An assembly for Telferscot Primary School

I know that reception have been thinking about festivals this term so perhaps one of them can tell me which Christian festival are we about to celebrate?

That’s right, Christmas. I love Christmas. One of the best things about Christmas is the presents. I love getting presents from people. I’ve got one here [A huge present in which you’ve got someone dressed as Buzz Lightyear! For most Ministry Apprentices it’s a rite of passage!]

Can anyone guess what it is?

Does someone want to open it?

Who is it?

It’s a real life full scale Buzz Lightyear. I know that some of you guys at the back are too old for this but most of us would be thrilled to get a Buzz at Christmas. This would be a great present to get at Christmas wouldn’t it?

Now at the first ever Christmas God didn’t give us a Buzz Lightyear. He gave us someone else. He gave us Jesus. Now why would he do that? It must be that God thinks Jesus is better than Buzz. Let’s work out why.

Who can tell me some of the things that Buzz says? I think there are 3 things that he says when you press his button.

• ‘Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue’
• ‘I come in peace’
• ‘To infinity and beyond’

Let me give you 3 reasons why God thinks that Jesus is better than Buzz.

1. Jesus came to rescue us from danger

[Press the button on Buzz and the character speaks].

Buzz Lightyear says, ‘Buzz Lightyear to the rescue’. A rescuer is someone who helps us out of a situation where we can’t help ourselves. Buzz came from Star Command to rescue all sorts of people but he’s only a toy. He can’t really rescue us. But the Bible says that Jesus came as a real rescuer or a saviour. Matthew 1:21. An angel appeared to Joseph and said, ‘You shall call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins’. God thinks that we’re in danger and so he sent Jesus to rescue us.

2. Jesus came to make our peace with God

[Press the button on Buzz and the character speaks].

Buzz Lightyear says, ‘I come in peace’. To make peace with someone is to go from being enemies to becoming friends. Buzz came from Star Command to bring peace to the universe but he’s only a toy. He can’t really bring us peace with anyone, can he? But the Bible says that Jesus can bring real peace. Jesus came to save us by making peace between God and us. Jesus came so that we could be friends with God again. God was angry with us because we’ve been disobedient and not done what he wants. But Jesus came to make it all OK again.

3. Jesus came to take us to infinity and beyond

[Press the button on Buzz and the character speaks].

Buzz Lightyear says, ‘to infinity, and beyond’. It’s a way of saying forever and ever. Buzz came from Star Command to take people to some amazing places in the universe but he’s only a toy. He can’t really take us anywhere, can he? Jesus came to rescue us by making peace with God so that he could take us to a really amazing place called heaven. Heaven is a real place that Jesus takes his people to after their time on this earth.

Conclusion

Buzz is just a toy, he’s a great toy and it’d be a great present to get at Christmas. But God gave us an even better present on the first ever Christmas. He gave us Jesus. Jesus is for real and so Jesus can really do what Buzz promises.

Audio download here http://www.christchurchbalham.org.uk/ccb/sermons.php

In his most recent book ‘the God Delusion’, Richard Dawkins launches a full-scale attack on the existence of God. Religion gets both barrels. It’s unnerving stuff written with just enough clarity and delivered with just enough passion that even the most convinced Christian might feel a little queasy reading it. John’s Gospel comes like a breath of fresh air. The claim of the opening chapter of John’s Gospel is that God has made Himself known through the entry of the eternal word Jesus Christ into human history. His purpose is to bring life to all mankind but he’s met with widespread rejection. This opening chapter ought to leave us in no doubt that Dawkins’ confidence in his scientific atheism is hopelessly misplaced.

We’re beginning this morning the first in our year long series in the Gospel of John. This is our Big Book Project from which we hope a love for the Christ of whim it speaks will be rekindled.

a. The Purpose of John’s Gospel

John records his intention in writing his gospel in John 20:30&31,

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Note the following key features

First, John has selected and edited his eyewitness material for the benefit of his readers. This is reliable stuff. It’s not an exhaustive account since there was a lot more that could have been included. That remained on the cutting floor because it didn’t suit John’s purpose in writing.

Secondly, John wants his readers to be persuaded that Jesus, the Nazarene carpenter is the Christ, the promised saviour king of the Old Testament. This is persuasive stuff. And so some understanding of the Old Testament expectation is assumed. It’s for this reason that we think that the book’s original audience was Jewish.

Thirdly, John knows that through faith in Jesus Christ his readers will experience life in his name. The life that Christ brings namely resurrection life of which our spiritual life now is the foretaste. This is significant stuff.

b. The Shape of John’s Gospel

There are essentially two halves to John’s Gospel that follow a parabolic pattern. In chapters 2-10 we learn that Jesus is the Son who has come down from heaven to reveal His Father. In chapters 11-20 we learn that Jesus the Son and Christ is returning to heaven to redeem us for His Father. These chapters are concluded by an epilogue in chapter 21 and introduced by a prologue in chapter 1.

Our chapter for today is a little like a foyer to a magnificent building. It draws us further into the building and introduces the architectural themes that we’ll find throughout. So in one sense this is a sermon I can afford to bog because we’ll be spending the rest of the year going over old ground!

In this prologue John asserts five main ideas about the ‘Word’. There’s a developing progression of thought.

The eternal divine Word (1-3) illuminates the world (4-8) but is met with wholesale rejection (9-11) and yet grants regeneration to a believing remnant (12-13). All of this is possible since the Word became flesh to make God known (14-18).

1. The Word was in the beginning with God (1-3)

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

The word is an unusual way to speak about a person. As a concept it resonated with the pagan culture of John’s day. Greek philosophers taught that the ‘logos’, the Greek word translated ‘word’ from which we get the word logic, was the rational principle at the heart of existence from which everything could be explained. They were right. But what they hadn’t realised is that this rationality was not a principle but a person. This person, called ‘the word’ is God’s self-expression. In the same way that we communicate with one another using words, he is the means by which God communicates with His world. John tells us three things about the Word

a. He was in the beginning. John traces his account back to the very beginning of time. If we were to travel back in time to the moment when the world was created we’d discover the pre-existent eternal Word.

b. He was with God. The Word was not alone at creation he was present with God. Being with God implies an ongoing an intimate relationship. In the same way as two men might chat as they build the garden shed so here it’s almost as if the Word and God were in conversation as they created the world.

c. He was God. This word is not another God He is God. Though he is a distinct personality from God he is not another God. Somehow there’s a complex multiplicity in God’s existence.

Many of us struggle to comprehend this mystery, not only those looking into the Christian faith. The preacher and writer Don Carson was once asked by a Muslim friend to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. "Tell, me Don, he said. If I have one apple and add another apple, and then add another apple, how many apples do I have?" "Three," said Don Carson. His friend went on: "If I have one god, the Father, plus one god, Jesus, plus one god, the Holy Spirit, how many gods do I have?" So expecting the answer "three", he continued: "How then can you say you believe in one God?" Well Don Carson thought for a moment, and then said: "OK, you want Maths, let me ask you: If you have infinity, plus infinity, plus infinity, what are you left with? Infinity?" In other words, simple Maths doesn’t explain it. He shares God’s eternity, existence and essence.

The word was God’s agent in creation. John frames his creative activity in positive and negative ways. Positively he is the source of every created thing. Negatively there is nothing in existence that hasn’t been created through this word. He is the all encompassing creator of everything.

Implication

John will not let us have a domesticated view of Jesus Christ. The Jesus whom we worship is the eternal, pre-existent creator of everything. I wonder whether we’ve ever really allowed our minds to be blown by this. We may have a very human view of Jesus. But I wonder we’ve ever grasped that the Jesus who was born, lived, suffered and died was present at the creation of the world forming the world he would one day inhabit.

2. The Word came as the light from God (4-8)

4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

In these verses John emphasises God’s initiative in sending first his light into the world and then secondly his witness to that light in John the Baptist. He is concerned here with the revelatory function of the word. The eternal creating word possesses life. He is the source of all biological life and he is the source of eternal life. He is self-existent. And this life possessing word is the light for all humanity. He brings revelation to humanity. This light shines in the darkness and dispels it as a lighted candle brought into a darkened room does the same thing. Wicked humanity will attempt to extinguish this light but ultimately they fail to do so. Such is God’s determination to illuminate a sin-darkened world that He sent John the Baptist to testify concerning the light so that the world might come to believe. In one sense verses 6-8 are a rude intrusion into a passage all about the journey of the eternal word into time. But having traced the ultimate origin of the word to pre history he now traces the origin of the word in human history.

