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"Amillennialism 101" -- Audio and On-Line Resources

 

Living in Light of Two Ages

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Entries from June 1, 2015 - June 30, 2015

Tuesday
Jun302015

Adding Insult to Injury

Tuesday
Jun302015

Trunews Interview

I was interviewed by Rick Wiles of Trunews today.  The topic--the end times, what else?

I have never been on a radio program/podcast the same day as a CIA operations manager.

End Times Interview

Tuesday
Jun302015

"You Do Not Always Have Me" -- John 12:1-11

The Thirty-Ninth in a Series of Sermons on the Gospel of John

When he raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus demonstrated for all to see that he is Son of God and Israel’s Messiah.  But Israel’s religious leaders–the Sanhedrin and the high priest Caiaphas–were very troubled by the news that Jesus had returned to Jerusalem and was working miracles just a few days before the annual Passover.  They were afraid that Jesus would return to Jerusalem during the Passover for a final showdown with the Sanhedrin.  And so they had hatched a plot to arrest Jesus upon his return to the city, so that Jesus would then be put to death.  Blind to the fact that Jesus was that one promised throughout the Old Testament, the Sanhedrin was worried that Jesus would do something to provoke the Romans to intervene and remove them from power.  It was clear that many people had seen (or heard of) Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  Jesus was already popular because he was a miracle-worker and messianic figure and now, Jesus had many new followers as a result of his seventh and greatest miracle to date.  When Caiaphas proposed that Jesus die for the sake of the nation, his proposal was quickly agreed upon and the Pharisees made it known that if anyone saw Jesus or knew where he was, the Pharisees were to be informed.  And if people are following Jesus because of Lazarus, then Lazarus should be arrested and put to death as well. . .   Yes, it really has come to this.

We return to our series on the Gospel of John.  We have come to the literary hinge of John’s Gospel–chapters 11-12–which serve to join the two halves of John’s Gospel together.  The first 10 chapters of John deal with Jesus’ three-year messianic mission, while chapters 13-21 deal with those events surrounding the coming Passover, which include Jesus’ final instruction to his disciples (the Upper Room Discourse), his passion, and his resurrection (all of which take place during the last week of Jesus’ life).  Chapters 11-12 serve as the transition from our Lord’s messianic mission to his Passion.  

In John 11, we read of Jesus’ seventh and most dramatic miraculous sign, the raising of his dear friend Lazarus from the dead.  We read of Jesus’ great sorrow at the death of his friend, as well as the grief experienced by Lazarus’ friends and family.  When Jesus arrives at Lazarus’ tomb, he openly weeps.  But what moves Jesus to such anguish?  There is the spectacle of death itself.  There is the tomb.  Lazarus’ body is wrapped in linen and embalmed with spices to deal with decomposition–the cruelest reality of death.  There is the wailing of the professional mourners along with Lazarus’ family and friends.  The musicians play their somber funeral dirge.  The family and friends are all grief stricken and wailing.  Jesus rages in anger against what sin and death have done to the human race, including his dear friend.

John also tells us that a good number of people actually witnessed Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead.  They saw the once-dead man now hopping and staggering out of his tomb, still bound by his grave clothes.  Mary and Martha and Lazarus’ family certainly witnessed the miracle.  So did a number of Jews from Jerusalem who had come to the graveyard near Bethany, a small village about two miles from Jerusalem, to pay their respects to Lazarus’ family.  According to John, many of those who witnessed Jesus raise Lazarus believed in Jesus.  Who else but the Son of God and Israel’s Messiah could raise a man who had been dead for four days?

To read the rest of this sermon, Click Here

Monday
Jun292015

"Witness to His Resurrection" -- Acts 1:12-26

Here's the audio from Rev. Compton's sermon on Acts 1:12-26, recounting Peter's role in the Book of Acts

Click Here

Monday
Jun292015

This Week's White Horse Inn

Ordinary Grace

“September 2010 marked a turning point in the development of Western civilization,” so begins an intriguing study by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter in A Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. Interesting subtitle, isn't it? How counterculture became consumer culture. It was the month they say that Ad Busters Magazine started accepting orders for the Black Spot sneaker, its own signature brand of subversive running shoes. That's what we need… Subversive running shoes, I hate those just sort of non-subversive behaving shoes. After that day, no rational person could possibly believe that there's a tension between mainstream and alternative cultures. After that day, it became obvious to everyone that cultural rebellion of the type epitomized by Ad Busters Magazine is not a threat to the system. It is the system.

And it enamored of its own amazingness every generation, raises the empire to the foundations and starts over until the next generation as it goes at it. This is no way to build a culture and it's no way to build a life and it's no way to build a neighborhood, and brothers and sisters, it's no way to build a church. Who wants to be an ordinary person living in an ordinary neighborhood with ordinary people going to an ordinary church, having an ordinary calling? Our life has to count. It has to mean something and our legacy has to be measurable. It's something that we have to see preferably, not just in our lifetime but in the next 40 minutes. And yet, there's a growing restlessness I sense out there with restlessness. Some have grown tired of constant calls to reboot their lives or their churches or their ministries or the world. They're less sure they want to jump on to the next bandwagon after having fallen off of a few already.

