slavery affects between 25 and 45 million people. Human trafficking involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labour or commercial sex act; this includes forced marriages, sex trafficking, forced labour and child labour.
Though we may not be aware of it, we may be profiting from slavery in the services we use (e.g. in retail, in the clothes we buy and so on); we need to be aware and to buy aware. This problem is not something that is only relevant from a historical point of view; it is of stark relevance to our everyday lives.
We may well feel, however, that we are free people and this topic has little relevance for us in the UK, but the past year has shown us how easily freedoms can be removed from us (e.g. what we can do, where we can go, whom we can see, whether we can go to work or not.) The Government and psychologists in SAGE have used social and behavioural interventions to control and direct behaviour, playing on feelings of duty, guilt and fear to inculcate the ‘acceptable’ level of behaviour in people. We can easily become slaves to fear; people are finding it increasingly difficult to ‘go back to normal’, even when restrictions are eased, because of the fear aroused by these methods.
We can also be slaves to our desires, again often exacerbated by advertising and the media. The idea of personal liberation can, if we are not careful, be used by those skilled in manipulation to captivate – an age-old problem as Genesis 3:4-5 makes plain.
Paul reminds us in Rom 6:16 that when we offer ourselves to someone as obedient slaves, we are slaves of the one we obey – whether we are slaves to sin or to obedience. Christ has died to set us free (Gal 5:1); as Christians, we are freed from the penalty of sin (1 Cor 5:21) and freed from a fear of death (Heb 2:14-15). Life is precious and valuable (euthanasia and abortion are wrong because both treat life as disposable), but Jesus made it plain that we must lose our lives to find them (Matt 10:39, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24). We have to understand that Jesus laid down His life for us and that we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. (1 John 3:16)
To live in fear, guilt, shame or bondage to our desires is to be enslaved. Jesus came to set us free not only from the penalty of sin but from the power of sin, so that now we can choose who rules us. Rom 6:13 reminds us that we have a choice now to offer ourselves to God; 1 Cor 6:19-20 reminds us that we are not our own but have been bought by God. Just as the slave could choose to continue to serve their master out of love (Ex 21:5-6), so too we can choose to be a slave of God and therefore know true freedom.
The Christ Brand
A brand is an important part of fashion these days, with many clothing companies having distinctive brands; Stephen showed off the Barbour brand today:
This kind of branding is certainly less painful than that which used to be used to mark slaves; a branding iron was heated up on coals and then placed on a slave’s skin, so that if they strayed, they could be traced back to the owner. Animals are branded (often with dye) so that they can be clearly identified as belonging to a particular farmer. Whilst we may deplore slavery, the Bible uses this language to describe our relationship to sin and to Christ (see Rom 6:16-18), and we are urged to show the marks of Christ in our lives, even as His death by crucifixion gave Him wounds or marks which He showed to His followers after His resurrection.
We may choose to cover our branding, but God has chosen us in Him to be holy and blameless in His sight; we are called to be His holy people (1 Cor 1:2, Eph 1:4) We are sons and daughters of the living God and need to live in such a way that we are marked out as belonging to Christ. Our lives should reflect how Jesus lived, bearing the marks of love, sacrifice, service, forgiveness and trust. Are we willing to show our allegiance to God, or do we prefer to ‘cover up’ these marks, choosing to identify more with the world’s ways than with Christ’s? Col 1:22 reminds us that we are reconciled through the physical sacrifice of Jesus and now we are called to shine forth His light so that the world may know who He is. (2 Cor 4:4-8) We need to be unashamed of being slaves to righteousness and must live in ways that reflect Christ’s brand to the world.
Updates
We’re very pleased that our Parent & Toddler group will be re-opening on Friday 11th June (9.30-11.00 a.m.) We will have a maximum capacity of 20 adults to enable social distancing between adults; each adult can bring children under 5. We will be operating a pre-booking system to monitor numbers and to ensure all Government guidance is followed, so please contact Julie on 07729 421405 to book your place(s).
Don’t forget also our ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting at our building (and on Facebook live) on Wednesday 19th May at 10.45 a.m. and our Pentecost dove distribution on Saturday 22nd May at 10 a.m.
We’re also pleased to be taking part in the ‘Churches Together’ Pentecost Trail on Wednesday 2nd June at the Railway Embankment site (opposite the Texaco garage). This is an opportunity to book in for a 45 minutes’ session of crafts and activities on the theme of Pentecost at a lovely outdoor site developed by local residents on what used to be the railway site for the mine. For years a fly-tipping eyesore, this site is now a beautiful, serene outdoor community space and we are looking forward to our first in-person fun day for over a year. You’ll need to book your time slot to join us, and every family will get a lovely goody bag of craft activities and fruit snacks to take home.
Finally, we’ll also be involved in the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival (taking place in Goldthorpe on Saturday 25th September) and are pleased that this will involve a community art project on the same Railway Embankment site which will take place in early July. Working with artist Lydia Caprani, local residents and school-children will be painting the brick wall down to the site and we are grateful to Lloyd’s Stores in Thurnscoe for their donation of paint and equipment for this project.
The Return of Jesus
Jesus taught His disciples not only about His own death and resurrection and not only about the need for personal sacrifice and taking up the cross to follow Him but also about His return to earth. In Luke 13 and in Matthew 24, He gave many warnings about the ‘end times’, the times leading up to the kingdom of heaven finally being fully established on earth, and predicted difficult times for all who followed Him (Luke 13:9-11, 19; Matt 24:9-14). He warned us that we cannot know when He will return (see Luke 13:32-37) and therefore there is need for constant readiness (Matt 25:1-13).
Jesus taught that after His death and resurrection, He would leave the disciples and send His Holy Spirit to be with them (this is most clearly taught in John 16 and was fulfilled in Acts 1 and 2 when we read of His ascension to heaven 40 days after His resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.) These things have all been fulfilled, but the things He spoke about concerning His return to earth, the return of the Son of Man, have yet to be fulfilled. We are still waiting for His return more than 2000 years later, but as 1 Thess 5:1-8 and 2 Pet 3:1-18 make plain, this day is still to come.
In essence, Jesus says, ‘Wake up! Be ready! Don’t live as though you’ve got forever, because no one knows that. Look for the signs of the times; study God’s word; live each day in anticipation of the Lord’s return, because when the Son of Man comes, will be find faith on the earth, or will we have fallen away because we were not prepared and were not ready?’
We must learn to pray now with the persistence and tenacity of the widow in Luke 18:1-8 and not give up, not lose heart, not doubt that God has forgotten us, no matter how bad the situation may look. We must be prepared to take a stand for Jesus, to live without compromise, to live by His truth and not by lies, to live each day waiting for Him and being alert and ready. We must live with faith and hope and love, not with fear, doubt, despair or indifference.
When the Son of Man Comes, Will He Find Faith On The Earth?
In our series on ‘Questions’, looking now at the questions God asks us, we looked tonight at Luke 18:1-8, a parable Jesus told His disciples to urge them to continue in prayer, but which ends with the challenging question, ‘when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?’ (Luke 18:8) Parables have a habit of challenging us: they are earthly stories with a heavenly meaning, and often their very simplicity draws us in to realise that we don’t have all the answers and must dig deeper into our hearts to discover these.