Implication

God has not been slow in coming forward. He’s not shy and introverted. He’s not a remote figure reluctant to be discovered like some divine hermit. He’s introduced Himself. Twice. If humanity remains ignorant of God it’s not for lack of evidence.

3. The Word met with rejection from the world (9-11)

9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

John now records the shocking wholesale rejection of God’s light the world in general and his people in particular. Jesus Christ is the light for all humanity. The verb ‘photizei’ translated here ‘enlightens’ can mean ‘to make visible’ or ‘to bring to light’. The word therefore brings God to light. John has in mind the objective revelation of the light to the world at the incarnation. How will the creation respond to the arrival of its creator? The world in general fails to recognise Him for who he is. It’s incredible. The fault for that is not that Jesus has disguised himself. It’s not for lack of evidence that people fail to acknowledge Jesus as their creator. His own people in particular refuse to receive him. It’s important for us to know why many in the world reject Jesus and why indeed his own people reject him. It can be unnerving to discover that we follow a Messiah the Jews spent centuries waiting for only to discover that most of them don’t think that Jesus is it.

Implication

We ought to be shocked and surprised as John introduces us here to the obstinacy of the world. But rejection of Jesus is not uncommon. It’s the default position of the entire human race. And so we ought not to be surprised if that’s how we find ourselves responding to John’s claim.

4. The Word gave the right to belong to God (12-13)

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Not everyone rejected the light. Some welcomed him by entrusting themselves to him. They became the beneficiaries of an extraordinary privilege. They were given the right to belong to God and call themselves His children. But John is at pains to point out that this is something that can happen only by God’s intervention. God adopts people for His family as He chooses. It’s not of blood. It doesn’t come about by genetic inheritance. The fact that we’re born into a Christian family doesn’t mean that we become one of God’s children. It’s not by the will of the flesh. No individual can work it out on their own through the exercise of their grey matter. It’s not the will of man. Our parents can’t decide that we’re going to be Christian.

Implication

It’s humbling to discover that ultimately God is the one who makes it possible to welcome his word and become one of his children. From God’s perspective it’s called being born again. From John’s perspective it’s being persuaded by what he’s written. But there’s sense to that study. The end of it is not a degree but a qualification that far outweighs any earthly honour.

5. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (14-18)

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’") 16 And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

John concludes by making explicit what has been implied so far. The eternal word assumed a human nature in the person of Jesus Christ and became a human being. The expression ‘dwelt among us’ translates an expression more akin to ‘pitched his tent in our midst’. That camping analogy is wonderfully graphic and faithfully depicts the extraordinary miracle known as the incarnation. It’s as though God went abroad on a camping holiday, the world was his campsite and he pitched his tent right in the middle so that his presence would be unmistakable. The reason the word became flesh was to reveal God to us. There are 3 witnesses prepared to testify to its authenticity

The apostles saw it. This was a real time event in human history witnessed by people prepared to write about it and defend it.

John the Baptist prepared people for it. His preaching ministry was essentially one of preparing people for the arrival of the long awaited Messiah.

The Old Testament Law given through Moses anticipated it. God had revealed his character of graciousness and truthfulness in the Old Testament Law. But Christ fulfils the function of the Law. He supersedes and therefore makes ‘redundant’ the revelation of God through the OC. In so doing Moses are relegated. The Jews to whom he was writing are directed away from Moses to towards Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

Richard Dawkins says he’s written the God Delusion to raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled. ‘If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down. John puts is rather differently.

‘18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.’

We’re in for a treat over the next few weeks because we’ll spend our time looking at the one person in whom we can learn of God.

The last of four talks in Habakkuk.

What word would you use to summarise the Christian life?

For the man on the street it’s ‘morality’ or something synonymous because most people labour under the misapprehension that God calls us to be good. God doesn’t call us to be bad. But He really calls us to trust Him for our failure to be good.

And so the word to summarise the Christian life is faith, isn’t it? The Christian life is essentially trusting God and waiting patiently for Him to do the things that he’s promised.

I’ve suggested that this is the dominant issue in this book because the theme verse is 2:4,

‘Behold, his soul is puffed up; it’s not upright within him, [speaking of the arrogant who asset their independence from God] but the righteous shall live [survive the judgement] by his faith’.

This discovery changed the life of the prophet because this book records the transformation of a man who goes from complaining to compliance. It begins with him whinging about injustice and judgement and finishes with him celebrating God’s salvation.

You’ll remember that Habakkuk, about whom we know next to nothing, anticipated a terrifying judgement upon the nation of Judah. In fulfilment of this long threatened course of action God’s patience finally ran out and He turned against His own people. We’re usually uncomfortable reading about God’s activity in judgement but no one who reads of Judah’s provocation of the Lord can doubt that His decision was completely justified. In the same way though we may wince in embarrassment at the Bible’s unambiguous threat of His judgement God is entirely in the right to act in this way towards people like us because of the way we’ve treated Him. The long threatened judgement occurred with the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC and the subsequent exile in Babylon.

But not only did Habakkuk warn his hearers about the imminent judgement he also urged his hearers to turn to God in faith as the only way to survive. He was a gospel preacher, he offered the certain hope of salvation through judgement. This is not just a dark book but the light of salvation streams in to illuminate the darkness and show the way out.

Just like him and his hearers we live between the same two types of events as the people of Habakkuk’s day. As they looked back on the exodus we look back on a miraculous event of salvation in our deliverance at Calvary. And as they looked forward to the exile we look forward to a terrifying day of judgement at the return of Christ.

The first two chapters of the book report a dialogue between God and this prophet.

• In 1:2-4 Habakkuk complains that the Lord appears to be doing nothing about the widespread wickedness among His people.

• In 1:5-11 The Lord responds by saying that judgement would come on his covenant people in the form of the Babylonian invasion.

• In 1:12 Habakkuk asks how it could be right for the Lord to use as his instrument of judgement a people more wicked than them

• In 2:1-5 The Lord responds by explaining that two types of people will have two different destinies. The arrogant will be judged but the righteous, those who live by faith, will be preserved

• In 2:6-20 The Lord provides a vision in which He describes how the arrogant instruments of his judgement would ultimately not escape unscathed but have to answer for their wicked activity.

Now in chapter 3 the tone changes and we get melancholic with a musical prayer in the style of Shigionith, which means dirge.

3:1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth.

a. This prayer was instructive for others

It’s a prayer and so the intention is that God would hear it and answer. But it was also instructive for others. And so it was set to music. This chapter begins and ends with technical instructions for a music group. In fact according to (19) ‘To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments’. Perhaps this was chamber music. I still think it was played in a minor key! But this is a song that we’re supposed to take to our lips and sing.

b. This prayer asked God for activity

Look with me at (2).

2 O Lord, I’ve heard the report of you, and, your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.

He’s familiar with God’s reputation. And it provoked in him a response of fear but also hope. The fear of the Lord is like fearing the sea. Though we love to swim in it we respect it enough never to fail to recognise its power. Habakkuk recalls God’s activity because he wants a re-run of those same events. He wants the Lord to do he’s done before, namely show mercy in the midst of pouring out his wrath. This prayer is a request for more of the same.

c. The prayer concerns faith

The whole prayer concerns faith. This is the flip side of 2:4. Chapter 2 was taken up with the destiny of the arrogant. Chapter 3 is taken up with the destiny of those who exercise faith. Habakkuk demonstrates unerring, ongoing dependent trust in God. And from his prayer we learn three perspectives on the life of faith to which every single one of us is called. Let’s look at the first of those perspectives.

1. faith depends upon the Lord’s reputation (3-7)

Habakkuk begins by describing an extraordinary appearance of God in human history. He paints a mental picture of God’s arrival. If we imagine the film of the scene we’ll get the impression. Let’s work through it

(3) 3 God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran.

These are two geographical locations that evoke memories of Israel’s exodus and their conquest of the Promised Land. His splendour covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. The blazing light of God’s glory illuminates everything in its path and his arrival elicits adulation.

4 His brightness was like the light; rays flashed from his hand; and there he veiled his power.

God opens his palm and lightning flashes forth and this is God’s working at half pace, he’s just warming up.

5 Before him went pestilence, and plague followed at his heels.

Two ominous enemies of humanity attend God’s arrival. But God’s power is such that like dogs on a lead they accompany Him wherever he sends them. Deadly disease trots ahead of him and just behind him scampers epidemic.

6 He stood and measured the earth; [he got out his tape measure] he looked and shook the nations; then the eternal mountains were scattered; the everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways.

