Sermon and Worship Resources

Joel 2:28-32 · The Day of the Lord

28 "And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord .

32 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.

A Fresh Start

Joel 2:28-32, Joel 2:18-27

Sermon
by Mark Ellingsen

Have you ever felt that you were absolutely at the end of your rope, left without hope? Sometime during the years of 539 B.C. to 331 B.C. that is the way the people of Judah felt. It seems that their land had been ravaged by a plague of locusts which had had catastrophic consequences.

Once a harvest has been destroyed, you cannot repair it. If a building has burned to the ground, you cannot repair it. In those instances you need to start from scratch with a fresh start. Have you reached the end of your rope? Are all your options closed? Is there no more hope for a happy, meaningful life for you? Are all the career options closed? Is the family relationship shattered? Has our cynicism about government reached a point where confidence in our system is irretrievable? Have the moral and educational standards of our society forever eroded? If you answered, “Yes,” to any of those questions you have come to a dead-end. That is the way that the people of Judah whom the Prophet Joel addressed felt. The locust plague had produced among them and their nation a state of chaos and the sense of hopelessness one feels in the midst of poverty or when there seems to be no way out.

Consider the way the rural poor with no land, an urban resident of the projects short on education, or the homeless must feel about their prospects for the future. Think about how you felt or feel those times when all the options seem closed. Are you in touch with those feelings? If so, you know how the people of Judah whom Joel addressed felt.

What did Joel say to them? What does he say to us and to those without hope in our society? First Joel told the Judeans and us to lament for our situation, to repent, and to worship (Joel 1:13-14). (Joel himself was apparently a great advocate of Temple worship in Jerusalem and its cult of sacrifice.) Joel’s point, like those of most Old Testament prophets, was that what was going wrong for the Hebrews was in some sense their own fault. They had sinned, like you and I sin.

“Wait,” you say. “Is it really the case that whenever something goes wrong for people in life it is their fault? Are the worst, sinful people the ones who suffer?” Not quite. You are thinking more individualistically than the ancient Hebrews did. They thought more in terms of the community. Consequently when the prophets like Joel claim that the evils which had befallen the Hebrews or were to happen were the punishments for their sin, individuals are not typically singled out. The charge that sin is the cause of the locust plague and the other tragedies that had befallen Judah pertains to all the people. Their collective sin had brought about the catastrophe on all of them.

Collective sin: This is the sense in which we can agree with Joel and the other Old Testament prophets that the bad things in life, that the “dead ends” we encounter, are our own fault. If there had not been a Fall into sin, would work be the chore that it is for many (Genesis 3:17b-19)? Perhaps there would be no sexism and other forms of discrimination (Genesis 3:16). Could it be, ladies, that even the birth process would be easier (Genesis 3:16a)? Certainly life would not be filled with the anxiety and despair it often is (Romans 7:14-23; Ecclesiastes).

Think about it. Was it God’s original plan for there to be death, sickness, suffering, and catastrophes? No, God made the world good (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). Consequently, all the suffering, death, and natural catastrophes we experience must not be what God wants, but are the result of or reactions to sin, which has destroyed the original harmony between the created order and God. In that sense Joel and the prophets are correct: The evils we encounter in life are a consequence of sin.

Do not think that you are off the hook because you can blame our less-than-perfect world on the sins of others, like Adam and Eve. You and I are sinning too. Any perfect people here? Insofar as you and I keep on sinning, do what we do to satisfy our own egos and not what our neighbors need, we are contributing to all the problems in the world. In that sense, the problems in your life and in mine, the hopeless situations that you and I are in, or have been in, are our own fault. Like the people of Judah whom Joel addressed, the mess that we are in is a consequence of our sin. Like them, we need a fresh start. Hear how God told Joel he would give it to the Judeans and to us.

Joel proceeded next to reiterate his call to repentance and suggested that the locust plague would get worse. Some biblical scholars speculate that his references in chapter 2 (vv. 4-5), just before our assigned lesson starts, to a plague of locusts really refers to an army from the north which Joel believed would invade Judah and result in a catastrophic Day of Judgment.1 Whether this is the case or not, the way in which Joel proceeded from the first crisis of the locust plague to an even worse one which raised apprehensions that the end of the world was coming is typical of the way most people respond to crises in life.

Is that not the way life goes sometimes? We encounter a problem, seem to solve it, and then it gets worse, so bad that there seems no way out. That is how it was for the people Joel addressed. They truly were at the end of their rope. A tragic end seemed inevitable.

Have you ever been there? Have you ever reached a point in your life when you felt that there was little point in going on? Perhaps it was the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, a debilitating illness. There was no way out. You had nowhere to turn and no other options to explore, and you realized that you bore responsibility for your plight. Your only hope was a fresh start.

Some observers who lament the present state of American society reflect that kind of despair. The system no longer works, they say. Trust is gone; standards are lost. Are we coming to the End Times, if not the end of America as we have known it? If you have felt such feelings or are feeling them now, then you know how it was for the Hebrews whom Joel addressed. His words may be for you.

What did Joel say next? Again he calls his hearers and us to repentance, to a recognition that the evil we encounter is our fault (2:12-17). This time, though, this call is linked to the portrait of God as a God of love, One who is: “ ... gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love ... (2:13b). A God like that One, so full of love, is a God who inspires repentance. The steadfast love of our God so overflows that it permeates our lives and changes them. As Martin Luther once put it, “The love of God which lives in man loves sinners, evil persons, fools, and weaklings in order to make them righteous, good, wise, and strong. Rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good.”2 God’s love makes stubborn people, like those of us at the end of our rope, repent.

Joel proceeded next to account all the great things that this loving God would do for the people of Judah. It is not unlike what he plans to do for you and me and for our society. He said, in the Name of the Lord, that the army of the north would withdraw and that the locust plague would end too (2:18-25). The people of Judah, it was claimed, would be satisfied, enjoy prosperity, and never again be put to shame (v. 26).

But things do not get back to normal that easily or simply when you have come to the end of your rope. Something radically new has to happen. You have to get free, because when you hit rock bottom you have been in bondage, and the scars of such bondage do not vanish without a radical change. You can see that in our society, in how those segments of American society which have been most oppressed bear the scars of that oppression. It is why there is such a high percentage of the impoverished and African-American males in prison, why alcoholism rates are so high among Native Americans, and why women of impoverished classes have a higher percentage of out-of-wedlock births. Today’s children of divorce tend to have less confidence about the future.3 The oppressed, those who have been hurt, need a radically new beginning, a fresh start. You and I need that fresh start.

Joel knew that we all need a fresh start. This is why he related the promise of restoration for Judah to the Day of the Lord, to the End of Time (2:1). He proceeds to describe what God will do on the last Day of the Lord. This brings me to the punch-line of this sermon. Let me read you Joel’s account of God’s promise:

Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. — 2:28-29

Our First Lesson continues with the blessed assurance that in this Last Day everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved (v. 32).

What does this reference to the gift of the Holy Spirit have to do with the End Times and what do both have to do with the fresh start we need? This very passage makes us think of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was first poured out on the Church. In fact in Peter’s sermon on that occasion he even quoted these verses from our First Lesson from Joel (Acts 2:16-21). For the earliest Christians this gift of the Holy Spirit was seen as a sign that the End Times had come, and this association of the outpouring of the Spirit with the End was related both to Jesus’ preaching that the End was upon us (Mark 1:15) and to the book of Joel’s identification of the two.

So what? What does the End Times have to do with us, when they are so far off in the future? Since the End has not come for two millennia, maybe it will never come. Besides what does this have to do with me in facing my problems?

Joel’s identification of the gift of the Holy Spirit with the End Times speaks directly to our need for a fresh start, as individuals and as a nation. Before Joel’s prophecy and its Christian fulfillment, some Hebrews — its leaders and prophets — received the Spirit (Exodus 31:3; 35:31; Judges 3:10; 1 Samuel 11:6; 16:3; Ezekiel 3:12,14). But Joel saw that what would be different at the End was that the Spirit would be poured out on all.

I ask you church members, do you have the Holy Spirit? Has it been poured out on you? Do not look for the Spirit under that pew. All of you who are baptized have the Holy Spirit. Paul says that in 1 Corinthians 12:13. The Spirit has been poured out on all of us, the old and the young, male and female. Joel says that that must mean the End has come (2:28-29). We are in the End Times! Believe it, friends. (The technical term for this belief is “realized eschatology.”)

What does this mean for us in our daily lives, trying to cope with all the dead ends we and our society face? Being in the End Times as we are, you and I have the fresh start that we need! The old has passed away, and everything is new. Paul says that in 2 Corinthians (5:17). How does the Holy Spirit figure in this?

Those of us who have been crippled by the past, with no viable alternatives, have been in bondage to our past, trapped by who and what we are. The impoverished segments of society have been enslaved by the past. But the Good News of Joel and his message about the End Time is that we are no longer chained by our pasts. The Holy Spirit is the agent of the new possibilities, by giving us the faith that throws off the old dead ends in favor of embracing the new creatures that Christ is creating in you and me (Ephesians 4:22-24).

The greatest Reformed theologian of our century, a Swiss German ethnic named Karl Barth, offered a profound insight about the Holy Spirit. In his view, “to have the Spirit, to live in the Spirit means being set free and being permitted to live in freedom.”4 Freedom is precisely what a person and society who have run out of options do not have. At the end of your rope, you have no options.

In what sense does the Spirit set us free? Again, Karl Barth has a definition of freedom that is profound. “Freedom,” he says, “means being in spontaneous and therefore willing agreement with the sovereign freedom of God.”5 You are not really free, Barth seems to claim, when you seek yourself. You need to get free from yourself (since it is your sin that has gotten you in your problematic situation). You are only really free from those old destructive patterns when you want to do God’s Will, and the Holy Spirit is the One who makes you want what God wants.

Do you get the point? Those of us trapped by our pasts, at the end of our ropes, are trapped by our own life circumstances and behavior. Only with a fresh start can we get free, and the only way that will happen is if we get free from ourselves and get wrapped up in God’s ways. The Holy Spirit is God grabbing hold of us in such a way that doing God’s thing is what we really want. When the Holy Spirit grabs you, it is a whole new way of living (God’s Way), a fresh start.

Of course there is still a temptation for those of us set free to go back to the old destructive ways which led us to a dead end. We cannot avoid the lure of these old habits. Here the Holy Spirit is our Comforter. The founder of Methodism, John Wesley says all that needs to be said about the matter. In a 1736 sermon, he wrote:

... but the light that most necessarily attends to it [the Holy Spirit] is a light to discern the fallacies of flesh and blood, to reject the irreligious maxims of the world, and to practice those degrees of trust in God and love to men, whose foundation is not so much the present appearances of things, as in some that are yet to come. The object which this light brings us most immediately to know is ourselves....6

The Holy Spirit keeps you from falling back into bondage by getting you in touch with the brand new creature that God has made you to be. Like Joel says, friends, take heart! The new day has come. You are free from the old chains that bound you, free to be the real (new) you and to find your true freedom serving God. And in that freedom you will want to work to abolish every prejudice and structure that oppresses. After all, Joel said in our lesson that all who call on God shall be delivered (v. 32). That means (according to Martin Luther) that “there will be no distinction either of places or of persons.”7 The fresh start, the freedom that the Spirit gives, is a Word of liberation for all! God has given you and me and all those who have gotten the shaft in life a fresh start. He has set us free (to do his thing).

