Luke 1:18-25 comments: Zacharias struck dumb

Luke 1:18  And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. 19  And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. 20  And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season. 21  And the people waited for Zacharias, and marvelled that he tarried so long in the temple. 22  And when he came out, he could not speak unto them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned unto them, and remained speechless. 23  And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house. 24  And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, 25  Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.

Zacharias’ questioning attitude reminds me of Gideon and the fleece. Gideon had already perceived that he was talking to God’s angel so what he asks seems sort of shocking at first.

Judges 6: 22  And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face. 23  And the LORD said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die. 24  Then Gideon built an altar there unto the LORD, and called it Jehovahshalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites…36  And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said, 37  Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said. 38  And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. 39  And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. 40  And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.

The Jews required a sign and were not easily convinced of the intentions of anyone from the other side, even, it seems, God Himself. Just read over their stubbornness in the Exodus, their doubts, in spite of all of the amazing things they had seen.

Deuteronomy 29:2  And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; 3  The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles: 4  Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

1Corinthians 1:22  For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

The angel identifies himself as Gabriel. Do you think he stood there with the huge wings that Christian mythology has shown for two thousand years? No, there are no winged angels in the Bible. That was a myth brought over from Persian religion by the Roman Catholic Church. Gabriel is described as a man and no mention is made of wings.

Daniel 9:21  Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.

An angel looks like a person, not some kind of hybrid cross between a person and a bird.

Revelation 21:17  And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.

Cherubim are winged creatures but they are not angels. They are winged creatures representing a type of animal on earth, perhaps the prototypes in the spiritual world for those animals. In Ezekiel 10 they are called living creatures. Satan was a cherubim, apparently reptilian in appearance as per Job 41 and is not a “fallen angel” although he did lead angels in defiance against God.

Ezekiel 28:14  Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

Revelation 12:7  And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

The point is that the angel Gabriel looked like a man, only a very impressive and scary presentation of a man, who as a glorified inhabitant of the eternal, unseen (to us) world, stands before the throne of God, that terrified Zacharias but did not keep him from questioning the truth of his statements.

While we are here our angel, our spiritual representative, is elsewhere. They understood this then.

Acts 12:14  And when she knew Peter’s voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood before the gate. 15  And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel.

It is in heaven that the spirits, the angels, of the church on earth sit.

Ephesians 2:6  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

Hebrews 12:22  …But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 23  To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect…

Revelation 5:11  And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; 12  Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

(Note the difference between the angels in Revelation 5 and the reference to the martyrs that came out of great tribulation in Revelation 7 who have their glorified bodies apparently, the souls slain for the word of God in Revelation 6.)

Zacharias is struck dumb, not being able to speak as a punishment for his unbelief. Elisabeth then conceives with him and goes apart for five months.

Luke 1:6-17 comments: the angel's declaration

Luke 1:6  And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 7  And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years. 8  And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest’s office before God in the order of his course, 9  According to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. 10  And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense. 11  And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12  And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. 13  But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. 14  And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. 15  For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. 16  And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. 17  And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

In the first part of this passage that runs through verse 25 we have the angel’s declaration and assurance to Zacharias. Like Abraham and Sarah, Zacharias and Elisabeth were old people, or well stricken in years.

Genesis 18:11  Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.

Words and phrases combined with and often have similar meanings or are synonymous so in the verse in Genesis old helps define well stricken in age.

In this context an angel of the Lord is an angel FROM the Lord, not an angel of the Lord’s presence.

Isaiah 63:9  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

An angel is the spiritual presence of someone or something whose actual physical location is somewhere else. It represents that person or thing.

An angel of the Lord can be God Himself in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ before He took on the physical body of a man.

Judges 2:1  And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

It can represent churches, as well.

Revelation 1:20  The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

But, it doesn’t have to be God Himself in every case as here, which we will see.

This angel terrifies Zacharias but comforts him, foretelling of his son who will be John the Baptist. Like a Nazarite he will drink neither wine nor strong drink.