With one withering look impregnable mountains melt and the indestructible hills sink without trace

7 I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

Two Bedouin nomadic tribes were the first to stand in God’s way.

This is what Habakkuk’s heard about God. It’s an extraordinary depiction of God’s arrival in power. It’s littered with references and allusions to God’s conquest in the events of the Exodus. But Habakkuk’s not just reminiscing for the sake of old times. He hasn’t come down with a case of nostalgia as he looks back to the good old days like looking at the DVDs of last year’s Ashes victory. His purpose in replaying the events of the exodus is to remind Himself that the God in whom he trusts is the God who can do these sorts of things.

Implication

Faith depends upon the Lord’s reputation and rests on His character because faith is a decision to take God at his word. And so Habakkuk reminds himself what God is like. The God in whose word we’ve taken refuge is the God who can do this. And he did this for His people. He’s on our side if we trust Him. We look back not to God’s conquest of the forces of Pharaoh and our subsequent liberation from physical slavery in the exodus from Egypt. We look back to the cross of Christ, to the Lord’s conquest of Satan and our liberation from his dominion. Faith depends on the Lord’s reputation and from the perspective of the foot of the cross how could we ever not trust Him?

The 2nd perspective on faith that His prayer provides is that it anticipates the Lord’s victory

2. faith anticipates the Lord’s victory (8-16)

Habakkuk provides a terrifying description of God. There’s no doubt that God is angry. He’s on the warpath, attacking the created order like there’s no tomorrow. And it’s not immediately obvious why. It’s not the divine equivalent of taking it out on the cat after a bad day at the office. This is symbolic of the magnitude of what God will do to His opponents. He will attack his enemies with the force that described here. Look with me at (8). To understand this we need to feel it and not just hear it.

8 Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea, when you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation?

9 You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows.

The Lord readies for battle.

You split the earth with rivers. 10 The mountains saw you and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its voice; it lifted its hands on high.

Creation squirmed at the prospect of his arrival

11 The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped, at the flash of your glittering spear.

The sun and the moon tried a different tactic, hoping that He wouldn’t spot them

12 You marched through the earth in fury; you threshed the nations in anger.

Trampling the nations under foot swinging a sickle scything down people as he advanced.

13 You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck.

The Lord rode out in victory acting on behalf of His people

14 You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret.

Decapitation policy – removing the commanders

15 You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters.

The Lord’s total suppression of the created order at it’s most powerful and it’s no match. There is no doubt in reading through this that the Lord is angry. And how does the prophet respond?

16 I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me.

Although he knows that he’s on the Lord’s side and because he has faith and will therefore survive the judgement he’s scared stiff. And rightly so. This is a terrifying description of God’s attack on his enemies.

Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.

But faith anticipates victory.

Implication

God will one day deal with his opponents in this way. Habakkuk anticipated God’s destruction of Babylon and it came in 539 BC when the Persians took over control of the region. But there seemed to be a bit of disparity between what was promised and what was delivered. If you’d gone to the cinema expecting something like this you’d have walked away slightly seen off. The issue is resolved not by assuming that God was telling fibs or exaggerating for effect. The full significance of these words wasn’t exhausted in that historical event. They await a further fulfilment at some stage in the future. When God returns in the person of Christ this is what it’ll feel like to be an opponent. We can invent our own version of the events at the end of time but it’ll be pure fantasy. This is what God says it’ll be like when he returns. How much we’re enjoying this depends on whose side we’re on. If we’re on God’s side then it’s a celebration of his phenomenal power against His and therefore our enemies. If not, then it’ll be terrifying because it describes in graphic language what’ll happen to us. It’s like watching Steve Harmison bowl. If you’re an Englishman it’s brilliant watching him slam the cricket ball into the pitch from a great height and tremendous speed only to get some of the world’s best batsmen hopping around in their crease and taking blows all over the body. If you’re the opposition it’s frightening. In cricket you can’t easily change sides there’s a long period of qualification. But God is more flexible than the ICC. It’s as easy as trusting Him.

Habakkuk concludes his book with some of the most profound words on the subject of faith ever written.

3. faith rejoices in the Lord’s salvation (17-19)

Look at (17)

17 Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,

Do we get the picture? Universal agricultural failure and decimation of livestock.

18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 19 God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk’s response is extraordinary. His response is essentially one of faith. It’s as though he says, ‘Even when life is completely fruitless I’ll trust the Lord’. But it’s not simply passive resignation it’s active submission. It’s the difference between a stroppy teenager and a trusting toddler. A stroppy teenager reluctantly realises that they’re not going to get their way. A trusting toddler clings to our back and puts their arms round our neck as you tell them to hold on as you climb over a fence on a walk in the country.

Habakkuk’s response is extraordinary because it appears that there’s very little reason to expect it. But this is the acid test of faith. Will we trust the Lord when the tree is bare?

Many of us find it easy to trust the Lord when life turns out as we want. Some of us may have had life fairly easy so far. For others that simply isn’t the case and they’re familiar with real hardship. The test of faith is whether we’ll trust the Lord when we feel that God hasn’t come through for us. And when He hasn’t shaped life in the manner that we’d hoped for. If we haven’t got the family that we wanted, the job that we wanted, the health that we wanted, the friends that we wanted, the husband that we wanted, the wealth that we wanted or the church that we wanted.

Many of us aren’t like Habakkuk. He ends his book on a note of joy and exultation. We just whinge and moan because we’re fed up. But perhaps that’s because we’ve forgotten the big events of salvation that have dominated the pages in between his complaining to his compliance.

Conclusion

Habakkuk has described the life of faith. It’s a life in which We depend on His reputation as the incomparable Lord of judgement and salvation. We anticipate the great victory he’ll one day make obvious And in the meantime we rejoice in his glorious salvation The question this book asks of us is this, ‘will we be like Habakkuk at the beginning of the book where he’s in despair at the injustice of it all and whinging about judgement or will we be like him at the end of his book patiently waiting for the Lord to do what he said he’d do and rejoicing at the prospect?’

It’s easier for us to exercise faith in the God of salvation through judgement.

God’s done it once and he’ll do it again. Let’s pray.

The third talk in a series of four from Habakkuk

• When the wicked prosper why not join in?

• When people full of their own self importance gladly and brazenly assert their independence from God and seem to go through life from strength to strength why not join in?

• When friends and colleagues show no inclination to heed our caution and invite us instead to participate in a lifestyle that God has described as wicked why not join in?

Because of Habakkuk 2:6-20.

In these verses Habakkuk describes the destiny of those that set themselves up in opposition to the Lord. But these comments haven’t come out of left field. They form part of an ongoing dialogue between God and His prophet.

• Habakkuk complained about the Lord’s toleration of wickedness and injustice among His covenant people.

• The Lord responded by saying that His judgement was coming on his covenant people in the form of the Babylonian invasion.

• Habakkuk reacted and asked how it could be right for the Lord to use as his instrument of judgement a people more wicked than them.

• The Lord responded by giving Habakkuk a vision of the future and it’s a vision of judgement in which the arrogant are condemned but those who live by faith are preserved.

In these verses the Lord continues his answer to Habakkuk’s query about the legitimacy of bringing discipline to his people through the use of wicked instruments like Babylon. The Lord makes clear that those wicked instruments would not escape unscathed. Though they had been used in the Lord’s sovereign purposes that didn’t exonerate them from their evil activity. They remained responsible for their actions. These verses describe God’s condemnation on the arrogant mentioned in 2:4.

The word ‘woe’ means ‘anguish, misery, despair and wretchedness’. It’s the cry of condemnation. What’s described is the lifestyle that God condemns. These prophetic judgements are presented here in a taunt song. It’s a poetic form that mocks the defeated. This is the spiritual equivalent of the kinds of songs that might be sung on the football terraces or by young children [there’s a gag there but I didn’t have a chance to develop it!].

The vision Habakkuk received concerned primarily the destiny of Babylon. At the time would have been inconceivable. It was incomprehensible, except to the eye of faith, that this mighty superpower could ever be overthrown. These words were put in the mouths of Judah and all those who suffered under the Babylonian oppression.

6 Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say,

But although the Babylonians are in the prophetic cross hairs these woes are expressed in such general terms that they apply universally to all people throughout time. In that sense Babylon is typical of all those who overstep God’s bounds and assert themselves in arrogant independence from the Lord. God will condemn all that live like this. It will apply to us in one of two ways

a. The behaviour described here is a lifestyle that God condemns. If we live like this we’ll one day go head to head with God and lose. Christ died for sins such as these and forgiveness is not in doubt if only we’ll repent.

b. Whilst it’s clear that we’re saved by the death of Christ alone. This sort of behaviour has no place in the life of faith. Having been saved our responsibility is to rid ourselves of the kind of behaviour.