Writer Rod Dreher observes “Everydayness is my problem.” In his book about his sister, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Dreher signals a growing sense of weariness with the cult of the extraordinary. Alternative is mainstream, extreme is common in a 24-hour news cycle. Now, every now and again, things have to be shaken up because the word of God, above all earthly powers challenges. It shakes things up. It keeps us from settling into our comfortable idolatries. And yet, whenever the word breaks things down, it is to build things up the right way, and building things up take time. That's why the 16th century movement led by the likes of Luther and Calvin was not called “the Revolution” but the Reformation.

Now, movements are usually youth driven, that's why they have so much vitality, whereas institutions are usually elder driven. And bringing these two things together as you know, especially those of you who are pastors, is one of the greatest opportunities and one of the greatest challenges in ministry. To fulfill Paul's exhortation in Ephesians 4:3, “Make every effort to preserve the bond of unity” and that means across the generations. The fathers aren't always right, as the writer to the Hebrews reminds us looking back at Israel's history. The fathers could be the generation in the wilderness that failed to enter the Promised Land, and it was the next generation that entered.

So, also Paul encourages Timothy, “Don't let anyone despise you because of your youth.” But he doesn't say, “Because remember your charisma. Remember your entrepreneurial skill. Remember all of your personal charm and your gifts, or remember your education.” He says, “Remember what you were taught and by whom you were taught when your mother and your grandmother catechized you into faith. And remember what happened when the elders in the presbytery, the council of elders, laid their hands on you in your ordination.” Very ordinary things… He calls Timothy to look outside of himself to ordinary things that God has done to put his seal of approval on his ministry. Our culture celebrates the next big thing but the Bible celebrates God's faithfulness from generation to generation. Kind of tough when we've been sold whatever it is that we really think is valuable with the slogan, "This is not your father's Oldsmobile." Well this is our fathers and our mothers’ faith, spiritual fathers and mothers at least who have gone before us and the children who will come after.

Click Here

Tuesday
Jun232015

"Everyone Believed in Him" -- John 11:45-57

The Thirty-Eighth in a Series of Sermons on the Gospel of John

Jesus has just raised his dear friend Lazarus from the dead.  There were plenty of eyewitnesses to this amazing miracle–Lazarus’s family saw it, as did many Jews from the city of Jerusalem who were present at the tomb.  This was our Lord’s seventh miraculous sign recorded in John’s gospel, and surely the most dramatic sign so far.  The Jews of Jesus’ day should have understood full-well the significance of this event.  YHWH was to raise the dead on the last day (the general resurrection), yet Jesus had just raised Lazarus.  Since the Jews tied the resurrection of the dead to the culmination of the messianic age, the only conclusion to be drawn is that with the coming of Jesus, the messianic age is a present reality.  There can be no doubt about Jesus’ identity.  Jesus is Israel’s Messiah, the Son of Man, and the eternal word made flesh.  Jesus has demonstrated for all to see that he is the coming one foretold by all of Israel’s prophets.  You would think that upon learning that Jesus raised had Lazarus from the dead, the members of the Sanhedrin would rush to embrace Jesus as Israel’s Messiah.  Instead, the Sanhedrin issues a warrant for Jesus’ arrest and hatches a plot to kill him.  Our Lord’s hour is rapidly drawing near, and at the same time, Israel is also coming to a biblical crossroad.  Just as Jesus’ hour is near, so too is Israel’s.

We are currently working our way though John’s Gospel, and are now in chapter 11.  We are considering the closing verses of this remarkable chapter, in which the wheels are set in motion for Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion.  We have spent several weeks considering Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead, and it is important to once again consider the role that chapters 11 and 12 play in the overall structure of John’s Gospel.  After the prologue to the Gospel (the first 14 verses), John (who was an eyewitness to these events) spends ten chapters covering Jesus’ messianic mission.  When we left off last time, Jesus was in Bethany where Lazarus had been buried (just outside Jerusalem) and only days remained before Jesus’ death as the Passover Lamb and his resurrection from the dead.  

Beginning in  chapter 11–especially with John’s account of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus–John will spend two chapters preparing us for what is commonly known as the “Upper Room Discourse” which is recounted in chapters 13-17.  During the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus prepares his disciples for his betrayal, arrest, death, and resurrection–all associated the so-called “Passion” found chapters 18-20.  Although they do not yet realize it, the disciples’ time with Jesus is soon coming to an end.  In just days, Jesus will be leaving his disciples and returning to the presence of the Father.  As his hour draws near, little time remains for Jesus to prepare his disciples for a new manner of his presence with them–through the indwelling of the blessed comforter (the Holy Spirit).  

