Episode 56 is Part 1 of a review of the sermon “Christ Is All In All” by the 17th century British minister Jeremiah Burroughs.
An electronic version of the sermon can be found here at the website of Theology Network from the United Kingdom. (I highly recommend this site. A great source of texts, articles and audio files on a variety of well thought-out, Christ-centered topics.)
Links to Player and Downloads are below
Today is the church feast day of the Ascension.
It in, we remember the end of the Lord Jesus’ work on Earth in the 1st century and His triumphant return to Heaven as the King of Glory foretold in Psalm 24. Though this celebration has suffered some neglect over the years, there are a number of people who are trying to bring awareness of this feast back to the church, despite there being no cultural celebration to go along with it such as Christmas and Easter.
Here is a link to a great sermon on the Ascension.
Here is the link to my webpage for the podcast episode which I did on the Ascension.
Happy Ascension Day 2014!!!
In Episode 55, we will be exploring A. W. Tozer’s classic devotional book on the attributes of God “The Knowledge of the Holy.”
A link to a pdf version of “Knowledge of the Holy” can be found here
A link to a hardcopy of the book at Christian Book Distributors can be found here
A link to Tozer’s sermon given in Pittsburgh in 1956 in which he asked prayer of his hearers for the time to write this book can be found here. His request starts about the 14m 44s mark.
A link to the lesson on “Do It Yourself Theology” by Michael Reeves of Theology Network in the United Kingdom can be found here
Imagine a courtroom scenario in which you are on trial. Your defense attorney has been making wonderful points in your defense. At one point, the prosecutor gets up and starts making one accusation after another against you. You then stand up, look at the judge and point to the prosecuting attorney and say: “Your Honor, the prosecutor has just made several excellent points. I couldn’t agree more.”
You have to imagine such a scenario since no one would do something like that in a real-life courtroom situation. However, I think that we might do this in a spiritual sense. About 400 years ago, the English minister Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) preached a series of sermons on the Old Testament book The Song of Songs. In Sermon 4 of that series (entitled “Bowels Opened“, the 17th century way of saying “The Affections Presented“), Sibbes stated that we often do for Satan what is mentioned in the imaginary courtroom scenario given above. Sibbes said:
… we must not bear false witness, as not against others, much less against ourselves. Many help Satan, the accuser, and plead his cause against the Spirit, their comforter, in refusing to see what God seeth in them. We must make conscience of this, to know the good as well as the evil, though it be never so little.
Satan (the name means “accuser”) will often remind a Christian of his or her past sins. Sibbes observed, quite correctly I think, that in a false and misdirected sense of humility, a Christian forgets what it means to be “in Christ.” They will overlook the good which God has already worked in them and focus on what they did in the past or their ongoing struggle with sin. It’s about the same thing as saying to Satan when he accuses you: “Hey, you’ve got a good point.”
A Christian must remember that being “in Christ” means that when God looks upon you, He doesn’t see your sin but sees the perfection of Christ. When a follower of Christ focuses on what is still evil within them and forgets about the good which God has already begun to work in them, Sibbes says that you’re actually pleading Satan’s cause against the Spirit of God.
Don’t forget the good work God is already doing you. If you do, for the sake of some seeming sense of humility, expect the Judge and the Defense Attorney in the trial to challenge you and ask you plainly: “Whose side are you on?”
On October 30,2000, I was listening to a news radio broadcast from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Windsor, Ontario is just across the river from us). The newscaster observed that this day might go down in history as the last day in which a human was not living in space. The first crew to inhabit the International Space Station (ISS) launched on October 31, 2000 and docked with the ISS two days later. Since then, there has not been a day in which a person has not been living in outer space.
I thought of that in conjunction with what is on the Church calendar today. We’ve commemorated key events in the history of Christianity over the last few days. On Thursday, we celebrated Maundy Thursday (also known as Holy Thursday), remembering the Last Supper which Christ had with His apostles, as well as His agonized prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to His arrest. On Friday, we remembered what is called Good Friday, in which the Lord Jesus was tried, condemned, suffered and died a horrifying death on a Roman cross just outside Jerusalem. Tomorrow, Easter Sunday, we will remember the resurrection of Christ from the dead. It was a resurrection in which the Lord Jesus, in His humanity, will never die again.
Like the CBC newscaster back in 2000 who noted what he did about the ongoing presence of humanity in space, I reflected on the fact that on this Saturday of Holy Week, today we remember the last full calendar day in human history on which Jesus of Nazareth would ever be dead.
The historical evidence I’ve seen seems to point to Friday, April 3, 33 A.D. as the day of the crucifixion. Therefore, Saturday, April 4, 33 A.D. was the last full calendar day in human history in which the Lord Jesus would be dead.
That has staggering implications for all of us. He who is God, the second person of the Trinity. and also human, in His humanity, has become the first human to regain physical life in an imperishable, regenerated body. He has been alive in that body since April 5th, 33 A.D.
Think of the human history He has witnessed and guided. For almost twenty full centuries, He has been in Heaven, alive in His regenerated body. As generations have come and gone, He has watched as your ancestors lived out life in their generations. For those of your own ancestors who trusted in Him, He continued His special work in their lives.
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews notes this in pointing out to us:
“He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for us.” (Hebrews 7:25 ESV)
Because of His rising from the dead, there won’t be another “last day” for Jesus. For those who have trusted in Him, and do so today, we must rejoice and be glad. There will never be another day in history, ever again, in which we live and Our Savior doesn’t.