Let’s look at the lifestyle that God condemns.

1. Woe to the plunderers who hold others in debt (6-8)

"Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own. For how long? And loads himself with pledges!" 7 Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them. 8 Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.

God’s condemnation is directed at the acquisitive person who accumulates wealth at the expense of others. Babylon gathered her wealth through extortion. She preyed on vulnerable people who were forced to borrow money at interest rates so excessive it was impossible to repay. She was an 6th Century BC loan shark. But one day the tables would be turned. What was left of the nations they’d ruined and exploited would rise up, shake them and plunder them.

Implications

Babylon was guilty of demanding and taking from others what didn’t belong to them. We can be guilty of both sins. We take from others when we remove from their possession something that’s theirs by right. We do that with our employers not only by removing stationary from the office cupboard but also in abusing the time that we’re paid to work. We can also demand from others what they’re unable to give. It probably won’t be financial. It’s more likely to be emotional demands that we make. We can be guilty of holding people emotionally in our debt so it’s impossible to repay. It’s possible to give the impression that we’re constantly disappointed with the way people have treated us so that they owe us. It’s a power play and it’s manipulative.

2. Woe to the unjust who seek a secure future (9-11)

9 "Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm! 10 You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. 11 For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.

God’s condemnation is directed at the person who in their desire to make their own position impenetrable is prepared to use any means to make it happen. Babylon was a ‘house’, or dynasty that ruthlessly and aggressively oppressed every nation that stood in her way. She wanted to be out of the reach of those who could harm her. Long-term security was her ambition. But all that her clever scheming and plotting accomplished was shame and disgrace. Her deliberate removal of opponents did not bring the long hoped for immunity from attack. It brought disgrace. History remembers Babylon for her heinous acts.

Implications

Babylon was guilty of being ruthless in her oppression of those who stood in her way. It doesn’t just have to be nations that act like this. Often we need to wait for someone’s biography for the truth to come out. But it invariably does. History’s verdict on the unjust is rarely inaccurate. It’s worth asking whether securing our future become an all-consuming desire so that the end justifies the means? Have we got anything in our possession that wouldn’t be ours had we not been prepared to plot and scheme a little? Are we prepared to gain a position or a reputation by casting doubt on the ability of our colleagues or voicing our concern about someone’s suitability for a task in the hearing of our superiors?

3. Woe to the tyrants who ride roughshod over others (12-14)

12 "Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity! 13 Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labour merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing? 14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

God’s condemnation is directed at those who torment others and build their own empires through the cruel and harsh mistreatment of others. Many of the world’s great nations and civilisations have been established at the expense of the indigenous peoples. Babylon was no exception. She was a nation who had established herself as a superpower through the systematic exploitation and destruction of her enemies. But the Lord said that a day was coming when it would go up in smoke. And that’s true. In 539 BC the Persians under the rule of Cyrus destroyed the Babylonians. What remains of the Babylonian Empire can be found in Room 55 of the British Museum.

Implications

Babylon was guilty of riding roughshod over others in her own selfish desire to establish her own empire or reputation. We need to avoid that as a church. In seeking to grow and develop the ministry at CCB one of our concerns has to be that we don’t allow a bulldozer mentality to thrive in which it somehow becomes acceptable to thrive at the expense of other local gospel ministries. We’re not the Christian equivalent of Tesco seeking to subsume the smaller stores. Our intent must never be to undermine the fine gospel ministries of other local churches. But I wonder whether we empire build on a personal level. It’s possible that in our interaction we can ride roughshod over another’s feelings in order to maintain our own reputation.

4. Woe to the immoral who lead others into debauchery (15-17)

15 "Woe to him who makes his neighbours drink you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness! 16 You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory! 17 The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.

God’s condemnation is directed at those who ruin their friends through the reckless abuse of alcohol. Babylon was condemned for leading those she’d attacked into immoral debauchery. I’m not exactly sure how this happened. But the Lord accuses her of seeking to glorify herself through the demeaning and degrading of others. But one day it’ll be the Lord’s round and the drink he asks us to down won’t be a lager shandy. The cup in his right hand is the cup that contains his wrath. At that time Babylon and those like her will be forced to drink God’s a cocktail of righteous condemnation and punishment.

Implications

The Christian’s attitude to alcohol must be distinctive. It’s a good gift of God to be enjoyed but it’s one that we can abuse. We must not be naïve about its powerful ability to change our thinking and behaviour. Alcohol and immorality usually go together. Alcohol diminishes our self-control and loosens our inhibitions and so the sin of drunkenness is rarely alone. I suspect that there are many of us today who could testify to mistakes made under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. Of course it was for just such those mistakes that Christ died and so even our drunken sins are covered by his blood. But nevertheless his death for them makes plain God’s view of them. It’s rare that we’d force someone to drink too much. But we can inadvertently do it when we set an example to others who notice where we draw the line. We ought to be sensitive to the presence of Christians who may still be battling with this issue and restrict our freedom for their sake. And so we need to be wary of how much alcohol is available at our dinner parties.

5. Woe to the idolaters who trust speechless images (18-20)

18 "What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! 19 Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. 20 But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him."

God’s condemnation is directed at those who trust in gods of their own invention. Babylon turned to idols for her source of revelation and guidance. And when we think about it the way the Lord describes it here, it beggars belief. Idols are created objects fashioned out of metal, wood or stone by a maker. They can’t speak and they can’t breathe. They may look expensive but they’re dead mute things. It’s idiotic to turn to them for help. It’s the grown up equivalent of the comfort blanket.

Conclusion

Most of us would have found this chapter a dark one so far. There’s not a lot to cheer the heart. But I wonder whether we noticed the three shafts of light that transform the darkness?

a. the knowledge of God

The first is in (14) and it’s the knowledge of God.

14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Habakkuk was told to anticipate a time when the Babylonian kingdom, built on wickedness, would be replaced by a kingdom built on the glory of God. The image is of water seeping out to fill every crevice and reaching every inaccessible place and it graphically depicts a time when the glory of God would be universal. God’s glory is one of the most common terms in the Christian vocabulary but could we say anything more about it? It has to do with God’s reputation, His splendour and His majesty. At the moment this country is characterised by rebellion against God and the wickedness that results from that decision. But it won’t last. One day this country will be filled to capacity with the knowledge of God’s majesty and splendour.

b. the cup of the Lord

Notice the second shaft of light in verse (16). It concerns the cup of the Lord.

16 You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory!

Drinking from the cup of the Lord’s wrath is a pretty frightening prospect. But someone has cut in and downed it for us. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus submitted to His father’s will to drink the cup reserved for him and thereby remove the prospect of wrath from all that identify with him. Some of us live under the imminent expectation of God’s anger but we do so needlessly for Christ has removed from sinners the threat of judgement if only we’d turn to him.

c. the temple of the Lord

The third and last shaft of light is in (20)

20 But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him."

At the moment the forces evil may rage and have their day. But there’s a power in the world capable of bringing hushed reverential silence from the most hostile of opponents. God’s in control, overseeing all things from his temple dwelling place and so the reasonable and sensible response is to trust him. But more of that next week.

The purpose of these verses was not to warn Babylon but encourage Israel. They were intended to encourage faith. They do that by revealing the result ahead of time. It’s like watching England v Portugal but knowing ahead of time that we’ll go through on penalties and at teh end of the tournament we’ll lift the cup.

Will we do what Habakkuk would have us do and respond in faith? That’d be the sensible thing to do.

The second in a series of four from Habakkuk

A fantastic wooden go-kart has become the latest thing for our two eldest children to bicker over. Sharing does not appear to be instinctive among the Perkins offspring. As I attempted to read the Saturday paper a few weeks ago Flora started shouting and screaming at her brother who’d jumped onto the go-kart as she got off it to turn it round. It had been a running theme throughout the morning that we shouldn’t raise our voices at one another. So Flora had to come in and take some time out. But as she received her punishment what’s her issue? It’s ‘What about Rufus? Is he just going to get away with it?’

I let you in on this vignette of family life not to whet your appetite for the delights that may await you but because it illustrates the issue in our passage this morning. In the second round of dialogue between God and His prophet, Habakkuk queries the legitimacy of God’s activity in using Babylon as his instrument of judgement. In response God reassures his prophet that though this nation may prosper for a while they wouldn’t escape punishment.