1. Among scholars arguing this point include H. W. Wolff, Die Botschaft des Joel (Munich, 1963).

2. Martin Luther, Heidelberg Disputation (1518), in Luther’s Works, Vol. 31, p. 57.

3. For these statistics or assessments, see Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal (New York: Ballantine Books, 1992/1995), pp. 90, 204; Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), pp. 120-121.

4. Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, trans. G. T. Thomson (reprint ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 138.

5. Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV/1, p. 201.

6. John Wesley, On Holy Spirit (1736), in The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 7, pp. 514-515.

7. Martin Luther, Lectures on Joel (1524), in Luther’s Works, Vol. 18, p. 112.

CSS Publishing Company, A Word That Sets Free, by Mark Ellingsen

Overview and Insights · Restoration and the Giving of God’s Spirit to all His People (2:18–32)

In Joel 2:18–32 God looks beyond the judgment to the future time of restoration. A critical element of this time that the prophets discuss regularly is the Presence of God. Persistent and flagrant sin such as idolatry and social injustice will drive away the Presence of God from Israel, but in Joel 2:27–32 God promises a new era when his Presence will be …

The Baker Bible Handbook by , Baker Publishing Group, 2016

Joel 2:28-32 · The Day of the Lord

28 "And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord .

32 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.

Commentary · The Rescue of the Lord’s People and His Reign on Mount Zion

The apocalyptic themes represented in this section unquestionably point to future events not fully realized by the restoration of Judah and the return of God’s people from Babylonian exile. While 3:1–5 centers on the day of the Lord as an age of salvation and vindication for Judah, 3:1–17 depicts the day of the Lord as a terrifying display of divine wrath toward God’s adversaries.

Joel characterizes the day of the Lord as the “pouring out of the Spirit” on everyone, without distinction (2:28–29). The pouring out of the Spirit is normally associated with the advent of prophetic gifts (1 Sam. 10:6–10; 18:10; 1 Kings 22:22–23; Neh. 9:30; Zech. 7:12; 13:2); therefore, prophetic abilities will be poured out on all of Israel during this great age. Joel may also have the analogy of Amos 8:11 in mind, where Amos describes the failure to hear God’s word in terms of thirst and drought. Consequently, Judah’s reception of the Lord’s counsel constitutes the reversal of that spiritual drought.

Joel 2:28–29 sustains a number of parallels to Numbers 11–12, suggesting the prophet deliberately invokes the earlier narrative. All of God’s people will prophesy (Num. 11:25–29) through “dreams” and “visions” (Num. 12:6). The endowment of the Spirit follows famine in both passages (cf. Num. 11:4–6, 18–23, 31–34; Joel 1:1–2:32). Joel’s announcement fulfills Moses’s request that God would bestow his Spirit on all Israel (Num. 11:29). Joel, however, announces a radical innovation in his message; since cultural convention normally recognized prophecy as limited to men of elevated social standing, the expansion of prophetic gifts beyond gender and class distinction signifies a new age.

Perhaps the most familiar reference to the outpouring of the Spirit is Peter’s citation of Joel 2:28–32 at the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:17–21. The pouring out of the Holy Spirit caused ecstatic behavior resembling that of Old Testament prophets (1 Sam. 1:13–14; Jer. 23:9). In addition, all believers are equally indwelled by the Holy Spirit, retaining equal status before God. Although Joel perceives the Spirit as a phenomenon limited to Israel, in Christ the distinctions between Jew and Gentile have been eliminated.

Darkness prevails during the impending day of the Lord, and natural aberrations, such as earthquakes, fire, smoke, and a bloodred moon signal the salvation of Judah and the doom of judgment (2:30–31; cf. Amos 8:9; Isa. 60:2). These cosmological disruptions evoke imagery associated with theophany—God’s physical revelation to convey information—or epiphany—God’s physical intervention as divine warrior to rescue and deliver his people. Physical manifestations of the Lord, such as the pillar of cloud and fire that served as a sign of God’s presence among his people during the exodus, are replaced with immediate and personal access to the Lord as he reigns on earth. Only those who repent and rely solely on God will endure the day of the Lord (2:32).

The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary by Gary M. Burge, Baker Publishing Group, 2016

2:28–32 The promise of abundant life and rescue from the judgment of the day of the Lord has been given out of the free grace of God (2:18–27). Joel now turns to tell of the signs that will precede the coming of the day. Thus, afterward in 2:28 refers not to events that will take place after the coming of the day, but before its imminent arrival (cf. before in v. 31).

As found also in NT tradition, the day will be preceded by both cosmic and earthly signs (cf. Mark 13:7–8, 24–25 and parallels; Luke 21:20, 25–26). Mark speaks of “wars and rumors of war” (Mark 13:7), and the blood, fire, and smoke of Joel 2:30 probably refer to the burning of cities and the slaughter of their populace. The darkening of the sun and the changing of the moon to blood in 2:31, on the other hand, are not natural disasters such as an eclipse or sandstorm, but supernatural signs of the approach of the day (cf. Amos 8:9). As in Malachi 4:5 and Luke 21:25–28, God will give warning of the approaching judgment.

Most important in this passage, however, is God’s promise that before the day comes, I will pour out my Spirit, literally in the Hebrew, “on all flesh.” By reading on all people, the NIV has tended to emphasize a universal note in this promise, just as Acts 2:38–39 emphasizes that the gift of the Holy Spirit may be given to those of all nations. But the repeated use of your in verse 28, spoken to Judah, limits the promise in Joel to that covenant people. The Acts 2 account of the first Christian Pentecost takes the gift limited by Joel to Judah and extends it to all nations in a universal offering that is one of the glories of the Christian gospel.

The gift of the Spirit to Judah will enable its populace to prophesy, to dream the dreams and see the visions given to the earlier prophets (cf. Jer. 23:25; 24:1–3; Amos 7:1–9, etc.). It was characteristic of the early nonwriting prophets of Israel that their revelations were given to them by the Spirit (cf. 1 Sam. 10:6, 10; 19:20; 2 Sam. 23:2; 2 Kgs. 2:9, etc.). However, such a means of revelation was almost entirely replaced among the classical, writing prophets by revelation through the word, and it is not until the time of this passage in Joel that revelation by means of the Spirit is once again emphasized. Thus, when revelation by the Spirit once again occurs, according to Joel, it is a sign that the day of the Lord is very near.

The gift of the Spirit, throughout the Bible, was given to persons for the purpose of enabling them to accomplish a task for God. The Spirit lent them power to do God’s bidding (cf. Exod. 31:2–5; Judg. 6:34; Mic. 3:8; Hag. 1:14, etc.). Such is the understanding of the gift in Acts 2. The disciples are given the Holy Spirit in order that they may be witnesses to Christ “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8; 2:4). But that does not seem to be the emphasis of this passage in Joel. Rather, consonant with Joel’s entire concern, the Spirit here signifies a new relation with God. “All flesh” in Judah, including manservant and maidservant, will once again have that intimate relation to God characteristic of prophets (cf. Isa. 50:4; Jer. 15:16; 20:11). Surprisingly, therefore, the cult with its sacrifices, so often referred to by Joel, will no longer be necessary. No priest will be needed to mediate between the people and their God. All will be brought into intimate relation with the Lord.

When such a relation with God is established, the day of the Lord is near. Indeed, Acts 2 understands that with the gift of the Spirit to the disciples, the day has begun; the new age of the kingdom has broken into human history and will now exercise its influence until the kingdom comes in its fulness. According to the gospels, the kingdom was already present in the person of Jesus of Nazareth (cf. Mark 1:15; Luke 11:20). Participation in its power is now offered to all who repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. When that takes place, the gift of the Holy Spirit, promised here in Joel, will be given (Acts 2:38–39).

Judah will be given the free gift of the Spirit in a new relation with its God. But Judah must then respond to the gift—and so must we. We are given the Spirit apart from any deserving or working on our part. And it is the Spirit, then, which allows us to call on the name of the Lord (Joel 2:32): Throughout, the prophecies of Joel emphasize God’s prevenient grace; that is the meaning of whom the LORD calls in verse 32; it signifies “those to whom God has given the Spirit of God.”

It is quite possible to be given the Spirit of God, however, and to do nothing with it: thousands of persons in the Christian Church, who received the Holy Spirit at their baptisms, are evidence of that fact. We can stifle the Spirit, quench it (1 Thess. 5:19 RSV), do nothing with it. And if that is our response, we will not survive in the judgment on the day of the Lord. For the judgment still comes. We all will still have to stand before the bar of God. In verse 32, Joel reiterates the promise of Obadiah 17 that there will be a remnant saved in Judah on the day of the Lord. But that remnant will be those who have used the Spirit’s power to call on the name of the Lord.

According to other passages in the OT, to call on God’s name means to worship God (Gen.12:8), to acknowledge that we belong to him alone (Isa. 12:2–4; 44:5; Ps. 105:1; Zech. 13:9), and to depend on him for all life and good (Prov. 18:10; Zech. 2:5). Thus, to call on the name of the Lord in the last judgment is not a desperate, last minute attempt to save one’s life from eternal destruction, but rather is the natural fruit of a heart-felt dependence on God that one has known throughout one’s life.

This salvation from the dark judgment of God’s day, when the kingdom is set up over all the earth, is now offered by the gospel to all persons (cf. John 3:16–17). But that gracious offer, recorded here in Joel, is now centered in Jesus Christ, and those who call on his name are the ones who will stand in the last day (Rom. 10:9–13).

That means, in our time and in every time, that we are therefore to worship only the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ through the Scriptures. Many false gods and goddesses claim our allegiance in our society. But “there is no other name under heaven given to men (and women) by which we must be saved” than the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). To call on his name means to live by his will and not by our own, and to depend on his commandments for daily guidance (cf. John 14:15). “Apart from me you can do nothing,” he tells us (John 15:5); that is, we can do no good act that accords with the will of God except through Christ. And so we call on him constantly to guide and empower us, not only when we are in difficulty, but every day, consistently, in order that we may be obedient.

Finally, to call on the name of the Lord means, according to the Bible, to tell others what God has done (cf. Ps.105:1; Isa.12:4), to be witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). In that witness, we proclaim a total worldview that sees everything in terms of God’s working in this world; we announce that God’s alone are the kingdom and the power and the glory forever; we bear the glad news that out of free grace, God offers to all persons salvation in the day of the Lord. Paul uses Joel 2:32 in Romans 10:13. But then he goes on to ask how anyone can call on one in whom they have not believed. “And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” Faith comes from hearing the gospel message, says Paul, and that message is heard through our witness to and our preaching of what God has done in Jesus Christ. It is to these tasks that we are called by Joel’s Lord and our Lord.

Understanding the Bible Commentary Series by Elizabeth Achtemeier, Baker Publishing Group, 2016

Dictionary

Direct Matches

Blood

The word for “blood” in the Bible is used both literally and metaphorically. “Blood” is a significant biblical term for understanding purity boundaries and theological concepts. Blood is a dominant ritual symbol in biblical literature. Blood was used in sacrifices and purification rites, and it was inherently connected to menstruation, animal slaughter, and legal culpability. Among the physical properties of blood are the ability to coagulate, the liquid state of the substance (Rev. 16:3 4), and the ability to stain (Rev. 19:13). Blood can symbolize moral order in terms of cult, law, and power.