Numbers 6:3a  He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink,…

John is going to be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb. The Holy Ghost is the name of the Spirit of God in His personhood with the word Ghost as identity and Spirit related more to function.

Luke 4:1  And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of God and of Christ, who are the same.

Romans 8:9  But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

John will have a specific power on him, the same power given to Elijah for preaching, as Elias is Elijah from the Greek rather than the Hebrew. He will announce Christ.

Malachi 4:5  Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: 6  And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Mark 1:2  As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 3  The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 4  John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

The passage in Mark refers back to;

Isaiah 40:3 ¶  The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Malachi 3:1 ¶  Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

Jesus will confirm all of this.

Matthew 11: 7 ¶  And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? 8  But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. 9  But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. 10  For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy

face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 11  Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12  And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. 13  For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. 14  And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. 15  He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Matthew 17:10  And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? 11  And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. 12  But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. 13  Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

Luke 1:5 comments: introducing Herod, Zacharias, and Elisabeth

Luke 1:5 ¶  There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.

Historians generally believe that Herod or Herod the Great as he was called, ruled Judea as a subservient king to the Roman Empire. He was known for his massive building projects including the expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, called Herod’s temple, and the fortress of Masada where much later Jews will fight to the death in revolt against Rome finishing with a mass suicide. He also built the port at Caesarea Maritima, Herod was an Idumean and Idumea is Edom, which we know from Genesis. Herod is, in a sense, a type of Esau, only without the charm.

Judaea was ruled by Herod until his death at which time it was divided between three of his sons and his sister as a tetrarchy, with Judea as a Roman province until Rome assumed complete control later in the first century.

 Zacharias was from the clan of Abia, the Greek version of the Hebrew Abijah, a descendant of Aaron through Eleazar. Elisabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.

1Chronicles 24:1 ¶  Now these are the divisions of the sons of Aaron. The sons of Aaron; Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. 2  But Nadab and Abihu died before their father, and had no children: therefore Eleazar and Ithamar executed the priest’s office. 3  And David distributed them, both Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, according to their offices in their service. 4  And there were more chief men found of the sons of Eleazar than of the sons of Ithamar; and thus were they divided. Among the sons of Eleazar there were sixteen chief men of the house of their fathers, and eight among the sons of Ithamar according to the house of their fathers. 5  Thus were they divided by lot, one sort with another; for the

governors of the sanctuary, and governors of the house of God, were of the sons of Eleazar, and of the sons of Ithamar. 6  And Shemaiah the son of Nethaneel the scribe, one of the Levites, wrote them before the king, and the princes, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and before the chief of the fathers of the priests and Levites: one principal household being taken for Eleazar, and one taken for Ithamar. 7  Now the first lot came forth to Jehoiarib, the second to Jedaiah, 8  The third to Harim, the fourth to Seorim, 9  The fifth to Malchijah, the sixth to Mijamin, 10  The seventh to Hakkoz, the eighth to Abijah,

To Love God - sermon notes

In case you haven’t noticed yet I often preach things that I need to learn.

Jonathan Edwards, a great preacher of the period in American history known as the Great Awakening, said in his sermon entitled, “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,” that;

There is a great deal of difference between a willingness not to be damned, and a being willing to receive Christ for your Savior. You have the former; there is no doubt of that: nobody supposes that you love misery so as to choose an eternity of it; and so doubtless you are willing to be saved from eternal misery. But that is a very different thing from being willing to come to Christ: persons very commonly mistake the one for the other, but they are quite two things. You may love the deliverance, but hate the deliverer. (1)

(1)   Jonathan Edwards, “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,” www.jonathan-edwards.org, (accessed 7.16.2014).

So people can love the idea of being saved but really have little regard for their Saviour. I am wondering how many Christians truly love their deliverer.

I need to learn how to truly love my Lord, love my Saviour, love my Creator.