The task of prophetic books is to make sense of God’s punishment expressed in the exile. Habakkuk anticipates the frightening judgement of God upon his people and urges them to faith in God.

These Old Testament preachers had their words preserved to explain to people like us that the reason for the exile was not God’s vindictive treatment on a faultless people. It came because of their persistent refusal to let God be God over them. The exile marked the time when God’s patience with his rebellious nation ran out and he executed his long threatened judgement. Though written some 600 years before the birth of Christ this has contemporary significance.

Like the people of Habakkuk’s time we live in between promise and fulfilment. We look back to the New Testament promise of judgement and we look into the future in anticipation of its fulfilment. We [like them] stand on the precipice of God’s imminent judgement.

The first two chapters of the book are the report of a dialogue between God and His prophet.

• In 1:2-4 Habakkuk complains about the Lord’s apparent toleration of injustice among His covenant people.

• In 1:5-11 The Lord responds by saying that His judgement was coming on his covenant people in the form of the Babylonian invasion.

• Now in 1:12 that dialogue continues.

It’s likely that this discussion happened some time later since the Babylonians are depicted not as a likely candidate as conqueror but now as a ruthless oppressor. Let’s look first at Habakkuk’s query and then secondly at the Lord’s response.

1. God’s use of wickedness appears morally questionable (1:12-17)

Habakkuk’s question is essentially, ‘Given who you are God, how could you do such a thing?’ Even in the light of Israel’s covenant unfaithfulness he thought that the Lord’s solution was worse than the problem. There were three components that contributed to his mounting complaint. First of all there’s God’s moral character.

a. God’s moral character

Look at (12)

Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die [because our life comes from him who is everlasting].

Habakkuk reminds God of his holiness not because he thinks God’s forgetful but because this is the issue that creates the problem. If God hadn’t been eternally holy we could understand why he might lose His cool with a petulant troublesome people. The problem is that God is holy. He’s completely different in his moral perfection. And to our mind there’s something wrong about what he’s doing. That becomes clearer in the 2nd component of his complaint, which concerns God’s moral decision.

b. God’s moral decision

Look half way through (12)

O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgement, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. 13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and are silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?

God decided to use Babylon as the instrument of his judgement. From a human perspective we could chart the rise of this nation to the position as the dominant superpower. But Habakkuk views world events from the perspective of faith. He’s clear that Babylon got to where she did because God ordained it. He had a robust view of God’s absolute sovereignty over all world events. More importantly it’s a biblical view. But that just exacerbates the problem. God is holy and God is powerful so why is he doing what he’s doing? How can he punish His own people’s sin but turn a blind eye to Babylon? The 3rd component of his complaint concerns God’s moral activity.

c. God’s moral activity

What Babylon does is recorded in (14).

14 You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler [God’s decision means that like fish they’re defenceless and helpless victims and like insects when startled they scatter every which way in disorganised chaos]. 15 He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. 16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich [He worships the things that have made him powerful and successful in the same way that we might worship our careers and attribute our success to money]. 17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? [This is the great question, is this endless?]

God’s permission of evil in his world is a dilemma. We find it hard to reconcile God’s holiness with His use of evil in the sovereign control of everything. But how could it be otherwise? If God were to remove all evil from this world, which of us would remain? We must of course never speak of God’s sovereignty in such a way that we diminish the significance of human decision making. God will one day rightly hold people not himself accountable for evil activity. So if we want to be biblical it’s not God’s moral activity that’s questionable. He’s isolated from the accusation of wrongdoing because he’s not the morally responsible agent who carries out the wickedness. The Babylonians are. They acted deliberately, wickedly and would be held responsible for their activity. But for some of us this is not just an intellectual conundrum, it’s an emotional struggle. We’ve been on the receiving end of other people’s wickedness and we know that God ordained it. And for us life can feel like looking at a rug from the wrong side. It appears an unseemly mess of threads, knots and different coloured cord and we can’t make any sense of what’s happening. But from God’s side it’s a perfectly woven pattern that makes complete sense.

But I’m not sure that Habakkuk has got that far in this thinking. He just knows that he’s asked a daring question and he waits for God’s answer. Look at (2:1)

2:1 I will take my stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

Like a watchman at his post Habakkuk says he’ll keep watch whilst he waits for the Lord’s reply to come running in from the horizon. That reply comes in (2-5) when the Lord provides a vision of judgement that awaits further fulfilment.

2. God’s vision of judgement awaits further fulfilment (2:2-5)

The Lord’s response is essentially, ‘keep trusting me and wait for the future time when all wickedness will be punished’. The fact that the Lord provided a vision demonstrates that this wasn’t a matter that could be resolved through human ingenuity. Habakkuk would never figure it out himself because this was not something that could be deduced by the application of logic. God has given us extraordinary mental faculties but there are some things that we cannot discover for ourselves. God’s use of wickedness in his purposes is one of those issues. Habakkuk tells us three things about this vision. First, the vision was to be preserved for all time.

a. The vision was to be preserved for all time (2)

Look at (2)

2 And the Lord answered me: "Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.

It was to be written plainly so that everyone could read it even if they were running past. It was to be written in a permanent fashion. The Lord wanted this preserved not because it was one of his finest literary works but because it mattered beyond it’s own era. This vision has implications for all people. Secondly, the vision would not take immediate effect.

b. The vision would not take immediate effect (3)

Look at (3).

3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Do we get the message? The vision will be fulfilled but just not yet. The fact that’s it’s not yet come doesn’t mean that it’s not coming. We need to learn to be patient and wait. It’ll come at just the right time. Peter says the same thing about the final judgement in his 2nd letter in chapter 3. We mustn’t listen to the scoffers who find in the delay reason to doubt whether it will ever come.

It’s like the electronic screen at the bus stop. It promises that the bus is coming. Sometimes I’m tempted to give up the wait and decide to walk. It’s one thing to miss a bus. It’s another to dismiss the arrival of God’s judgement.

It’s easy to think that because something promised hasn’t happened yet that it’s never going to happen. But God won’t let us think like that. It’ll come. The Lord is not a liar, just wait. The Lord’s timing is not always our timing. We often want answers to our problems immediately but God runs the universe and we have to let him do things at the speed that he wants to. It’s frustrating because we’d do things differently. But we’re not in charge. Thirdly, the vision concerned judgement and salvation.

c. The vision concerned judgement and salvation (4&5)

Look at (4)

4 "Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. 5 "Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples."

The Lord’s answer is not a neat one that ties up all the loose ends. He explains that justice will be done but not how justice will be done. There remains an element of mystery. Instead he explains that there are essentially two types of people with two corresponding destinies.

On the one hand there’s the arrogant man who suffers from an over inflated view of his own importance and abilities. He’s unnamed but there’s little doubt it’s Babylon. As the Lord will go on to outline in (6-20) he would receive recompense for his wickedness. The wicked will not get away with it after all.

On the other there’s the righteous. He would survive the judgement through his ongoing faithfulness to God. In other words faith means you escape the consequences of God’s judgement. Is that not a wonderful kindness of God? Because of His grace and mercy He can’t help but provide us with a way out. God will punish wickedness. There will be a day when His moral integrity will be unquestionable. We’ll have loads of questions about God’s holiness and justice and about wickedness and His treatment of us. I don’t want to diminish the significance of those but God exhorts us to faith, to trust in Him. It’s like a child crossing the road. They’ve got loads of issues about roads and traffic but they need to put their hands in that of their Father to cross.

Implications

The righteous will live by faith and so there are two implications, first come to faith and secondly continue in faith.

• Come to faith

Paul uses this verse to argue that very point in Galatians 3 & Romans 1.

10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them." 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for "The righteous shall live by faith."

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

If you’re here this morning and you’ve never begun the Christian life of faith God is saying to you ‘jump ship’. Do not think that you will survive the judgement of God by any other means than faith in him. Don’t take Him on. The life that you’re living is one that is doomed to destruction. But there’s another life that can guarantee absolute ultimate safety. It’s the life of faith. But not just any old faith will do. It’s faith in the gospel, which declares to us that in Jesus Christ there is total security from the imminent outpouring of God’s wrath on our wickedness. If you’re not yet a Christian, today’s a great time to change your mind.

I understand that in a bush fire the most sensible thing to do is light a fire, stand upwind and let the fire burn a patch of land. Then the safe place is to stand where the fire has already been. Fire can’t burn the same patch twice.

There’s destruction coming. We should stand where its been before if we want to be safe.