The usage of blood in the OT is predominantly negative. The first direct mention of blood in the biblical text involves a homicide (Gen. 4:10). Henceforward, the shedding of human blood is a main concern (Gen. 9:6). Other concerns pertaining to blood include dietary prohibitions of blood (Lev. 17:10–12), purity issues such as the flow of blood as in menstrual blood (Lev. 15:19–24), and blood as a part of religious rites such as circumcision (Gen. 17:10–11; Exod. 4:24–26).

Leviticus 17:11 contains a central statement in the OT concerning the significant role of blood in the sacrificial system: “The life of a creature is in the blood.” Blood was collected from all animal sacrifices, and blood was poured onto the altar (Lev. 1:5).

The covenant with Abraham was sealed with a covenantal ritual (Gen. 15:10–21). Moses sealed the covenant between the Israelites and God with a blood ritual during which young Israelite men offered young bulls among other sacrifices as fellowship offerings (Exod. 24:5). Moses read the words of the Book of the Covenant and sprinkled the blood of the bulls on the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words” (Exod. 24:7–8).

During the Passover observance at the time of the exodus, blood was placed on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the Hebrews (Exod. 12:7). Not only altars were sprinkled and thus consecrated with blood, but priests were as well. Aaron and his sons were consecrated by the application of blood to their right earlobe, thumb, and big toe, and the sprinkling of blood and oil on their garments (Exod. 29:20). On the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered the holy of holies and sprinkled blood on the mercy seat to seek atonement for the sins of the people (Lev. 16:15).

Many events in the passion of Christ include references to blood. During the Last Supper, Jesus redefined the last Passover cup: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Judas betrayed “innocent blood” (Matt. 27:4), and the money he received for his betrayal was referred to as “blood money” (Matt. 27:6). At Jesus’ trial, Pilate washed his hands and declared, “I am innocent of this man’s blood” (Matt. 27:24).

The apostle Paul wrote that believers are justified by the blood of Christ (Rom. 5:9). This justification or righteous standing with God was effected through Christ’s blood sacrifice (Rom. 3:25–26; 5:8). The writer of Hebrews stressed the instrumental role of blood in bringing about forgiveness (Heb. 9:22). In the picture of the ideal community of Christ, the martyrs in the book of Revelation are situated closest to the throne of God because “they triumphed over him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (Rev. 12:11). The blood of the Lamb, Christ, is the effective agent here and throughout the NT, bringing about the indirect contact between sinner and God.

Day of the Lord

The “day of the Lord” is used to refer to the coming time when God will intervene powerfully and decisively in human history to bring about his promised plan.

Included in this “day” are several significant prophetic actions by God. First, the imminent judgments on Israel and Judah by the hand of the Assyrians and the Babylonians are included in the “day of the Lord” (Isa. 3:18 4:1; Amos 5:18–20). Likewise, merged into the “day of the Lord” is God’s judgment on the foreign nations that conspired against Israel and Judah (Isa. 13:1–22; Obad. 15). Finally, the prophets will use the phrase “day of the Lord” to refer to that time of glorious future restoration and blessing that God will establish for both Israel/Judah and for the nations (Isa. 11:10–12; Joel 3:14–18). In this final context the “day of the Lord” is often tightly interconnected with the messianic promise.

In the NT, the phrase “day of the Lord” (Gk. hēmera tou kyriou) is used in much the same manner as in the OT. Some aspects of the day of the Lord were clearly fulfilled by the first coming of Christ. For example, the OT prophet Joel prophesies that on the day of the Lord, God will pour out his Spirit on all kinds of people (Joel 2:28–31), a prophecy that found fulfillment on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17–21). So the OT messianic prophecies connected to the day of the Lord sometimes find fulfillment in events surrounding Christ’s first coming (as seen in the NT), while some await his future, second coming.

Deliverance

Deliverance provides relief or escape from a detrimental situation or the prospect of adverse circumstances. Deliverance may come from God or humans and may be from physical temporal distress or spiritual in nature.

The principal example of deliverance in the OT is the exodus, God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt. The NT continues the exodus theme in that Jesus’ death and resurrection, the foundation for salvation, coincide with the celebration of Passover. This constitutes deliverance in that all humanity is in slavery to the power of sin and subject to the penalty of death. Jesus’ death and resurrection provide the possibility of deliverance, usually called “salvation,” from the power of sin and death (1 Cor. 15:51 57; Gal. 1:4; Col. 1:13; 1 Thess. 1:10).

Throughout the Bible, God provides deliverers and is a deliverer (Judg. 3:15; 2 Sam. 22:2; 2 Kings 13:5; Ps. 40:17). The NT prefers the term “Savior,” applying it to God the Father and to Jesus Christ.

Earth

Israel shared the cosmology of its ancient Near Eastern neighbors. This worldview understood the earth as a “disk” upon the primeval waters (Job 38:13; Isa. 40:22), with the earth having four rims or “corners” (Ps. 135:7; Isa. 11:12). These rims were sealed at the horizon to prevent the influx of cosmic waters. God speaks to Job about the dawn grasping the edges of the earth and shaking the evil people out of it (Job 38:12 13).

Israel’s promised land was built on the sanctuary prototype of Eden (Gen. 13:10; Deut. 6:3; 31:20); both were defined by divine blessing, fertility, legal instruction, secure boundaries, and were orienting points for the world. Canaan was Israel’s new paradise, “flowing with milk and honey” (Exod. 3:8; Num. 13:27). Conversely, the lack of fertile land was tantamount to insecurity and judgment. As Eden illustrated for Israel, any rupture of relationship with God brought alienation between humans, God, and the land; this could ultimately bring exile, as an ethically nauseated land “vomits” people out (Lev. 18:25, 28; 20:22; see also Deut. 4; 30).

For Israel, land involved both God’s covenant promise (Gen. 15:18–21; 35:9–12) and the nation’s faithful obedience (Gen. 17:1; Exod. 19:5; 1 Kings 2:1–4). Yahweh was the earth’s Lord (Ps. 97:5), Judge (Gen. 18:25), and King (Ps. 47:2, 7). Both owner and giver, he was the supreme landlord, who gifted the land to Israel (Exod. 19:5; Lev. 25:23; Josh. 22:19; Ps. 24:1). The land was God’s “inheritance” to give (1 Sam. 26:19; 2 Sam. 14:16; Ps. 79:1; Jer. 2:7). The Levites, however, did not receive an allotment of land as did the other tribes, since God was their “portion” (Num. 18:20; Ps. 73:26). Israel’s obedience was necessary both to enter and to occupy the land (Deut. 8:1–3; 11:8–9; 21:1; 27:1–3). Ironically, the earth swallowed rebellious Israelites when they accused Moses of bringing them “up out of a land flowing with milk and honey” (Num. 16:13). As the conquest shows, however, no tribe was completely obedient, taking its full “inheritance” (Josh. 13:1).

Jerusalem

The central city and capital of ancient Israel. Throughout its history, the city has also been referred to variously as Zion, Jebus, Mount Moriah, and the City of David.

The name “Jerusalem” occurs more than 650 times in the OT, particularly in the history of Israel, and in the NT more than 140 times. The OT prophets used the city as a symbol of God’s dealing with his people and his plan. Jerusalem is viewed collectively as God’s abode, his chosen place, and his sovereignty, while its destruction is also representative of God’s judgment on apostasy among his people (e.g., Jer. 7:1 15; 26:18–19; Mic. 3:12). The rebuilding of the city represents the hope and grace of God (e.g., Isa. 40:1–2; 52:1, 7–8; 60–62; Jer. 30:18–19; 31:38–39; Ezek. 5:5; Hag. 2:6–8; Zech. 8:3–8). Like the writers of the OT, the NT authors spoke of Jerusalem in metaphorical and eschatological terms. Paul used Jerusalem to contrast the old and the new covenants (Gal. 4:24–26), and the writer of Hebrews used it as the place of the new covenant, sealed through the blood of Jesus (Heb. 12:22–24). In Revelation the concept of a new Jerusalem is related to the future kingdom of God (Rev. 3:12; 21:1–22:5).

Jerusalem is located in the Judean hill country, about 2,700 feet above sea level. It borders the Judean desert to the east. The city expanded and contracted in size over various hills and valleys. There are two major ridges (Eastern and Western Hills) separated by the Tyropoeon Valley. The Eastern Hill contains a saddle, the Ophel Hill, and north of this is the traditional site of Mount Moriah, where later the temple was constructed. The Eastern Hill was always occupied, since the only water source is the Gihon spring, located in the Kidron Valley. Two other ridges were important for the city, as they were used for extramural suburbs, cemeteries, and quarries. To the east is the Mount of Olives, which is separated from the Eastern Hill by the Kidron Valley. To the west of the Western Hill is the Central Ridge Route, separated by the Hinnom Valley.

Moon

The ancient Jewish calendar was tied to the phases of the moon, with the months beginning with each new moon. The new moon was celebrated with multiple offerings (Num. 28:11 15). Festival days were calculated from the new moon.

The moon figures prominently in prophecy. At the day of the Lord, the sun and the moon will be darkened (e.g., Joel 2:10). While most ancient Near Eastern cultures worshiped the moon, Israel was forbidden such worship (Deut. 4:19).

The account of the moon’s creation recorded in Gen. 1:16 does not mention the moon by name. This is in keeping with the general tone of the creation story, wherein God, almost incidentally, creates the things that were worshiped by contemporary cultures.

Remnant

The central idea of the remnant concept or remnant theology is that in the midst of seemingly total apostasy and the consequential terrible judgment and/or destruction, God always has a small, faithful group that he delivers and works through to bring blessing.

Early allusions to the idea of a remnant are introduced in the book of Genesis. Noah and his family (Gen. 6 9) are the remnant that is saved during the flood, when all other people are destroyed in judgment. The remnant theme surfaces in several other places in the OT. For example, when Elijah complains to God that he is the only faithful one left, God corrects him by pointing out that he has maintained a remnant of seven thousand faithful ones in the midst of national apostasy (1 Kings 19:10–18).

However, it is in the OT prophets that the remnant theme flowers into full blossom. The Hebrew words for “remnant” (she’ar, she’erit) occur over one hundred times in the prophetic books. The prophets proclaim that since Israel/Judah has broken the covenant and refuses to repent and turn back to God, judgment is coming. This judgment takes the form of terrible foreign invasions and destruction, followed by exile from the land. Thus, the northern kingdom, Israel, is destroyed and exiled by the Assyrians in 722 BC, and the southern kingdom, Judah, is destroyed and exiled by the Babylonians in 587/586 BC. Yet the prophets also prophesy hope and restoration beyond the judgment. They declare that many will be destroyed in the judgment, but not all. They prophesy that a remnant will survive, and that God will work through the remnant to bring blessings and restoration. Usually the remnant is identified as those who go into exile but who likewise hope to return to the land. The reestablishment of the remnant is often connected with the inauguration of the messianic age.