Moses said to the Israelites and had written down for posterity;

Deuteronomy 6:4 ¶  Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5  And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

And God told Moses to also tell the people;

Leviticus 19:18  Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

The Lord Jesus Christ reaffirmed when a lawyer asked Him what the great commandment in the Law was;

Matthew 22:37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38  This is the first and great commandment. 39  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

What does it mean to love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind, and as Mark recorded in Mark 12:30 Jesus as adding, with all thy strength?'

What does the very first principle of the Christian life entail? Do we have a complete understanding or one that just satisfied our mean-spiritedness in that we’ve done enough by doing what God has said to do and not doing what He has said not to do and condemning other people who fall short? Or is our understanding limited to merely reverence or awe so we can put God on a shelf and take Him down and dust Him off on Sunday to satisfy our desire to justify ourselves and feel holy?

We can find verses to limit ourselves to a definition that makes us feel justified if we want.

But what about a complete understanding of what it means to love God, one that doesn’t violate the spirit and intent of what the Holy Spirit has given us through the men who wrote the Bible?

In one aspect God is our parent. As Paul noted in quoting a pagan poet;

Acts 17:27  That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28  For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

We are His offspring? In the form He took as a man, the Lord Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God the Old Testament also talks about how we are His offspring. Jesus quoted the first line of Psalm 22 from the Cross to direct us to it. In that Psalm it says.

Psalm 22:30  A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

How do you love a parent? How is that love expressed? Well, there are several things that seem to follow the profession of love for someone who gave you life and sustained you in your helplessness. 

The first evidence of a love for God I want to talk about is obedience. Moses said to the Israelites;

Deuternomy 7:9  Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

See how and connects two like things; loving God and keeping His commandments?

Jesus confirmed;

John 14:15  If ye love me, keep my commandments.

It is kind of interesting how Jesus defined the essence of the Law given to Moses in those verses in Matthew and then capped it all off with a new commandment that affirmed the essence of the old ones.

John 13:34  A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35  By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Just think about those verses again in Matthew 22, Mark 12, John 13 and 14. Christ’s commandment for us and our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ is so intertwined as to be indivisible as John also wrote;

1John 4:15  Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. 16  And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

    17 ¶  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. 18  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 19  We love him, because he first loved us. 20  If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? 21  And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

    5:1 ¶  Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. 2  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 3  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. 4  For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. 5  Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

 So, let me ask you. Is proof of our love for God, we Gentile Christians, a rote following of the Law given to Moses and our condemnation of everyone else who falls short? Or is the proof of our love for God the love we have for our brothers and sisters in Christ and how faithful we are to the doctrines of Christ; who He is, what He came for, and how we will spend eternity with Him?

 Remember what Paul said about the Law given to Moses?

Galatians 3:23  But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24  Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25  But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. 26  For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

Is Christ talking about obedience to the Law given to Moses or obedience in faith to Him? He told the Jews very clearly;

John 6:28 ¶  Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29  Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Now don’t get me wrong. The Law, the Ten Commandments, are very important. They represent God’s standard of righteousness in the sense of the moral laws. That has not changed. But, you aren’t proving you love God, love Christ, by simply saying; I go to church, I tithe, I pray, I read my Bible, I don’t curse, drink, smoke, look at porn or do immoral things, and I vote Republican, and give to the NRA. You could be totally cold to God and do all those things and look pretty good to others who believe like you do. You don’t have to love Him to do those things.

You certainly don’t prove you love God by being mad-as-all-get-out because others on TV do wrong and you think they ought to be exiled to Mars. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying you aren’t proving your love for God that way.

No, you prove your love for God, for Christ, loving your brothers and sisters in Christ through Him and believing what He said about Himself.

John 14:6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him…9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

The first proof of your love for God is your obedience in loving your brothers and sisters in Christ all over God’s green earth and here in your presence and your belief that He is God, your faith in Him, and trusting in His righteousness and not your own to get to Heaven.