• Continue in faith

But the author of the book of the Hebrews also uses this verse to exhort his readers to ongoing faith. Turn if you would to Hebrews 10. Let’s read from (32)

32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 35 Therefore don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. 37 For, "Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; 38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

We must not shrink back. We must persevere in faith. If you’re here this evening and feel on the brink of giving up the Christian life of faith God is saying, ‘Don’t shrink back, keep going, don’t give up’. If we give up we will be destroyed because the only way to be saved is by faith. And true faith lasts. If we have faith we will be preserved through the judgement.

Conclusion

Habakkuk thought that God’s use of Babylon was suspect. The Lord responded that there was a future judgement when all wickedness would be punished. He encouraged Habakkuk to trust Him even if he couldn’t tie up all the loose ends because that’s what faith does. Faith trusts the one who makes the promises even if we don’t get all the details.

The first sermon from a series of 4 in Habakkuk

The man

We know almost nothing about Habakkuk. What we know about him is exhausted by 1:1 ‘The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw’. The Bible says less about him in than almost any other man! Often all we’re told about them is their hometown or their father but we don’t even get that. But it can’t be that important otherwise God would have told us more.

His times

From the reference in (1:6) to the Chaldeans we can be confident that we’re dealing with a book written about 600 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. The Chaldeans is the name for the Babylonian Empire who rose to pre-eminence as the world superpower after the demise of the Assyrians. The Assyrians had destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. Judah, the Southern Kingdom was what was left of the Kingdom of God. It came under attack from the Babylonians in 597BC. All this means that Habakkuk ministered any time before the turn of the 6th Century.

His message

Habakkuk belongs to the books known as the Minor Prophets, so called because they’re short not because they’re insignificant. The task of the prophetic books within the Bible is to make sense of the exile. The exile was the time in Israel’s history when invading armies ravaged the land and the people of God were taken off to captivity. It was a time when God’s promise to establish his Kingdom of God seemed to have slipped his mind. They explain why it happened and what future remained for the Kingdom. The prophets explain that the reason for the exile was not God’s vindictiveness on a faultless people but rather that God’s patience with his rebellious nation had come to an end and therefore his long threatened punishment had finally come upon them. As a pre-exilic prophet Habakkuk’s message is shaped by the anticipated judgement of God on Israel’s failure to keep within the terms of their covenant relationship. So not all of what we’ll hear over the next few weeks falls immediately into the category of good news.

The theme verse for his book is that of 2:4,

‘Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith’.

The righteous will live, that is survive, through the oncoming slaughter, by faith, that is trust in God’s promises. This is a verse taken up by the New Testament.

The book is an account of a man in a situation who goes from (1:2) where he says

‘O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save?‘

to (3:17&18) where he says,

‘though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation’.

He goes from to complaining to compliance. The book begins with him whingeing about injustice and judgement and finishes with him celebrating God’s salvation. That’s a perspective on life that’s appeallingly attractive isn’t it? I take it that we’d love to discover what happened in between to cause the transformation in outlook?

The structure of the book is very straightforward.

The first two chapters are essentially a conversation initiated by Habakkuk between God and His prophet.

1:2-4 Habakkuk complains about the Lord’s apparent toleration of injustice among His covenant people

• 1:5-11 The Lord responds by saying that His judgement was coming in the form of the Babylonian invasion
• 1:12-2:1 Habakkuk complains that it’s outrageous for God to use a nation more wicked than them to punish his covenant people but he then waits expectantly for the Lord’s answer
• 2:2-20 The Lord responds by giving him a vision in which he explains that the righteous will survive but the wicked will be destroyed in His judgement

The 3rd chapter is essentially Habakkuk’s acceptance that God is to be trusted whatever happens.

• 3:1-16 A psalm in which Habakkuk focuses on God’s faithfulness.
• 3:17-19 He concludes with a moving expression of confidence in God.

One of the things I love about P.G Woodhouse’s ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ is that by the end of the book there’s resolution. Bertie is no longer engaged to be married to the beautiful but nauseatingly soppy Madeleine Bassett. Roderick Spode the laughable but aggressive far right politician has been tamed. The cow creamer has been returned to its rightful owner and Jeeves has restored normality to Bertie’s often questionable sartorial tastes. I remember being troubled the first time I came across books that had no resolution by the time I’d got to the last page. Books that hadn’t tied up all the loose ends. But real life’s like that. The rights aren’t wronged and not everything is returned to the right order. That’s frustrating, perhaps painful and that’s why people write about it. P.G. Woodhouse is enjoyable because iit’s escapist nonsense.

The book of Habakkuk is one perspective on the unresolved life. It deals with living in a world where the loose ends are left flapping. The unresolved issue is the problem of persecution as wickedness ‘vents its spleen’ on God’s people. This book is not a complete answer but it addresses some of the issues. The Bible doesn’t give us the whole picture, much as we’d like it to. But it gives us enough of the picture for us to live and trust God. It’s like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle, we haven’t got all of the pieces but we’ve got enough of the pieces to know what’s there. Habakkuk is just one of the pieces to put in place. Let’s look at what he’s written.

1. God’s apparent indifference to wickedness is painfully frustrating (1:2-4)

These are the anguished cries of a man at his wit’s end. He can’t get his head round God’s toleration of injustice. We’re meant to feel the pain of this man as he expresses his frustration to God. Technically these verses are called a lament. But really it’s a whinge. It’s a whinge directed at God. But it’s a legitimate whinge. There’s nothing inappropriate about Habakkuk’s decision to take issue with the Lord’s inactivity. These words arise from a deep understanding of God. They are the words of troubled belief rather than rebellious unbelief. He’s not posing the question ‘how can God exist when there’s so much suffering in the world?’ Suffering for Habakkuk is not an obstacle to belief in God. He’s posing the question ‘given that there’s a God in the world and he’s good why doesn’t he act to stop this wickedness?’ This is a question asked within the context of trust and it’s quite normal to feel like this. Whilst we may be taken by surprise by the frankness of the exchange between the prophet and God nowhere is he rebuked for his approach. God is ‘man enough’ to cope with the honesty expressed in Habakkuk’s plea. We need to know this don’t we? There will be times when we’re confused about what’s happening in life. And when we’re confused it’s hard to distinguish between sinful questioning and legitimate queries. But we’ve not necessarily become sinful when we say to God ‘this isn’t right why?’

The cause of Habakkuk’s frustration is unanswered prayer.

a. Habakkuk’s frustration is caused by unanswered prayer (2)

2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? His question is essentially ‘how much longer?’

For some time he’s been asking God to intervene and deliver the oppressed. Despite his repeated prayer over a prolonged period of time the Lord has not sent him the deliverance for which he’s asked. All around him he sees a situation crying out for God’s intervention and yet heaven is silent. He knew that there was no hope but to call out to God but his appeal fell on deaf ears.

It’s as though God is an ageing Grandparent sat in his rocking chair, blanket draped across his knees, holding his trumpet up to his ear but nothing’s getting through.

Some of us will know at first hand the experience of pleading with God, perhaps over a long time but never experiencing the answer for which we hope. We’ll know how frustrating it is when things don’t go as we’d like and the Lord doesn’t answer as we’d expect. That’s what this man went through.

b. Society’s wickedness is seen in widespread iniquity (3)

3 Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.

His question is essentially, ‘why are you letting all this happen to me?’ Habakkuk takes in a panoramic view of God’s covenant people. Like one of those telescopes on the top of great vantage points he surveys society around and what he sees is not pretty. He’s confronted from every angle by violence, iniquity, wrong, destruction, strife and contention. It’s an indication not only of widespread immorality but of covenant desertion. The prophet is not denouncing the sin of the world in general but God’s people in particular. The shock is that it’s Habakkuk’s description of the OT church!

c. God’s indifference is seen in perverted justice (4)

4 So the law is paralysed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.

His question is essentially ‘what are you doing?’ The law was supposed to be restraining wickedness. The law was supposed to be the one mechanism that God had given to shape the life and behaviour of His covenant people. It was supposed to protect and preserve but Habakkuk says it’s paralysed. It’s a scathing attack. God’s word is compared to a wheelchair bound quadriplegic unable to do anything. It’s a thoroughly discomforting image to have in our minds. But the awkwardness of this image does at least communicate the utter ineffectiveness of God’s rule among His people.