The remnant theme continues into the NT, but it is not nearly as prominent in the NT as it is in the OT prophets. The term “remnant” does not occur in the Gospels, although the idea is implied in several texts. Thus, in Matt. 7:13–14 Jesus states, “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Likewise, in Matt. 22:14 Jesus summarizes his preceding parable by stating, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Spirit

In the world of the Bible, a person was viewed as a unity of being with the pervading breath and thus imprint of the loving and holy God. The divine-human relationship consequently is portrayed in the Bible as predominantly spiritual in nature. God is spirit, and humankind may communicate with him in the spiritual realm. The ancients believed in an invisible world of spirits that held most, if not all, reasons for natural events and human actions in the visible world.

The OT writers used the common Hebrew word ruakh (“wind” or “breath”) to describe force and even life from the God of the universe. In its most revealing first instance, God’s ruakh hovered above the waters of the uncreated world (Gen. 1:2). In the next chapter of Genesis a companion word, neshamah (“breath”), is used as God breathed into Adam’s nostrils “the breath of life” (2:7). God thus breathed his own image into the first human being. Humankind’s moral obligations in the remainder of the Bible rest on this breathing act of God.

The OT authors often employ ruakh simply to denote air in motion or breath from a person’s mouth. However, special instances of the use of ruakh include references to the very life of a person (Gen. 7:22; Ps. 104:29), an attitude or emotion (Gen. 41:8; Num. 14:24; Ps. 77:3), the negative traits of pride or temper (Ps. 76:12), a generally good disposition (Prov. 11:13; 18:14), the seat of conversion (Ezek. 18:31; 36:26), and determination given by God (2 Chron. 36:22; Hag. 1:14).

The NT authors used the Greek term pneuma to convey the concept of spirit. In the world of the NT, the human spirit was understood as the divine part of human reality as distinct from the material realm. The spirit appears conscious and capable of rejoicing (Luke 1:47). Jesus was described by Luke as growing and becoming “strong in spirit” (1:80). In “spirit” Jesus “knew” what certain teachers of the law were thinking in their hearts (Mark 2:8). Likewise, Jesus “was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” at the sickness of a loved one (John 11:33). At the end of his life, Jesus gave up his spirit (John 19:30).

According to Jesus, the spirit is the place of God’s new covenant work of conversion and worship (John 3:5; 4:24). He declared the human spirit’s dependence on God and ascribed great virtue to those people who were “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3).

Human beings who were possessed by an evil spirit were devalued in Mediterranean society. In various places in the Synoptic Gospels and the book of Acts, either Jesus or the disciples were involved in exorcisms of such spirits (Matt. 8:28 33; Mark 1:21–28; 7:24–30; 9:14–29; 5:1–20; 9:17–29; Luke 8:26–33; 9:37–42; Acts 5:16).

The apostle Paul pointed to the spirit as the seat of conversion (Rom. 7:6; 1 Cor. 5:5). He described believers as facing a struggle between flesh and spirit in regard to living a sanctified life (Rom. 8:2–17; Gal. 5:16–17). A contradiction seems apparent in Pauline thinking as he appears to embrace Greek dualistic understanding of body (flesh) and spirit while likewise commanding that “spirit, soul and body be kept blameless” (1 Thess. 5:23). However, the Christian struggle between flesh and Spirit (the Holy Spirit) centers around the believer’s body being dead because of sin but the spirit being alive because of the crucified and resurrected Christ (Rom. 8:10). Believers therefore are encouraged to lead a holistic life, lived in the Spirit.

Sun

The sun was worshiped as a god or goddess in all the nations around Israel in OT times, and the polemic against sun worship in Deut. 4:19; 17:3; Jer. 8:2; Job 31:26 28 suggests that sun worship also made inroads into Israel. By way of contrast, the OT attests to the sun’s created status (Gen. 1:16) and counts it as subject to God’s control (e.g., Josh. 10:12–13).

In the OT, the sun often is associated with and symbolic of life (e.g., Eccles. 7:11; cf. Ps. 58:8) or justice (Ps. 19:6; Job 38:13; Mal. 4:2; cf. 2 Sam. 23:3–4). The darkening of the sun is presented as a sign of judgment heralding the day of the Lord (Isa. 13:10; Ezek. 32:7; Joel 2:10, 31; 3:15; Amos 8:9; Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24; Rev. 6:12; 9:2), which many associate with the darkness that fell during the crucifixion (Matt. 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44).

Wonders

Because Scripture sees all things as providentially arranged and sustained by God’s sovereign power at all times (Heb. 1:3), miracles are not aberrations in an otherwise closed and mechanical universe. Nor are miracles raw demonstrations of divinity designed to overcome prejudice or unbelief and to convince people of the existence of God (Mark 8:11 12). Still less are they clever conjuring tricks involving some kind of deception that can be otherwise explained on a purely scientific basis. Rather, God in his infinite wisdom sometimes does unusual and extraordinary things to call attention to himself and his activity. Miracles are divinely ordained acts of God that dramatically alert us to the presence of his glory and power and advance his saving purposes in redemptive history.

In the OT, miracles are not evenly distributed but rather are found in greater number during times of great redemptive significance, such as the exodus and the conquest of Canaan. Miracles were performed also during periods of apostasy, such as in the days of the ninth-century prophets Elijah and Elisha. Common to both of these eras is the powerful demonstration of the superiority of God over pagan deities (Exod. 7–12; 1 Kings 18:20–40).

In the NT, miracles often are acts of compassion, but more significantly they attest the exalted status of Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 2:22) and the saving power of his word (Heb. 2:3–4). In the Synoptic Gospels, they reveal the coming of God’s kingdom and the conquest of Satan’s dominion (Matt. 8:16–17; 12:22–30; Mark 3:27). They point to the person of Jesus as the promised Messiah of OT Scripture (Matt. 4:23; 11:4–6). John shows a preference for the word “signs,” and his Gospel is structured around them (John 20:30–31). According to John, the signs that Jesus performed were such that only the one who stood in a unique relationship to the Father as the Son of God could do them.

Just as entrenched skepticism is injurious to faith, so too is naive credulity, for although signs and wonders witness to God, false prophets also perform them “to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:24). Christians are to exercise discernment and not be led astray by such impostors (Matt. 7:15–20).

The relationship between miracles and faith is not as straightforward as sometimes supposed. Miracles do not necessarily produce faith, nor does faith necessarily produce miracles. Miracles were intended to bring about the faith that leads to eternal life (John 20:31), but not all who witnessed them believed (John 10:32). Additionally, Jesus regarded a faith that rested only on the miracle itself as precarious (Mark 8:11–13; John 2:23–25; 4:48), though better than no faith at all (John 10:38). Faith that saves must ultimately find its grounding in the person of Jesus as the Son of God.

It is also clear that although Jesus always encouraged faith in those who came to him for help (Mark 9:23), and that he deliberately limited his miraculous powers in the presence of unbelief (Mark 6:5), many of his miracles were performed on those who did not or could not exercise faith (Matt. 12:22; Mark 1:23–28; 5:1–20; Luke 14:1–4).

The fact that Jesus performed miracles was never an issue; rather, his opponents disputed the source of his power (Mark 3:22). Arguments about his identity were to be settled by appeal not to miracles but to the word of God (Matt. 22:41–46).

Zion

Jerusalem was held by the Jebusites, who mocked David’s forces. But David captured the city, which from then on bore the title “City of David,” also called “fortress of Zion” (2 Sam. 5:5 9). David made it his capital. Later, Solomon built the temple there, making it also the religious center of the nation (1 Kings 8:1–14). “Zion” (of uncertain meaning) sometimes is a designation for the city of Jerusalem. It is said to have towers, ramparts, and citadels (Ps. 48:12–13), and Jeremiah prophesied its razing (Jer. 26:18). But it is also a designation for the mountain on which the city is built (Isa. 24:23; Zech. 8:3).

Since the God of Israel has a special relationship with Israel and its king, God’s purposes for the world often are couched in terms of Mount Zion. God set his king on Mount Zion (Ps. 2:6). The psalmist praises God, who has established Zion “forever” (Ps. 48:1–8). It is there that God is said to reign (Isa. 24:23). Nevertheless, the king on David’s throne and the inhabitants of Zion can be censured by God and found wanting (Amos 6:1). In fact, it is precisely because God identifies with the city that the people bear particular responsibility to represent his character. Thus, the time came when Zion was indeed “plowed like a field” (Mic. 3:12). Lamentations mourns Zion’s destruction numerous times. After God’s people spent a period of time in exile, God brought them back to Zion (Ps. 126). Although the ancient city was again destroyed by the Romans, Zion has become in the NT a symbol of the present heavenly dwelling place of God, entered into by faith (Heb. 12:22), and the future destiny of the saints (Rev. 14:1).

Direct Matches

Darkness

At the beginning of creation, the darkness “over the surface of the deep” is not a primordial principle of chaos to be combated by God (as sometimes suggested), but simply something that prepares for his creation of light in Gen. 1:3. The “thick and dreadful darkness” that came over sleeping Abram (Gen. 15:12) was an indicator of the reception of a mysterious divine revelation involving a manifestation of God in the form of a smoking fire pot and a blazing torch (15:17). Likewise, the thick cloud and darkness that shrouded Mount Sinai (Deut. 4:11; 5:23; Ps. 18:7–10) was a sign of God’s presence and also hid him from the sight of the Israelites.

A plague of darkness was inflicted on Egypt as a prelude to the exodus deliverance (Exod. 10) and made darkness a sign and symbol of God’s judgment. In prophetic teaching, the coming “day of the Lord” in judgment upon Israel and the nations is “a day of darkness and gloom” (Joel 2:2, 31; Amos 5:18–20; Zeph.1:14–15). The wicked will be thrust into darkness (Prov. 4:19; Isa. 8:22). Jesus used such imagery when speaking of punishment in hell (e.g., Matt. 22:13; 25:30). The moral life of a believer involves turning away from deeds of darkness (Eph. 5:8–11; 1 Thess. 5:4–8).

Darkness is associated with Sheol and death (e.g., Job 10:21; 17:13) and so also becomes a metaphor of a situation of distress, especially life-threatening danger (Ps. 107:10, 14). In contrast, the dispelling of darkness becomes a metaphor of God’s saving help in Isa. 9:2: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light” (cf. Isa. 10:17). That salvation will include the provision of a future Davidic ruler (Isa. 9:6–7), so that the coming of Jesus is the dawning of light (John 1:5; 12:35).

This rich OT background gives a context to the three-hour period of darkness as Jesus hung on the cross (Matt. 27:45). This began at the sixth hour (i.e., noon) and signaled that the judgment day was taking place as Jesus suffered in the place of sinners (cf. Amos 8:9).

Day of the Lord

The “day of the Lord” is a phrase used frequently by the OT prophets as well as by several NT writers. In general, it is used to refer to the coming time when God will intervene powerfully and decisively in human history to bring about his promised plan.

The OT prophets also use other similar phrases such as “the day,” “the day when,” and “that day” to mean the same thing as the “day of the Lord” (Heb. yom yhwh). In regard to the future, the prophets speak regularly of imminent judgment and future restoration, both for Israel/Judah and for the nations. Some of their prophecies find fulfillment after only a few months or years (the Assyrian and Babylonian invasion), and some of their prophecies are fulfilled generations later by the return of the exiles under Ezra and Nehemiah. Some are fulfilled by the first coming of Christ, and some still await fulfillment. In poetic fashion, the OT prophets often telescope all the multifaceted significant prophetic events of the future into one spectacular dramatic time called “the day of the Lord.”