The next evidence I want to talk about in showing that you love God is trust.  When I was a small child I completely trusted my Dad. He could do no wrong and I believed that anything he did for me was for my benefit.

Even though I screamed and cried after being spanked I never once thought my father spanked me because he hated me. When he taught me to Box and would beat the living snot out of me I never thought he was being cruel. I craved his attention. One of the things he used to say to me when I was older about what he loved when I was his little boy was me standing in the car seat next to him (this was before car seats when a stiff arm was the only thing between a kid and eternity in a car crash) one of the things was me saying happily, “We has lots o’ time togedder don’t we Daddy?”

I just wanted to be with him and I trusted him completely. If he said it, it was true in my finite mind even if he was fudging the truth a bit like telling me that I got here when a buzzard dropped me on a flat rock and the sun hatched me.

One of the things I’ve loved about my animals; from the Belgian Shepherd named Rinnie who was my companion as a child to my cats in my old age has been their trust. They want to be with me. They expect kindness and gentleness from my hand. And if I must force them to take medicine they forgive me quickly. It is a precious thing to me for my old cat to rest her head on my arm and throw her paw over it, just feeling safe and secure from all alarm.

Trusting God has always been difficult for me. I fear Him. I don’t always think that this or that will turn out okay. I assume that at the end of every struggle or challenge there will be a lot of pain. I am not an optimist. But, God promises things when we trust Him.

First, there is something call perfect peace, something I crave.

Isaiah 26:3  Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

He promises wisdom and guidance if we trust Him.

Proverbs 3:5  Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Trust isn’t just optimism though. It is accepting that sometimes what God causes or allows to happen to you hurts. The word evil is sometimes used for trouble, disaster, pain, suffering, and calamity.

Matthew 6:34  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

So, here we have an indication of how painful life can be.

Job 2:10  But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

Lamentations 3:37 ¶  Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? 38  Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?

I pray for God’s mercy every day. But, I need to learn to trust Him even when things happen I don’t want to happen.

Job 13:15a  Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him…

Then, there is this scene with the Hebrew young men threatened by Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel 3:14  Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? 15  Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? 16  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. 17  If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. 18  But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

The idea that you may have to trust Him to your death or that while you know He could deliver you from something horrible, He might not, is a terrifying prospect.

Trusting that God knows what He’s doing and that, in the end, He knows what He’s doing in all issues that He allows to happen even ones that rhyme with cancer, car accidents, and your kid having a drug overdose is a terrifying thought, just terrifying.

And yet, He tells us not to worry about anything, to not be full of care;

Philippians 4:6  Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

He has blessed us with so much, protected us in so many situations we are not even aware of, and so many times not let us suffer the consequences of what we so richly deserve and yet, in the end we may suffer a great deal. But, we must trust Him. He loves us, He has everything in His power, and we have an eternity with Him waiting on us when we cross death’s threshold.

I obeyed my father, when I obeyed him, because I loved him and feared him. I trusted him because I knew he loved me even when what he did didn’t make me feel very good.

I wanted to spend time with my Dad. How much time do we spend with God? That is another way you show your love for your Creator, by spending as much time in prayer as you can talking to Him and as much time as you can reading His words in his Bible, letting Him speak to your heart of hearts.

History tells us of famous men like John Wesley or George Washington spending as much as two hours per day in prayer. The Bible tells us to be in a constant state of prayer.

1Thessalonians 5:17  Pray without ceasing.

Romans 12:12  Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;

When I was a kid we were taught little prayer poems, like some kind of magic chant, I suppose we expected would protect us but I don’t remember much meaning or heartfelt emotion behind them.

“God is great. God is good. And we thank Him for this food. Amen.”

Or;

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

They would have been good prayers if they were heartfelt and earnest, but they seem pretty lame to me now, being repeated mindlessly each day.

I always appreciate a heartfelt prayer, one that comes from deep inside a person, rather than just something to fill the air when they are asked to pray.