Imagine I’m left in charge of the kids on a Saturday morning. And I spend my time sitting in the sun reading the paper whilst the kids play. It’s a bit neglectful but for some of the time it goes well. But after a while the squabbling starts and before I’ve got to the sports supplement it all kicks off. Suppose that Rufus is giving his sister the run around and being really quite unpleasant to her. Flora would be quite entitled to come to me and say, ‘why aren’t you doing anything Daddy, when are you going to do your job?’

That illustration doesn’t quite do justice to the awfulness of the situation that Habakkuk experienced. It’s one thing for a sister to steal your toy but it’s another thing to be persecuted, exploited and manipulated by others.

Implication

This painfully frustrating experience is inevitable because we exist in a cultural context in which the slide into the moral abyss seems irreversible. This country is going ‘down the pan’ as it moves away from its Christian heritage as so this sort of treatment will become more commonplace. But we’re not surprised to be on the receiving end of wickedness from the world at large. What is surprising is when it happens in church. But it’s inevitable even in a church context because we remain sinners, forgiven sinners but sinners nonetheless. The most closely parallel situation to Habakkuk’s experience is our own church family. But it seems inconceivable that we could be the victims of one another’s wickedness and exploitation. Nevertheless the potential is there because we each have a sinful nature and the capacity to put it to use.

We’re not frequent victims of one another’s wickedness. However, we mustn’t take it for granted but go on cultivating an environment that’s markedly different from the treatment of people in the world at large. But it would be surprising if we hadn’t at times felt aggrieved with God for the way others in the congregation had treated us. I wonder whether there might a few of us who nurture frustration towards God because of the treatment we’ve received at the hands of others in church.

Perhaps we feel

• hard done by because we’ve been overlooked for involvement in something,
• exploited because we’ve given lots and received little in return,
• manipulated into doing something we didn’t want to do by someone whose personality is so strong they gave us little choice or
• cheated out of the care we expected.

Our cry to God is that of Habakkuk isn’t it? Why don’t you do something about this? It’s wrong and you’re for right. Sort it out. Perhaps because God doesn’t answer in the way that we anticipate it’s very easy to think that we care more about injustice than God does. But as his reply goes on to show we’re a long way from the truth when we think like that.

2. God’s astounding response to wickedness is fearsome judgement (1:5-11)

The Lord now answers the criticisms from his prophet. He does so in the form of an oracle. We’d perhaps expect a prediction of salvation so that Habakkuk would get off his back. But what we get is a forewarning of judgement. But that’s not because the Lord has ignored his plea for deliverance. It’s because to purge His people of their sinful wickedness God is going to send his judgement where it belongs. The Lord’s reply is the classic good news bad news story. The good news is that God is not indifferent to the plight of the faithful amongst His people. The bad news is that he’s going to judge them.

a. the method of judgement was unexpected (5)

5 "Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.

The Lord calls his people to pay attention to the international section on Channel 4 news. God was about to instigate an unprecedented event. The surprise is that God was about to use a pagan nation to bring judgement on his own people. The Apostle Paul used this incident as an illustration in his first recorded sermon in Acts 13 because he thought that it was possible to look at an event and miss the significance of it. At one level the attack looked like just another act of international aggression but in reality it was more than that. At one level the cross looks like the condemnation of a messianic pretender but in reality it’s more than that. Paul used this event to warn people not to repeat the error of their forefathers and fail to spot what was really going on. It’d be dreadful to look at the cross and fail to see that our sin was being punished in the person of a substitute so that we could be forgiven.

b. the instrument of judgement was Babylon (6)

6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.

The Lord now reveals the awesome instrument of his retribution. The nation of Babylon, here called the Chaldeans, had a fearsome reputation. They were a people with fairly unattractive character traits.

It’s always risky classifying a whole nation with generalisations but sometimes it has to be done. The English are arrogant, the Americans are ignorant, Italians make great lovers and the Scots are tight.

Here God describes the nation of Babylon as bitter and hasty. But they are nothing more than an instrument in God’s hands. ‘I am raising up the Chaldeans’. Like a chainsaw the Babylonians could do untold damage if left to their own devices. But God controls them, he directs them and he limits their activity.

c. the experience of judgement was terrifying (7-11)

What follows is a terrifying description of the military might of the Babylonian armies.

7 They are dreaded and fearsome [they strike fear into the hearts of their opponents]; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves [they’re a law unto themselves]. 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on [their cavalry is swift and unstoppable]. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. 9 They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. 10 At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. [such is their power that they can mock at the most powerful in the land without fear of punishment] They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. [even the most heavily fortified cities present no obstacle to their intentions] 11 Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!"

These words describe the fearsome prospect of God’s judgement as he unleashes his purging wrath upon His people. We may think it unlikely that we’ll ever experience a situation of military attack. I hope that’s true. However, the Bible understands God’s judgement that fell on his people in the exile to foreshadow the judgement that will fall on all people at the end of time. What Judah experienced in the 6th Century will feel like a mild rebuke compared to the punishment the Lord administers at the second coming. This is a graphic and emotionally affecting description of what it’ll feel like to face God as an enemy. It’s meant to scare us. No, it’s meant to terrify us. Such is the obstinacy of our hearts to listen to God’s gracious invitations to join his people and receive his forgiveness he must scare the living daylights out of us to rouse us from our hard hearted muddle headedness. But he does so because he loves us.

Rufus has discovered the emergency exit in the new loft extension in our house. He can open the window and with very little effort he could climb out onto the roof. I’ve explained to him exactly what will happen were he to fall out of that window. I intended to frighten him because I want him to know the consequences of his actions. I intended to frighten him because I don’t want him to go anywhere near that window. I intended to frighten him because I love him passionately.

Please don’t be fooled into thinking that God loves you any less passionately. The frightening description of his judgement is proof not that he has it in for you but that he loves you.

Implication

The implication of this depends whether we’re a victim of wickedness or a perpetrator of wickedness.

If we’re a victim then we’re supposed to be encouraged that one day God will right the wrongs. And just because he’s not doing it straight away doesn’t mean he’ll never do it. The essence of Habakkuk’s complaint was that wickedness ran amok whilst God stood idly by. God’s answer demonstrates that God is not unaware of the wickedness and he’s not going to let it go without punishing it. It’s perhaps easy to think that because God hasn’t done anything to judge us that he won’t do anything. But we mustn’t let his apparent inactivity lull us into a false sense of security. God has not changed his attitude to human wickedness. He hates it with every bone in his body.

If we’re a perpetrator then we need to learn is that the judgement of God is absolutely terrifying. God is aggressively and fiercely opposed to wickedness. We need to recover in our thinking the idea that God’s hostility to evil will one day find expression as he pours out his anger on its perpetrators. The judgement of God will finally come through the arrival of Christ.

Conclusion

Life in this world is one of unresolved loose ends as we fall victim to the wickedness of others. At times is nauseatingly irritating but at others it’s painfully frustrating. But a time will come when justice will be done. God’s justice may be delayed in coming but He won’t deny it to us.

A Christmas talk from Evening Church 2006

You can often tell what message people want to send at Christmas by what they choose to put on the front of their cards. Of course some of us don’t give it a second’s thought. Our decision is determined not by what design features on the front but by how many cards we get per pound. But when you get to design your own I guess it’s different.

Look at the Christmas card sent from Tony Blair [Tony’s card]. The message he wants to send people is clear. He and Cherie are on the stairs on their way out of Number 10. But he wants us to remember him in his rightful place among this country’s former great statesmen.

Now look at the Christmas card sent by Gordon Brown [Gordon’s card]. It’s a Christmas card designed by the illustrator who drew the pictures for the Children’s best selling book, ‘The Gruffalo’. I’m sure that you’re familiar with his work! The message he wants to send is ‘look I’m not a dour Scotsman, I like cartoons and I’m fun’. But I wonder whether you’d noticed the little girl looking quizzically at the Chancellor’s Despatch Box in the bottom right hand corner. She’s thinking, ‘what’s this doing here, it’s out of place’. Why is that? Well, because he’s no longer going to be Chancellor. We should steady ourselves for transition in the New Year!

But what if God were to send us a Christmas card. What do you reckon He’d put on the front? John 3 is a great place to begin thinking about the message God has for us at Christmas. Let me read (16) once again.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

These verses are taken from John’s Gospel, one of the four books that attempt to narrate and explain the life of Jesus Christ. The Apostle John was one of Jesus’ closest friends and came to the conclusion that Jesus Christ was God. He wrote this gospel with the aim of convincing readers like us to share that conviction. He wants to persuade us through the careful presentation of eyewitness evidence that we need to believe in Jesus Christ if we’re to enjoy the eternal life of which he spoke. He won’t manipulate us or deceive us, he just wants to let Jesus walk off the page and convince us that he holds the key to our spiritual existence.