Included in this “day” are several significant prophetic actions by God. First, the imminent judgments on Israel and Judah by the hand of the Assyrians and the Babylonians are included in the “day of the Lord” (Isa. 3:18–4:1; Amos 5:18–20). Likewise, merged into the “day of the Lord” is God’s judgment on the foreign nations that conspired against Israel and Judah (Isa. 13:1–22; Obad. 15). Finally, the prophets will use the phrase “day of the Lord” to refer to that time of glorious future restoration and blessing that God will establish for both Israel/Judah and for the nations (Isa. 11:10–12; Joel 3:14–18). In this final context the “day of the Lord” is often tightly interconnected with the messianic promise.

The NT writers often employ this important phrase from the OT, but they use it primarily to refer specifically to the future, second coming of Christ (1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Thess. 2:2; 2 Pet. 3:10, 12). Just as the OT uses synonyms for the “day of the Lord,” the NT uses terms such as “that day,” “those days,” “the great day,” or “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” as synonyms for the “day of the Lord,” the time of Christ’s glorious return (e.g., Mark 13:24; 1 Cor. 1:8; Rev. 6:17; 16:14).

Dreams

In the ancient world, dreams often were considered to be a means by which God communicated to humans. The Bible has several well-known examples where God speaks in dreams to both Israelites and non-Israelites.

In Gen. 20 Abimelek, king of Gerar, is warned by God in a dream not to take Sarah, Abraham’s wife, as his wife. In the dream, Abimelek pleads his clear conscience, and God tells him to return Sarah to Abraham.

God also speaks to non-Israelites in dreams in the Joseph story. First, Joseph is imprisoned with the royal cupbearer and baker (Gen. 40). Each man has a dream about his future and is disturbed that he cannot interpret it. Joseph, declaring that the interpretation of dreams belongs to God, tells the cupbearer that his dream is a sign that he will soon be restored to his place of favor in Pharaoh’s court. The baker’s dream, although superficially similar, is a sign that he will soon be executed. Both interpretations come true soon afterward.

Two years later, when Pharaoh has a dream that troubles him greatly, Joseph interprets it as a sign of coming famine (Gen. 41). Joseph’s God-given ability to interpret dreams and his administrative skill keep Egypt from starving to death, which opens political doors for Joseph and paves the way for his entire family to move to Egypt.

Two other dreams occur in Genesis, both dreamed by Jacob. In Gen. 28:12 he sees the famous “stairway to heaven” at Bethel, where God reaffirms his promise to make his descendants numerous. In Gen. 31:10–13 Jacob claims that his scheme for taking much of Laban’s flocks came to him in a dream, but there is no indication of this in the previous narrative (30:25–43). Laban, however, is told by God in a dream “not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad” (31:24) as he is pursuing him in the hill country of Gilead.

Dreams are also a way of relaying prophetic oracles to Israel, and apparently dreams are similar to visions (Num. 12:6), although the latter occur during waking hours. Prophetic dreams are to be tested, and dreamers who are false or lead people away from God are to be ignored (Jer. 23:25–32; 27:9; 29:8; Zech. 10:2) or even put to death (Deut. 13:1–5). God may also choose to withhold dreams from those who ask. Such is the case with Saul (1 Sam. 28:6). By contrast, God speaks with Solomon in a dream (1 Kings 3:5, 15).

In Dan. 2, similar to the Joseph story, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has a dream that none in his court can describe or interpret. God reveals the dream and its meaning to Daniel in a vision: the statue in the dream is made of four different metals, which represent kings, and its gold head is Nebuchadnezzar. Later, Daniel interprets another of the king’s dreams, this one about an enormous tree: the tree is Nebuchadnezzar, and only a stump will remain because of his sins and refusal to acknowledge that “Heaven rules” (Dan. 4:26).

Dreams in the OT can also refer to something immaterial, ephemeral, of no substance (Job 20:8; Ps. 73:20; Eccles. 5:3, 7; Isa. 29:8).

In Jesus’ birth narrative in Matthew’s Gospel, dreams play an active role. Joseph is told that Mary is to conceive by the Holy Spirit (1:20); the magi are told to avoid Herod after seeing the infant Jesus (2:12); Joseph is told to flee with his family to Egypt (2:12), and later that it is safe to return (2:19) and settle in Nazareth (2:21–23). Also in Matthew, Pilate’s wife is warned in a dream not to have anything to do with Jesus (27:19). In Acts 2:17 Peter says that dreams will be a sign of God once again pouring out his Spirit in the last days (citing Joel 2:28).

Spirit

Old Testament

The OT writers used the common Hebrew word ruakh (“wind” or “breath”) to describe force and even life from the God of the universe. In its most revealing first instance, God’s ruakh hovered above the waters of the uncreated world (Gen. 1:2). In the next chapter of Genesis a companion word, neshamah (“breath”) is used as God breathed into Adam’s nostrils “the breath of life” (2:7). God thus breathed his own image into the first human being. Humankind’s moral obligations in the remainder of the Bible rest on this breathing act of God.

On occasion in the OT, spirits are labeled “evil” (Judg. 9:23 ESV, NRSV, NASB). In the case of an evil spirit tormenting King Saul, the spirit was identified as “from the Lord” (1 Sam. 16:14–15, 23). According to the perspective of the ancients, once a person was possessed by a divine spirit, departure of such a spirit meant possession by a different spirit (1 Sam. 16:14). Such a perspective was common in the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds and stemmed from the religious fervor of Semitic nomads.

New Testament

The NT authors used the Greek term pneuma to convey the concept of spirit. In the world of the NT, the human spirit was understood as the divine part of human reality as distinct from the material realm. The spirit appears conscious and capable of rejoicing (Luke 1:47). Jesus was described by Luke as growing and becoming “strong in spirit” (1:80). In “spirit” Jesus “knew” what certain teachers of the law were thinking in their hearts (Mark 2:8). Likewise, Jesus “was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” at the sickness of a loved one (John 11:33). At the end of his life, Jesus gave up his spirit (John 19:30).

Human beings who were possessed by an evil spirit were devalued in Mediterranean society. In various places in the Synoptic Gospels and the book of Acts, either Jesus or the disciples were involved in exorcisms of such spirits (Matt. 8:28–33; Mark 1:21–28; 7:24–30; 9:14–29; 5:1–20; 9:17–29; Luke 8:26–33; 9:37–42; Acts 5:16).

Holy Spirit

God’s Spirit is described in the opening chapters of Genesis as partaking in creation. His Spirit likewise is seen throughout the OT as an agent in establishing God’s people as a nation and a people of his own. Leaders of Israel were chosen and possessed by the Spirit to assist in leading the people into God’s will (Deut. 34:9; Judg. 6:34; 15:14; 1 Sam. 11:6; 16:23). Typically, the moment the Spirit of God descended on a leader, miraculous fortitude, wisdom, and power resulted. The Spirit also provided whatever was needed for God’s prophets—courage, inspiration, and miracles (Num. 11:25; 1 Sam. 10:10; Isa. 11:2; Ezek. 2:2; Dan. 4:8; Joel 2:28). The office of prophet included prophesying both in the king’s court and among the people of the land. As the Spirit came on a prophet of God, the prophet would correct the king’s and others’ behavior and at times foretell the future or the outcome of possible decisions.

In the Synoptic Gospels, the Holy Spirit functions in much the same way as in the OT. One such function appears in Luke’s birth narrative when the angel answers Mary’s question as to how she might conceive while a virgin (Luke 1:34): “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (1:35). The Greek verb translated “will overshadow you” is used in the LXX to describe God’s protective nature (Pss. 91:4; 140:7). Likewise, the coming of God’s Spirit presented empowerment (Acts 1:8). Thus, Mary received both divine empowerment and protection. As the birth narrative continues, Luke records how other characters in the story, Elizabeth and Zechariah, were filled with the Spirit when Mary came to visit while pregnant with Jesus and when John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah, was born (1:41, 67). The evangelists record the Spirit descending on Jesus at the time of his baptism (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32–34) and describe him as full of the Spirit when he was led by the Spirit into the desert (Luke 4:1). Finally, in John’s Gospel the Spirit is the promised comforter whom Jesus will give to his followers. He will testify about Christ (John 15:26).

In the new covenant the Spirit-possession of the OT gave way to believers’ reception of the Spirit at conversion. In Acts the Holy Spirit is presented as instrumental in carrying out the mission of the church, providing power and signs as well as moving and motivating missionaries. The apostle Paul attributes to the Holy Spirit the function of imbuing believers and the church with an assortment of virtues (Gal. 5:22), gifts (Rom. 12:7–8; 1 Cor. 12:1–11), and ministers (Eph. 4:7–13). He uses the idea of life in the Spirit as a point of contrast with life in the flesh. In John’s letters the Spirit is described as providing discernment of truth (1 John 4:6). See also Holy Spirit.

Sun

The sun was worshiped as a god or goddess in all the nations around Israel in OT times, and the polemic against sun worship in Deut. 4:19; 17:3; Jer. 8:2; Job 31:26–28 suggests that sun worship also made inroads into Israel. By way of contrast, the OT attests to the sun’s created status (Gen. 1:16) and counts it as subject to God’s control (e.g., Josh. 10:12–13).

Secondary Matches

The following suggestions occured because Joel 2:28-32 is mentioned in the definition.

Baptism in the Spirit

The outpouring of the Spirit that was prophesied in the OT to take place in the last days, in connection with the arrival of the Messiah.

Spirit baptism in the Bible. The OT prophets had spoken of both the Spirit of God coming upon the Messiah (e.g., Isa. 11:2; 42:1; 61:1) and a giving or pouring out of the Spirit in the last days (e.g., Isa. 32:15; 44:3; Ezek. 36:27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28). Peter connects the giving of the Spirit with Jesus’ being received by the Father and being granted messianic authority (Acts 2:33–38). The experience of Cornelius in particular associates the pouring out of the Spirit (Acts 10:45) with a baptism with the Spirit (11:16).

Seven passages in the NT directly speak of someone being baptized in/with the Spirit. Four of these passages refer to John the Baptist’s prediction that Jesus will baptize people in/with the Spirit in contrast to his own water baptism (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33). In Matthew and Luke, Jesus’ baptism is referred to as a baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Two passages refer to Jesus’ prediction that the disciples would receive Spirit baptism, which occurred at Pentecost. As recorded in Acts 2, tongues of fire came to rest on each of them, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues. As the disciples spoke to the Jews who had gathered in Jerusalem for the festival, three thousand were converted. Acts 1:5 contains Jesus’ prediction of this baptism with the Spirit, which Peter recounts in 11:16.

The final reference occurs in 1 Cor. 12:13, where Paul says, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” Thus, Christians form one body through their common experience of immersion in the one Spirit.