In the first half of his Gospel (chapters 1-10) then, John covers the first three years of Jesus’ messianic mission.  But the material found in chapters 13-17 (the Upper Room Discourse) takes place during one evening, while the Passion account (chapters 18-20) covers a mere three days.  So even though we are about half way through our time in John, everything from chapter 11 until our Lord’s Passion, takes place shortly before Jesus’ final Passover celebration in Jerusalem.  Chapters 11-12 serve as the literary bridge between the two halves of John’s Gospel, taking us from the end of Jesus’ three year messianic mission, to the days immediately before our Lord’s death upon the cross, and his resurrection from the dead.

To read the test of this sermon, Click Here

Monday
Jun222015

"Gracious Is the Lord" -- Psalm 116

Here's the audio from Sunday's sermon on Psalm 116:  Click Here

Monday
Jun222015

This Week's White Horse Inn

Wisdom for Life and the Cause of Christ

This week on the White Horse Inn we discuss one of Paul's greatest concerns. When writing to the church in Corinth, the apostle had to continually remind them of the danger of distraction by the wisdom of this present age. Their faith was continually sidetracked by the lifestyles of this world. For "Greeks seek wisdom, and Jews seek miraculous signs, but we preach Christ crucified"(1 Cor. 1:22). The wisdom of the cross surpasses the wisdom of this world through the folly of what the church preaches.

On this program the hosts will interact with what the apostle is saying in this passage as they seek to understand the wisdom of the cross and the wisdom of this age. How are we distracted today? Do we have anything to learn from these apostolic warnings? Do we see the same kind of interest in a wisdom that is contrary to our Lord? Regrettably, this same problem arises in contemporary churches. The "wisdom for living” genre is a bestselling commodity in the Christian book industry and can be found in the teaching of contemporary churches. The Christian faith has been emptied of the cross and its meaning. Maybe, it's time for us to stop taking God's name in vain and begin again to be Christians in a pagan culture. Join us this week on the White Horse Inn as we discuss the centrality of the cross in a world full of misguided wisdom (Originally Aired Aug 14, 2011)

Click Here

Thursday
Jun182015

Friday Feature -- Hope for Weekend Warriors

With the annual Christ Reformed softball game tomorrow, Bartolo Colon should inspire the elders on to victory.  He jiggles more than most of us do, and if he can still play the game, well then, so can we.

Tuesday
Jun162015

"Jesus Wept" -- John 11:28-44

The Thirty-Seventh in a Series of Sermons on the Gospel of John

Humanity’s greatest enemy is death.  Yet, God has promised that death will not have the last word.  At the end of the age, God will raise the dead, judge all men and women, and then usher in a new heaven and earth where all traces of the curse and human sin are vanquished.  But until that day, the curse remains, and those whom we love still die.  So when Jesus’ friend Lazarus tastes death, those following Jesus look to him for comfort and guidance, as well as for some word of hope in anticipation of the great day of final victory over death at the end of the age.  But at a burial ground in Bethany–a small village just outside of Jerusalem–Jesus does something beyond all human imagination.  After weeping at the sight of Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus performs his seventh and greatest miraculous sign yet.  He raises his friend from the dead, giving everyone present at the tomb the unmistakable proof that he is God incarnate, and that he is Lord over death and the grave.  But he is also giving everyone a glimpse of what will happen in just a few short days when he dies on a Roman cross and is then raised from the dead on the third day.  It is our Lord’s own bodily resurrection from the dead which is the guarantee of the great resurrection on the last day.

As we continue our series on the Gospel of John, we come to John’s account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (chapter 11).  In verses 28-44, we see the emotions of Jesus on full display when Jesus rages against death, and then raises his dear friend Lazarus from the dead.  If we thought that Jesus’ initial reaction to the news of Lazarus’ death was cold and indifferent, in this section of John’s account we will discover that we were greatly mistaken.  Jesus was not unemotional about the death of his friend–as it seemed.  Jesus knew that his hour was not yet–although his hour is drawing near.  He also knew that there was still much for him to teach his disciples before they make their final trip to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, in which Jesus brings his messianic mission to its glorious climax as he reveals himself to be the true Passover lamb who takes away the sins of the world.  

In this section of John, the disciple recounts Jesus’ great of compassion for Lazarus’ family, and he himself openly weeps at the sight of the tomb of his friend.  But these are not just tears of sadness as the English word “weep” conveys.  Jesus cries tears of both anger and anguish, as he witnesses what Adam’s fall and the curse have done to the human race.  When we see Jesus weeping at the death of a close friend, we learn much about our Lord’s true human nature and the profound human emotions which Jesus truly felt.  We also learn much about grief, and the Christian attitude toward death, which is grounded in the reality of human sin and the curse, and the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the body.

As I mentioned several weeks ago, John’s Gospel is difficult to preach since there are a number of lengthy discourses which are best treated as a single block of material.  But since we don’t have the time to go through these discourses in the detail they deserve, I have chosen to break these discourses down into smaller units.  The problem with doing so that it is easy to lose sight of the powerful drama and overall thrust of the narrative.  Apart from the rich and profound theological implications of this passage, the story of Jesus raising Lazarus is very compelling in its own right.  The inherent drama of the narrative is especially important to recapture before we take up our text–one of the most moving and dramatic in all the Bible.

To read the rest of this sermon, Click Here