The structure of these verses is straightforward.

• In (16) John describes what God has done. He sent His Son on that first Christmas.
• In (17) John explains why God sent his Son into the world. It wasn’t to condemn the world but save it.
• In (18) John concludes that there can only be two responses, belief or unbelief with consequent results.

Three aspects of God’s love confront us in these words.

1. God’s love is a surprising love

16 "For God so loved the world,

The love of God is surprising because of who He loves. He loves the world. The idea behind that word is not the vastness of the planet but the wickedness of the people who populate it. We ought not to expect God to love people like us because we’re so wicked. We’re not as wicked as we could be. I’m sure we could all be worse than we are. And we’re not all as wicked as one another since there are undoubtedly different degrees of wickedness amongst us. But the point is that none of us is free from wickedness. However strongly we may react to hearing ourselves described in these terms, I suspect none of us would want to argue in favour of our moral innocence. Many of us will be reluctant, perhaps resistant, to being described as wicked but God defines wickedness. And wickedness is refusing to live in God’s world the way that he would have us do. And we’re all guilty of that.

I’m sorry to have to bring this up. My intention is not to put a downer on Christmas, quite the opposite. But unless we’re prepared to concede how serious our predicament is we’ll never appreciate how wonderful the Saviour that God has sent us. And our Christmas will be poorer for it.

What’s so surprising about God’s love is that he chooses to love people who are predisposed to expressing their independence from him. We express that autonomy by quietly ignoring him and refusing to let Him direct the way that we choose to live. In the first instance then God’s love is truly unrequited. He loves people who show no passion for Him in return. It’s surprising that God should love people who’ve got no inclination to establish an appropriate relationship with Him.

The papers have been awash with stories in the past few weeks of the acrimonious divorce of this couple [picture] Heather Mills and Sir Paul McCartney. Some of the things that have been said by either side have been pretty ugly. I take it that we’d be surprised, given the things that have been said and the things that have been alleged, if they got back together, threw out the divorce papers and openly expressed their love for one another. That would surprise us wouldn’t it?

We ought to have the same response when we hear that God loves the world.

But this is wonderful news because it means that we don’t have to do anything to win God’s favour. He loves the world already. We may be predisposed to refusing to have anything to do with Him. But He is predisposed to looking on us with favour. If anyone of us is minded to sort out our relationship with God that’s a massive weight off our shoulders. We don’t have to mount a campaign in which we try and woo God. He’s won already!

2. God’s love is a sacrificial love

16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,

The love of God is sacrificial because of what He gave up. He gave up His Son. What someone is prepared to sacrifice is a great measure of the extent of someone’s love. If, for example, we say we love our parents and yet we haven’t been home for Christmas for the last 10 years they may begin to do the maths! If we say we love our partner and yet we don’t give them our time, our attention or ourselves our declaration of love begins to sound a little hollow.

The same accusation could never be levelled at God. Think what it cost God to love the world. He gave up His Son. I have two sons and there isn’t a chance that I’d give them up for anyone. I’m very fond of a great number of people here but the truth is that I simply don’t love them enough to give up either of my sons. But God’s passion for us is so great that he was prepared to give up His only Son to a painful death on a cross. And He did that because He loves us.

Some of us may have seen the Mel Gibson film, ‘the Passion of the Christ’. Whilst it’s impossible for the film to communicate the spiritual suffering of Jesus it leaves little to the imagination about the physical torment that accompanied it. God knowingly sent His Son into the world to endure that punishment such is His love for us.

The danger of Christmas is that we rarely get beyond the babe in a manger to the man on the cross. But we impoverish ourselves if we divorce Easter from Christmas. They’re like these two [picture of Morecambe and Wise]; they’re best appreciated when they’re viewed together. If we’re ever in doubt of the enormity of God’s love for us we need only remember what He invested in our relationship. There’s been no holding back on God’s part. He loves us so much that he was prepared to watch His own Son bleed to death as an innocent victim of a Roman crucifixion.

3. God’s love is a saving love

16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The love of God is saving because it rescues us from danger for safety. Many of us tend to put Jesus in the category of this man [Archbishop of Canterbury]. But God sent Jesus Christ as a saviour to rescue us from perishing for eternal life. So we ought instead to put him in the category of this man [James Bond]. We might want to lose the gun!

The Greek word translated here as ‘perishing’ means destruction. The idea is not annihilation but degrading under the eternal sentence of God’s wrath. For God to mete out such a severe punishment must mean that wickedness is more serious than we had perhaps previously imagined. In God’s view, and His is the one that matters, the punishment fits the horrific nature of the crime even though we might feel that God has overreacted. Few of us are comfortable dwelling on such matters. But that’s the point. God’s surprising and sacrificial love saves us from that. Instead of perishing forever Jesus saves us for eternal life. That’s why Christians can be so embarrassingly excitable about Jesus Christ! If you’ve ever wondered why we are so obsessed with the half naked man on the cross this is why. We’ve really got something to celebrate.

In (17) John reiterates the reason that God sent Jesus, ‘For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’. The purpose for which God sent His Son into the world was not primarily condemnation but ultimately it was for salvation. Jesus was sent to earth on a rescue mission of incomparable significance. If we think that Jesus was sent as some sort of cosmic policeman to sort out the disorder in God’s world we’ve got it all wrong. Jesus didn’t come to judge us but save us. He saved us from danger for safety through his death.

When Jesus died on the cross he bore the punishment for our wickedness. God’s wrath should have fallen on sinners like us but instead it fell on him. And he absorbed every last drop of his Father’s anger so that those who follow him have nothing to fear when we die and face our Maker. Jesus has saved wicked people like us from the punishment we deserve. He swapped places with us.

A few years ago the Braehead shopping centre in Glasgow experimented with a concept known as ‘The Shopping Boyfriend’. The scheme allowed a woman drop off her usual boyfriend at the grown up equivalent of crèche whilst she went and did her shopping with a substitute, The shopping boyfriend. He was the substitute. He was designed to be the ultimate retail therapist, enthusiastic, attentive, admiring and complimentary. In the words of the organiser Pauline Shaw, the shopping boyfriend is a guy who ‘takes a girl around, helps her pick her outfits, stands outside the changing rooms — does all the things men don’t like about shopping. Our research reveals just how much of an energy-draining experience, not to mention a strain on relationships, shopping with a girlfriend can be for men’. Bless her! Someone stands in as my substitute to endure the torment of shopping whilst I get to sit in adult crèche read the paper and drink coffee. It’s too good to be true!

At a far more serious level Jesus Christ stood in as our substitute to endure the torment of his Father’s punishment of sin so that we wouldn’t have to. It also sounds too good to be true. But it is.

In (18) John records that there are two possible responses to God’s love shown in Jesus.

a. The first response is, ‘Whoever believes in him is not condemned’.

Those who believe, that is entrust, themselves to Jesus Christ will not be condemned. There will be some here this evening for whom this is already the case. We’re likened to people who, when all the evidence has been presented, have been found guilty in a court of law and yet have heard the judge speak the word ‘acquitted’. Instead of facing our due punishment for our wickedness we walk from the courtroom exonerated. We really have got something to celebrate this Christmas. If we could find a way of doing that without being embarrassing others might appreciate it!

b. The second response is, ‘but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God’.

Those who refuse God’s offer of rescue in Jesus are condemned. But they have only themselves to blame. Christ came to save us and if we will not believe it’s no one’s fault but ours. But belief takes time and it’s built on evidence. It could be that there are some here tonight who’d like the opportunity to consider that evidence. We may well have objections that require a more thorough treatment than I’ve been able to give in the time we’ve had available. It won’t surprise you to learn that as a church we’d like to help you with that. Every term we run a six-week course called Christianity Explored [picture]. The name really gives the game away! Christianity Explored does what you’d expect. It’s an informal opportunity to consider the evidence for and claims of Jesus Christ. The evenings usually include food, a short talk and a relaxed time for questions and discussion. There’s no pressure applied, no praying required, no previous knowledge necessary and no commitment demanded!

Conclusion

Let me return to the question I posed at the start. What would we expect to find on the front of God’s Christmas card every year? If we take the reading from John 3 seriously it’d be a picture of His Son wouldn’t it, because the message God wants to send is all about His love. God sent his Son into the world because he loves the world. The motive for the death of Christ was love. God is passionate about the world.

Thank you for listening, have a great Christmas and it would be lovely to see you again in the New Year.