Matthew 6: 5 ¶  And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.6  But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 7  But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Jesus gave us two model prayers at different times which show just how direct and concise God wants prayers to be.

Matthew 6:9 ¶  After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11  Give us this day our daily bread. 12  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Luke 11:1 ¶  And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2  And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 3  Give us day by day our daily bread. 4  And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

Understand that a temptation can be anything that tries or tests your faith, from sickness to your own sin, while evil is trouble or disaster, even just a bad day but here they are synonymous. A temptation is an evil in that it can call your faith into question. For instance, the pagan Roman or fundamentalist Muslims’ demand that a Christian renounce Christ or die. That is a temptation that they faced and many Christians around the world face daily.

In these prayers we see that God wants to be our acknowledged source of life and safety and peace. Centuries ago common people believed that every moment was a miracle and that God’s hand could be seen in virtually every event, every second of every day, in some way. Then, Isaac Newton and his colleagues came a long and reduced God to a sort of benign first cause. They started looking at everything from its smallest part on up rather than looking at the big picture, looking at God and the majesty of His creation on down.

It did not take long for wicked, sinful mankind to simply remove God as the first cause and blame it all on random chance or just the nature of the way things are without intelligence behind it.

We need to spend more time in prayer, talking to God, and we need to spend more time in the Bible, listening to God, and we need to spend some time in silence, contemplating God. This brings me to the next thing I wanted to discuss with you which, as I said, if you only take this alone without the personal dimension of love and joy you, too, will reduce God to a first cause and then push Him out the door entirely.

The next way we show God our love for Him, the next way it is expressed is in our awe of Him, our reverence of Him, and, yes, our fear.

The Bible says;

Psalm 111:10  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

Proverbs 1:7  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

What is the fear of the Lord? Shall we spend all our time hiding under a table in the toolshed? The Bible defines itself.

Proverbs 8:13  The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

Proverbs 9:10  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Paul talks about Godly fear as reverence;

Hebrews 12:28  Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

Psalm 33:8  Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

His name is holy, not something to be spoken lightly or part of a curse.

Psalm 111:9  He sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name.

What He has done and is doing is beyond the understanding of the finest minds of men.

 Psalm 19:1  « To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. » The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

In the book of Job, when God answers Job out of a whirlwind, He explains that the reality we know and even that we have no experience of comes directly from Him. I’ll just use one part of His declaration to make a point here.

Job 38:25 ¶  Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; 26  To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; 27  To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? 28  Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? 29  Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? 30  The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. 31  Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? 32  Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? 33  Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? 34  Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? 35  Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? 36  Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? 37  Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven, 38  When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together? 39  Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions, 40  When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait? 41  Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.

In God’s rhetorical interrogation of Job He asks several questions which may seem perplexing to us. In verse 25 a connection is made between lightning and thunder, which we now understand more clearly. Aristotle, as late as the third century BC, attributed thunder to a collision between clouds.  The disturbing, again, implication in verse 25 is that even when there is flooding, God disperses overflowing water as He sees fit. This is a frightening prospect if we consider what the Bible is telling us that even in a seemingly random process God is in control. Did you ever imagine that?

Here, God speaks about how He causes all things, even where man is nowhere around to witness the things. It rains in places where man is not to soak the parched ground and cause plants to grow that man will never see. Think about this. From the dense forests of Borneo to the jungles of Brazil there is life and there are events happening that we will never know about experientially. There are things happening a million light-years from us that we have no knowledge of now or at any time in our lives. Man is not the measure of all things as the Greek philosopher, Protagoras said. The universe God built for Himself. We are a part of His plan. But, we are not the only part.

Verse 28 places God squarely as the author of every drop of dew. Think of that. Imagine it, if you will. Every snowflake, the ice on a pond, the frost on the ground, all of it, every microscopic piece of it created by God, not just the result of a random process, an, “accident of nature,” but a direct execution of divine will. It staggers the modern mind.