A second baptism? While in 1 Cor. 12 Paul seems to refer to an experience that all Christians undergo at conversion, there are several incidents in Acts where the reception of the Spirit occurs after conversion. The question then arises as to whether there is a separate “baptism in/with the Holy Spirit” distinct from the Spirit’s initial work of regeneration and incorporation into the body of Christ at conversion and whether this two-stage process is normative for the church. This belief in a second baptism is particularly prominent in Pentecostal traditions.

Examples such as Acts 2; 8; 10; 19 are commonly used to support the view of a second and subsequent experience of Spirit baptism. In Acts 2 the disciples are already converted and wait for the Spirit, who comes to them at Pentecost. In Acts 8 the Samaritans first respond to Philip’s preaching and receive water baptism. However, they receive the Spirit only after Peter and John come from Jerusalem and pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit. In Acts 10 Cornelius is a God-fearing Gentile, and after Peter visits him, the Spirit falls on his household. In Acts 19 Paul finds some disciples in Ephesus. After he lays hands on them, the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and they begin to speak in tongues and prophesy.

In understanding these experiences, it must be remembered that Acts describes a transitional period for the church. Acts 2 in particular recounts the initial giving of the Spirit under the new covenant. It is possible, then, to see the events in Acts 8; 10 as the coming of the Spirit upon two other people groups, the Samaritans and the Gentiles. Acts 2:38 and 5:32 indicate that the apostles expected the reception of the Spirit to accompany conversion, and this appears to be the case in the rest of the book. Acts 19 narrates an incomplete conversion, where the people had only experienced John’s baptism and receive the Spirit after Paul baptizes them “in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Filled with the Spirit. Although the NT does not support a theology of a second Spirit baptism, it does commonly mention an experience of being “filled” with the Spirit. The concept of being “filled with the Spirit” frequently occurs in contexts referring to spiritual growth, such as in Eph. 5:18, where Paul exhorts, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” Apparently, this filling can occur numerous times. It can lead to worship of and thanksgiving to God (Eph. 5:19–20). It can also result in empowerment for ministry.

The immediate consequence of the disciples’ filling in Acts 2:4 is speaking in tongues to the various Jews gathered in Jerusalem, and in 4:31 they are empowered to speak “the word of God boldly.” Fullness of the Spirit can also be a characteristic of a believer’s life, such as in Acts 6:3, where the seven men chosen to look after the widows were to be men “known to be full of the Spirit.”

Baptism of Fire

John the Baptist announces that one more powerful than he will “baptize . . . with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16). A baptism of fire connotes judgment, yet Luke characterizes this as “good news” (Luke 3:17–18), for judgment signals the arrival of God’s eschatological kingdom in Jesus (cf. 12:49). John’s words evoke Isa. 4:4, which announces that Jerusalem/Zion will be cleansed “by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire.” They also resonate with numerous OT and intertestamental texts that predict God’s fiery judgment (e.g., Zeph. 1:18; Mal. 4:1). As a sign of the end times (Joel 2:28; Acts 2), God’s eschatological community, the church, experiences the baptism (1 Cor. 12:23) and fire (1 Thess. 5:19) of the Spirit.

Baptism with the Spirit

The outpouring of the Spirit that was prophesied in the OT to take place in the last days, in connection with the arrival of the Messiah.

Day of Christ

Included in this “day” are several significant prophetic actions by God. First, the imminent judgments on Israel and Judah by the hand of the Assyrians and the Babylonians are included in the “day of the Lord” (Isa. 3:18–4:1; Amos 5:18–20). Likewise, merged into the “day of the Lord” is God’s judgment on the foreign nations that conspired against Israel and Judah (Isa. 13:1–22; Obad. 15). Finally, the prophets will use the phrase “day of the Lord” to refer to that time of glorious future restoration and blessing that God will establish for both Israel/Judah and for the nations (Isa. 11:10–12; Joel 3:14–18). In this final context the “day of the Lord” is often tightly interconnected with the messianic promise.

Filled With the Spirit

The outpouring of the Spirit that was prophesied in the OT to take place in the last days, in connection with the arrival of the Messiah.

Holy Spirit

In Christian theology, the Third Person of the Trinity. The usage derives from the NT, in which the divine Spirit is treated as an independent person who is instrumental in salvation and is worthy of the praise accorded to both the Father and the Son (John 14:16–23; Rom. 8:26–27; 1 Pet. 1:2).

Old Testament

The scarcity of the phrase “Holy Spirit” in the OT (only in Ps. 51:11; Isa. 63:10–11) does not imply lack of interest or importance. While it should be recognized that in the OT the person of the Holy Spirit receives nothing like the systematic reflection found in the NT, when one includes correlative terms, such as “Spirit of God,” “my Spirit,” “wind,” or “breath,” it is apparent that OT writers attributed great significance to God’s Spirit. Thus, the Spirit was at work in the beginning of creation (Gen. 1:2). Adam and Eve are uniquely given life by the breath of God (Gen. 2:7). The Spirit enables the building of the tabernacle (Exod. 31:3), gives voice to the message of the prophets (Num. 11:29; cf. 2 Pet. 1:21), empowers Israel’s leaders (1 Sam. 16:13), and provides access to God’s presence (Ps. 51:11). Yet in all this, the work of the Spirit in the OT is sporadic, occasional, and localized. Thus, the prophets long for a new age when God’s people will more perfectly enjoy the Spirit’s presence (Isa. 32:15; 44:3; 61:1; Joel 2:28).

New Testament

The Spirit in the ministry of Christ. The NT views the OT prophetic hope for the Spirit as fulfilled in and through Jesus Christ (Luke 4:18–21). The unique relationship between God’s Holy Spirit and the person and work of Jesus explains the systemic reflection that the Holy Spirit receives in the NT. This is signaled at the very beginning of Jesus’ life, when the Holy Spirit “comes upon” Mary, overshadowing her with “the power of the Most High” (1:35). Similarly, at the start of Jesus’ public ministry, the Holy Spirit “descended on him” at baptism (3:22). This anointing by the Spirit initiates and empowers Jesus’ public ministry, from his preaching, to his miraculous works, to his perfect obedience (Luke 4:14–18; John 3:34; Acts 10:38). Even his sacrificial death is accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit (Heb. 9:14).

Significantly, just as the Holy Spirit empowered the life and death of Jesus, so too is the Spirit responsible for his resurrection and characteristic of his glorious reign. Death is not a defeat for Jesus: he is “vindicated by the Spirit” (1 Tim. 3:16), “appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4; cf. 1 Pet. 3:18). Furthermore, at his resurrection, Jesus comes into a new phase of full and perfect possession of the eternal Spirit as the reward for his obedience. So complete is this union that Paul at one point claims that “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17).

The Spirit in the church and the believer. The church and its members are the immediate beneficiaries of Christ’s spiritual fullness. Since Jesus is now a “life-giving spirit” through his resurrection and ascension (1 Cor. 15:45), he is able to fulfill the promise of Spirit baptism (Luke 3:16). This baptism takes place in the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, which marks the birth of the NT church. The apostles, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, provide true and powerful testimony about Jesus (John 16:4–15), testimony that serves as the church’s foundation and principal tradition (Eph. 2:20). The work of the Spirit continues within the church in the postapostolic age, uniting its members in Christ for God’s holy purpose (Eph. 2:22).

This same outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the salvation of individual believers. Believers receive the Spirit by faith (Gal. 3:14). The Spirit in turn unites them to Christ and all his benefits (Gal. 3:2; Eph. 1:3), including his life (Heb. 4:15–16), suffering (Phil. 1:29; 1 Pet. 4:14), death (Rom. 6:3), resurrection (Rom. 6:5), justification (Rom. 4:25), and glorious reign in heaven (Phil. 3:20). These benefits, though undoubtedly perfected and consummated only at Christ’s return (Phil. 1:6), are characteristic of believers’ present experience, enjoyed now because the Spirit dwells within them as the “firstfruits” of the harvest to come (Rom. 8:23; cf. Gal. 2:19–20). This indwelling of the Spirit results in new birth and new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), a newness identified with the life that Christ received in his resurrection (Rom. 8:11).

For this reason, believers are urged to further the work of the Spirit in their lives until the bodily resurrection of all God’s people. They are to cultivate the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22), and they are correspondingly warned not to “grieve the Holy Spirit” (Eph. 4:30). Furthermore, since new life is initiated by the Spirit (John 3:6–8), Christians are to remain in that Spirit, not turning aside in reliance on vain and useless principles (Gal. 3:1–5). Conversely, they are to be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18), putting off the old person and putting on the new (4:22). This filling grounds every aspect of the believer’s life, from obedience, to worship, to the hope of resurrection. The Spirit, in uniting believers to all the riches of Christ and his resurrection, is therefore central in the work of salvation. See also Spirit.

Plagues

The plagues unleashed against Egypt (Exod. 7:1–11:10) demonstrated to Pharaoh (Exod. 9:14), to the Israelites (Exod. 10:2), and to “all the earth” (Exod. 9:16; Rom. 9:17) God’s sovereign control over nature on behalf of his covenant people. Both the timing and the intensity of the plagues indicate that these were not random natural phenomena. The unfolding of the whole series of plagues would have taken at least nine months.

Many of the plagues attacked the multiplicity of Egyptian deities (Exod. 12:12). All the water turned bloodred (Exod. 7:17–21 [for the idiom, see Joel 2:31]), and there was death in the Nile, ironically considered the lifeblood of Osiris, god of the underworld. Hapi was god of the Nile, responsible for the flooding that deposited rich soil on the farmlands. Frogs challenged Heqet, a fertility deity, making their way into Pharaoh’s bedroom. Cattle were sacred; Hathor was represented as a cow with the solar disk between her horns. Boils on humans and animals meant that the Egyptian magicians could not stand before Moses, possibly an attack on priests, who were to be unblemished. Deep darkness covered all Egypt (Exod. 10:21–22), a direct affront to Re, the sun god. Darkness and the death of the firstborn were especially sharp attacks because the sun was the primary deity, and Pharaoh was its earthly representative. There are echoes in Scripture of these plagues as God used natural phenomena to bring chastisement to his erring people, and they foreshadow the eschatological devastations in Revelation.

Presence of God

The presence of God is one of the most significant themes in the Bible. At the very heart of worshiping God and having a relationship with him is experiencing his presence. Related themes such as God’s power and glory are also inextricably interconnected to his presence.

Old Testament

The biblical story begins with humankind experiencing and enjoying God’s presence in a very personal way, as God walks with Adam and Eve in the garden. Adam and Eve, however, soon disobey God and are thus driven out of the garden and away from the close, intimate presence of God (Gen. 3:22–24). Throughout the rest of Scripture, God unfolds his plan to restore this lost relationship, a relationship that centers on his presence.

Although God makes his presence known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Genesis, it is in Exodus that the presence of God becomes even more central to the story. When God first calls Moses, he promises his powerful presence, declaring, “I will be with you” (Exod. 3:12). The power of God’s presence is revealed as God guides and protects the fleeing Israelites in the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (13:21–22). The presence of God also plays a critical role in the formal covenant relationship that God makes with Israel at Mount Sinai (Exod. 19). At the heart of the covenant is a threefold statement by God: “I will be your God”; “you will be my people”; “I will dwell in your midst” (cf. Exod. 6:7; Lev. 26:11–12). Following up on his promise to dwell in their midst, God next gives the people explicit instructions on how to build the tabernacle, the place where he will dwell (Exod. 25:8–9). Throughout the latter chapters of Exodus, God’s glory is clearly associated with his presence (33:12–23; 40:34–38); in fact, God’s presence and glory are nearly synonymous.