The anthropologist, Susan Friend Harding, wrote, “The membrane between disbelief and belief is thinner than we think.” (2) Most Christians in America seem to believe in a caretaker God, like a gardener, watching over life processes and natural events that He can only affect in a minimal way by exerting Himself from outside of the process, by interrupting the process, like a landlord we call on to fix the plumbing in our apartment when it leaks. American Christians, even fundamentalists, can’t wrap their minds around the God presented in the Bible. They can wrap their minds around the God presented in their culture. That God is a sort of manager, or at times a warrior-king, or at times a big brother, and at times even a benefactor, but He is most certainly not the God presented in the Bible who controls every moment everywhere in His universe. He is neither surprised nor at a disadvantage when a thing happens. He either made it happen or permitted it to happen. Period. And that is just and right and as it should be, your fear, your grief, your pain, your discomfort notwithstanding.

God now moves masterfully in His speech to the farthest reaches of outer space, to the nearby atmosphere of earth, and into the human heart, the spiritual heart of understanding, emotion, and reason, to underscore His sovereign reign over the sum total of reality. He even speaks of causing clods of dirt and providing food for wild animals and birds. He does this, Himself. He is the author of it.

This is a different earth, a different universe, than what we are used to imagining. Be honest with yourself, when the snow piled deep in your yard you didn’t think of it being a direct act of God any more than when you started your car did you think that. 

We have lived for several hundred years in a universe we thought was governed by blind forces. The only difference between many Christians and atheists have been that Christians thought there was a benevolent and powerful entity who wound up those forces and who would intervene occasionally to interrupt those blind forces on the Christian’s behalf. Both are wrong. Dead wrong.

(2) Susan Friend Harding, The Book of Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 58.

Are you in awe of God? Do you bow your head in reverence to the mind, the Spirit, capital S, of such a being? Can you even imagine His thought processes, His reasoning, in the things He is capable of doing and does?

When we think about it we should be stunned. Unbelieving people will tell you that something came from nothing by random chance or rather, a “quantum fluctuation” but common-sense tells you that something does not come from nothing without an intelligent mind involved.

Not only did God create the universe but He holds it together. Unbelievers can not understand why if attraction is based on gravitational pull and that on mass why 99% of the mass of the universe must be missing. What holds it together, they fret? They imagine things they cannot see or experiment on like Dark Matter. But, then they add Dark Energy to the list of things they fantasize about in order to avoid God. And yet, our own Bible tells us what, who rather, holds things together.

Colossians 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

This God who simply is;

Exodus 3:14  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

…is unbelievably amazing in every aspect. We should be on our faces in complete and utter astonishment all the time. But, we are finite creatures and like a bug or bird we must go about the task of living in this reality. But we are missing out on the most wonderful thing of all, thinking about His glory and who He is.

Finally we should be in awe for the fact, in wonder, that the God who forms stars in the furthest reaches of space looked down into the earth and picked, “a certain man,” or, “a certain woman,” as the Bible so cleverly labels those anonymous people who performed a certain function as a part of God’s will. He picked you to spend eternity with Him. He offered you His unlimited and undying mercy and you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, trusting in His righteousness only and not your own for your salvation and eternal life. But, He loved us first at the Cross, an event so awesome it has boggled men’s minds. The God who created us, this awesome being came to live as one of us, died, paying the penalty for our sins at our own hands, and then rose again for our justification and eternity with Him.

He is simply astounding and there are no words to describe the God of the Bible. If you don’t love Him now I hope you can learn to love Him. It is what He wants from us. Even under the Old Testament Law He wanted to walk with us.

Micah 6:8  He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Obedience, trust, spending time, and awe are some ways we show our love for God in our hearts.

I hope you will consider what I’ve said. It is incomplete as I am sure you can think of other things to say. I just want to love my Lord and to keep that in the forefront of my mind. Christians can get so wrapped up on the doing of things that we don’t stop to contemplate and experience a love for our Creator, our Saviour. God bless you all.