God’s presence resides in the tabernacle until Solomon builds the temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 6–7). At that time, the presence and glory of God then fill the holy place of the temple and dwell there. Over the next four hundred years, however, Israel and Judah repeatedly abandon God and turn to worshiping idols. The people repeatedly refuse to repent and to listen to God’s prophets. Eventually, therefore, their idolatrous sin and terrible social injustices drive God out of their midst. Ezekiel 8–10 describes this somber, momentous event as the glory and presence of God depart from the temple. Before long, as the prophets warned, the Babylonians capture Jerusalem and destroy both the city and the empty temple. It is significant to remember that when the temple is later rebuilt during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the presence and glory of God do not come back to fill the new temple. Thus, from the departure of God in Ezek. 10 until the arrival of Jesus Christ, the Jews live without the powerful presence of God dwelling in their midst.

Although the prophets had warned Israel and Judah that they would lose the presence of God as part of the imminent judgment, they also promised a powerful and glorious restoration of God’s presence in the messianic future. Furthermore, both Ezekiel and Joel promise that God will actually put his Spirit directly within his people (Ezek. 36:26–28; Joel 2:28). No longer limited to the holy of holies in the temple, under the new covenant the presence of God will actually indwell each of his people.

New Testament

In the NT, the coming of Jesus is clearly identified as the new manifestation of God’s presence that was foretold in the prophets (Matt. 1:22–23; John 1:14). Jesus’ entry into the temple is highly significant, therefore, because it signals a return of the presence of God to the temple after an absence of over six hundred years (Matt. 21:12–17; John 2:12–24). Ironically, in the temple Jesus encounters only hostility and hypocritical worship; the presence of God is rejected once again.

After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit falls on his followers, filling them with God’s powerful presence (Acts 2:1–13), thus fulfilling the prophecies of Ezekiel and Joel. This new presence of God does not come to dwell in the temple; rather, it comes upon believers to dwell within them in a much more personal and relational way.

As the biblical story reaches its culmination at the end of the book of Revelation, God declares, “God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (21:3). The story has gone full circle: God has returned his people to the garden and come to dwell in their midst so that they can enjoy his wonderful presence eternally.

Propecy

The Phenomenon of Prophecy

A prophet is a messenger of God, a person to whom God entrusts his message to an individual or to a nation. Indeed, the last book in the OT is named “Malachi,” which means “my messenger.” Isaiah heard God ask, “Whom shall I send?” and he cried out, “Send me!” (Isa. 6:8). A good template for understanding the phenomenon is Moses and Aaron. Moses was to tell Aaron what to say, and Aaron would say it. “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet’ ” (Exod. 7:1).

Prophets such as Isaiah were privy to what transpires in heaven, where decisions were being made that control the course of human history. Micaiah describes how he has seen God in the company of the heavenly host deliberating on how to entice Ahab to his death (1 Kings 22:13–23). All the other “prophets” in Ahab’s court were false, since they did not have knowledge of the events beyond human ken, as only true prophets can. Only one who has encountered God in this way can speak as an agent of the heavenly court.

For every true prophet in Israel, there were many false prophets. Moses set guidelines for distinguishing them. True prophets prophesy in accordance with revealed religion. If a prophet contradicts the law, for example, and calls Israel to worship another god, this is not a true prophet (Deut. 18:20). Also, if a prophet predicts something that does not come to pass, that is also a false prophet (Deut. 18:21–22). These criteria are not mechanical and automatic, however. Sometimes a prophet may appear to contradict prior revelation (Jer. 26:11), and sometimes the predicted judgment is staved off by national repentance (Jon. 4). Also, sometimes God may test the people with a false prophet who makes a true prediction (Deut. 13:1–3).

True prophets occasionally exhibited bizarre behavior. Saul, while pursuing David, was suddenly possessed by the Spirit of God and lay naked day and night, prophesying. This caused the people to ask if Saul was now one of the prophets (1 Sam. 19:24). Even in the ancient world, prophets were considered a bit crazy (2 Kings 9:11; Jer. 23:9; 29:26; Hos. 9:7). The phenomenon he experienced is referred to as “ecstasy.” The practice of tongues in the NT church also seems to have been ecstatic behavior. Paul notes that observers would call practitioners “out of your mind” (1 Cor. 14:23). At Pentecost, some observers thought that the apostles were drunk. Peter replied that they were not drunk but rather had the Spirit upon them (Acts 2:15–21).

The word “prophet” refers to one who foretells the future. Of course, many people cannot accept the notion of real prophecy and thus regard all prophecy as an illusion. Either the text was written after the fact, or it was couched in such general terms that it is no miracle that it came true, or else it was a lucky guess. The text itself, however, wants to be read as real prophecy, and Christians before the modern age read it as such. After all, to reject the supernatural elements in the Bible ultimately leads to rejecting the resurrection of Christ.

However, the modern Christian should not focus on the predictive part of the prophets’ message to such an extent that the “forthtelling” element is neglected. Forthtelling is the prophets’ chief ministry—calling the people to mercy and justice, to obedience to the law and fidelity to God. Christians who believe the Bible should take seriously the predictions about the future, but even more so the challenges about the present.

The Books of Prophecy in the Old Testament

The OT of Catholic and Protestant Bibles is roughly organized around the Greek translation of the OT, the Septuagint. Thus, Daniel is considered a prophetic book, and the prophets are separated from the historical books by the poetical books. However, the Hebrew Bible has a different organization. It has only eight “books” of prophecy, divided into the Former Prophets and the Latter Prophets. The Former Prophets are Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Traditionally, Samuel wrote Judges. The books of 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel form one scroll, as do 1 Kings and 2 Kings. The book of Samuel bears the name of the prophet, and Kings is substantially about Elijah and Elisha. The four Former Prophets witness to the outworking of the covenant sanctions, from the Israelites’ entry into the promised land to their expulsion from it.

Usually, when Christians speak of the prophets, they are referring to the Latter Prophets, plus Daniel. In Catholic and Protestant Bibles there are four Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel; and twelve Minor Prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Many other prophets ministered in Israel but have no scroll that bears their name. Thus, the ones listed above can be called the “writing prophets.”

Isaiah. The book of Isaiah preserves the sermons from the prophet who ministered during the time when Hezekiah was king of Judah, the southern kingdom. Isaiah saw Jerusalem surrounded by the Assyrian army and assured the king that God would deliver his people. That message of salvation is the overall theme of the book, a salvation universal in scope and focused on the figure of the Suffering Servant. Isaiah claims that this servant of God would be wounded and “cut off from the land of the living” (Isa. 53:8) and through this would bring healing and salvation to his people. He would see this and make many righteous (Isa. 53).

The NT refers to Isaiah more often than any other prophet, always to demonstrate that the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ were revealed in advance by the prophet. For example, Paul cites Isa. 1:9 in his argument as to why the Jews had rejected the gospel (Rom. 9:29). When Jesus withdrew to the area of Zebulun and Naphtali, Matthew says that this act fulfilled Isa. 9:1–2 (Matt. 4:15–16). Jesus himself cites Isa. 53:12, “[he] was numbered with the transgressors,” and claims that it was written about him (Luke 22:37). He does the same with Isa. 61:1–2 (Luke 4:18–21).

Jeremiah. The book of Jeremiah puts in writing the words of the prophet Jeremiah, who ministered at the very end of the kingdom of Judah and lived through the destruction of Jerusalem, with its temple and the people of God being taken away to forced exile and captivity. He sees the weakness and powerlessness of the covenant that God had made with his people to stir up love and fidelity in their hearts to him. According to Jeremiah, what the people chiefly need is a new covenant altogether, one that is not external and written on tablets of stone, but internal, written on their hearts. They need a change of personality to become a different sort of people altogether. This is what Jeremiah predicts will happen in the coming age after their time of captivity is over (Jer. 31:31–40). The NT identifies this new covenant with the gospel of Jesus (Heb. 8:8–12), secured by his blood (Heb. 10:16–17). This is the new covenant that Jesus announces to his disciples when he eats the Last Supper with them (Luke 22:20).

Ezekiel. The book of Ezekiel picks up where Jeremiah leaves off and continues from the destruction of Jerusalem into the early years of the Babylonian captivity. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel sees the failure of the old covenant. He likens Israel to a married woman who violates her marriage covenant at every turn (Ezek. 16). The prophet also foresees a future character transformation of God’s people. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezek. 36:26–27). This is graphically illustrated in Ezek. 37, where the prophet is told to prophesy to a valley of dry bones, and through the preaching of the word of God the company of the dead come to life and become a vast army—not of skeletons, but of vitally alive warriors. This is a vision of what will happen when God makes an everlasting covenant with them and will dwell with them forever (Ezek. 37:26–27). Paul cites this in 2 Cor. 6:16 and argues, “We are the temple of the living God.” The last part of Ezekiel describes a great, larger-than-life temple that Paul interprets to be the church. Thus, Ezekiel anticipates the preaching of the gospel, bringing spiritual life to a vast company of believers, among whom God himself will dwell.

Daniel. The book of Daniel is not a prophetic book by genre, but much of it is devoted to predicting the future, so in Catholic and Protestant Bibles it is placed between Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets. Prophecy calls the people to repentance and threatens judgment on them due to their sin. Daniel does the opposite: it calls them to persevere as saints, while the evil nations oppress them, until the end of time, when they will be vindicated. Daniel comforts the faithful who are suffering due to the sins of the nations.

The Twelve. The twelve Minor Prophets follow a roughly chronological sequence (with some notable exceptions). Hosea, Amos, and Micah date from the rise of Assyria as the great power that threatened Israel and Judah. Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah date from near the end of Assyrian dominance and the rise of Babylon. The Babylonian exile is skipped, and the last three—Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi—were written after the Jews’ restoration to the land of Judah. Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah are difficult to date with certainty.

Read as one book, the Minor Prophets tell a story of God’s constancy and fidelity even though everything else in the world changes. They begin with all twelve tribes intact and enjoying prosperity in the land. In Judah, there is a king on the throne of David. But by the end, most of the tribes are lost, the monarchy is no more, Jerusalem and the temple have been destroyed, and the Jews are under the heel of foreign powers. After all of that, God says to them, almost as the moral of the whole history of the OT, “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you” (Mal. 3:6–7). Deeply explored in the Minor Prophets is the day of the Lord, the climax and denouement of history, in which all the words of the prophets will finally be fulfilled (see Joel and Zephaniah). The reader is given, as a picture of this day, a view of the repentance of one generation of Ninevites at the preaching of Jonah and of the final judgment to fall on that city as described by Nahum.

The NT cites the Minor Prophets much more often than any book of prophecy except Isaiah. Peter draws upon Joel 2:28–32 to explain the pouring out of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17–21). James cites Amos 9:11–12 to demonstrate that salvation was always intended for the Gentiles as well as the Jews (Acts 15:16–17). Paul quotes Hab. 2:4 to argue that righteousness before God comes through faith (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11). Jesus says that like Jonah, he will return to the land of the living after three days (Matt. 12:38–41).

Prophecy in the New Testament

In the NT period there were a number of prophets. John the Baptist could point to Jesus and proclaim him to be the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Agabus the prophet predicted a famine and, later, Paul’s arrest (Acts 11:28; 21:10–11).

Paul lists “gifts of the Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:4–11), including prophecy and various phenomena reminiscent of the OT prophets’ ecstatic state. Paul warns the Corinthians not to overdo this sort of thing and so to be mature (1 Cor. 14:19–20). Near the end of his life, in one of his last letters, he speaks of prophecy as normative in the church, particularly in establishing an authoritative body of elders to rule and especially to preach the gospel (1 Tim. 1:18; 4:14). Peter draws a connection between the ministry of the OT prophets and the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:10–12). Evangelism seems to be the normative mode for prophecy today: forthtelling by calling people to turn from their sins to Jesus, and foretelling by speaking of his return and the final judgment.

Thus, all Christians hold the office of prophet, even if they never participate in the ecstatic state experienced by the Corinthians. The greatness of a prophet is in how clearly the prophet points to Jesus. John the Baptist was the greatest of the OT prophets by that measure, but any Christian on this side of the cross and resurrection can proclaim the gospel even more clearly. Thus, the prophetic ministry of any Christian is greater than John’s (Matt. 11:11).

Prophecy

The Phenomenon of Prophecy

The Books of Prophecy in the Old Testament

Prophecy in the New Testament

Prophetess

Five prophetesses are mentioned in the OT: Miriam (Exod. 15:20), Deborah (Judg. 4–5), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14–20; 2 Chron. 34:22–28), Isaiah’s wife (Isa. 8:3), and Noadiah (Neh. 6:14). Their exercise of the role seems to have been entirely legitimate. Miriam’s fault was not prophesying, but rather, like Aaron, being jealous of Moses (Num. 12). Deborah was both a prophetess and a judge (Judg. 4:4), and although the narrative suggests that it was incongruous for her to be engaged in violent warfare, there is no criticism of the fact that she prophesied. The accounts of Huldah treat her like any other prophet, while the problem with Noadiah in Neh. 6:14 was not that she was a woman, but rather that she, along with some male prophets, was a liar. Women who prophesy falsely are condemned (Ezek. 13:17), but Joel promises that in the last days, when God pours out his Spirit, both men and women will prophesy truly (Joel 2:28–29).

Similarly in the NT, Peter recognizes God’s promise through Joel being fulfilled in the gift of prophetic speech to women as well as men at Pentecost (Acts 2:18); and Paul, acknowledging that women prophesy publicly in the congregation, is concerned only with the manner of their doing so (1 Cor. 11:5). The prophetess Anna proclaims the baby Jesus as the Messiah (Luke 2:36–38), Luke reports that the four unmarried daughters of Philip the evangelist also prophesy (Acts 21:8–9). The only false prophetess in the NT is the apocalyptic figure of Jezebel in Rev. 2:20.

Prophetic

The Phenomenon of Prophecy

The Books of Prophecy in the Old Testament

Prophecy in the New Testament

Prophets

The Phenomenon of Prophecy

The Books of Prophecy in the Old Testament

Prophecy in the New Testament

Spirit Baptism

The outpouring of the Spirit that was prophesied in the OT to take place in the last days, in connection with the arrival of the Messiah.

Trinity

The biblical writers proclaim that only one God exists, yet they also refer to three persons as “God.” The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all God. Furthermore, these three persons relate to one another as self-conscious individuals. Jesus prays to the Father (John 17). The Father speaks from heaven concerning the Son (Matt. 3:17; Luke 3:22). Jesus vows to send the Spirit as “Advocate” after his ascension, and he will do what Jesus himself did while he was among us (John 16:7–8). The challenge of Christian theology, therefore, is to formulate a doctrine of God that captures all these elements, each of which surfaces in both Testaments.

Old Testament

In the OT, evidence for the Trinity appears mostly at the implicit level. Yahweh is called “Father” in Isaiah (63:16; 64:8), Jeremiah (3:4, 19; 31:9), and Malachi (2:10). Isaiah declares, “But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name” (Isa. 63:16). Yahweh identifies himself as “Father” implicitly when he claims Israel as his “son” (Hos. 11:1), and the same principle applies to Ps. 2:7, where God declares to his anointed, “You are my son; today I have become your father.” These cases do not compare in numbers with the NT evidence, but a person thought of as “God the Father” certainly appears in the OT.

Messianic texts of the OT introduce us to God the Son. In Isa. 9:6 a “child is born” who will be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” The day of “Immanuel,” or “God with us,” is foreshadowed in Isa. 7:14 (cf. Matt. 1:22), while Isa. 40:3–5 anticipates the appearance of the Lord “in the wilderness” (cf. Matt. 3:3). Daniel sees “one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven” being given “authority, glory and sovereign power” (Dan. 7:13–14). In Ps. 110:1 Yahweh says to David’s “Lord,” “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

Similarly, the OT seems to distinguish the Spirit of God from Yahweh while implying the Spirit’s own personality. Genesis 1:2 makes that case, as does Exod. 31:3, where Yahweh fills Bezalel with the “Spirit of God” (cf. Exod. 35:31; Num. 11:29). In 1 Sam. 16:14 a contrast is made between the “Spirit of the Lord” that leaves Saul and an “evil spirit from the Lord” that torments him; also we find a repentant David pleading that God would not take away his “Holy Spirit” (Ps. 51:11). The Spirit can be put on persons by God, with the result that they prophesy (Isa. 61:1; Joel 2:28–29) and do what pleases him (Ezek. 36:26–27). In the OT, therefore, we see two persons (the Son and the Holy Spirit) who are both God and also distinguishable from one to whom they answer and by whom they are sent.

New Testament

The NT contains abundant evidence for “God the Father,” often because of Jesus’ teaching. The “Father” appears several times in the Sermon on the Mount (e.g., Matt. 5:16; 6:6–9, 14, 18, 26, 32; 7:11). Matthew 7:21 stands out because of Jesus’ reference to “my Father who is in heaven,” by which he identifies himself as the Son (see also Matt. 15:13; 16:17; 18:10; and Luke 24:49). Paul’s greetings normally come from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, as seen in Rom. 1:7: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ” (also 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:1–3; 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2). Paul introduces the Father and the Son in 1 Cor. 8:6: “For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live” (see also 1 Cor. 15:24; 2 Cor. 11:31; Eph. 1:3; Phil. 2:22). Other significant texts include Heb. 1:5; 1 Pet. 1:2–3; in the latter, the scattered believers are those “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood. . . . Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” The NT evidence for “God the Father” is clear.

Biblical texts that point to the deity of Christ supply evidence for the second claim: the Son is God. Some of the texts listed above say as much, but one can take this case further. In context, John’s prologue refers to Jesus as the “Word” and proclaims that he was “with God” and “was God” (John 1:1). Jesus also relates to the Father in ways that imply his own deity, as he declares in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.” After significant doubting, Thomas confesses the deity of Christ in John 20:28: “My Lord and my God!” NT passages that identify Jesus as the “Son of God” point to his deity, as Peter does in Matt. 16:16: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Even demons identify Jesus as the Son. They call out, “What do you want with us, Son of God? . . . Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” (Matt. 8:29; cf. Mark 5:7). The so-called Christ Hymn of Phil. 2:6–11 puts Jesus on the level with God, saying that he did not consider “equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.” The author of Hebrews declares that Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (1:3). Colossians 1:15–16 says that Jesus is the “image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” and the one by whom “all things were created,” and Col. 1:19 states that “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” According to Titus 2:13, Jesus is “our great God and Savior.” The entire sequence of Rev. 4–5 highlights the deity of Christ, culminating in the praise “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” as both the Enthroned One and the Lamb are worshiped as God (5:13–14).

The NT writers underscore both the deity and the distinctive personality of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is conceived in Mary’s womb by the Spirit’s power (Matt. 1:18–20), and when Jesus is baptized, the Spirit descends upon him as a dove (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10). Jesus drives out demons by the Spirit, and one dare not speak against the Spirit when he does so (Matt. 12:28–32). Luke’s Gospel puts added emphasis on the ministry of the Spirit, as we also see in Acts. He empowers various people to praise and prophesy (Luke 1:41, 67) and to be witnesses for Christ (Acts 1:8; 2:4, 17–18, 38). Sinners can lie to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3, 9), and the Holy Spirit bears witness along with the apostles to the risen Christ (5:32). In John’s Gospel, the Spirit becomes the counselor and teacher of the disciples, reminding them of their Lord’s instructions (John 14:26; 16:13). The Spirit brings assurance of sonship (Rom. 8:16) and helps disciples when they pray (8:26). This person even knows the very thoughts of God (1 Cor. 2:11). Accordingly, the Great Commission requires baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). All three members of the Trinity have a part in the advancement of the kingdom, the Spirit no less than the Father and the Son.

Relationships between Father, Son, and Spirit

The evidence considered thus far demonstrates that three persons are called “God” in Scripture: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But the Scriptures also point to a chain of command in their relationship to one another. The Son obeys the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son to apply the work of the cross to the church. This “functional subordination” of the Son to the Father, some might argue, would follow simply from the analogy chosen by God to reveal himself to us. The “Son” would obey his “Father,” not vice versa, though they share a common dignity as God, just as a human father and son share a common humanity. But the NT writers expressly tell us that they relate to each other in this way. In Matt. 11:27 (cf. Luke 10:22) Jesus announces, “All things have been committed to me by my Father” (cf. John 3:35; 5:22). The latter transfers authority to the former as his subordinate. The Father even (for a season) knows more than the Son regarding the last days: “About that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matt. 24:36), though he also dignifies the Son: “For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does” (John 5:20). The Son’s commitment to please his heavenly Father is a prominent theme of the NT, as Jesus declares in John 5:19: “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” No text brings out this dependence of the Son upon the Father more clearly than Heb. 5:7–8, where the Son is said to have “offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered.” It is debated by theologians whether this functional subordination relates only to the period of the Son’s earthly ministry, or whether it is an eternal subordination.

The Spirit, though equal in personality and dignity with the Father and the Son, proceeds from them to apply the work of the cross and empower the church for ministry. In John 14:26 Jesus says, “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” In John 15:26 Jesus announces that he also sends the Spirit out: “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.” The Spirit only conveys what he has received: “He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:13). The same “chain of command” appears in John 16:15, where Jesus says, “All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

Trinitarian Heresies

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God, while being distinguishable persons. The Son obeys the Father; and these two persons of the Trinity send out the Holy Spirit to implement our deliverance from sin. A defensible explanation of the Trinity will respect all these dynamics, taking special care not to illustrate them with misleading images or simply lapse into various forms of polytheism. One of the earliest heresies of the church came from Marcion, a second-century theologian who distinguished the Father of Jesus from the supposedly vindictive God of the OT, which leaves us with more than one God. Later came the heresies of modalism and subordinationism (or Arianism). Modalists claimed that the persons of the Trinity are no more than guises worn by the one person of God. One minute God is the Father, the next he is the Son or the Holy Spirit. Subordinationists such as Arius (died AD 336) went beyond the functionality of the NT’s chain of command, arguing that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not themselves God but are essentially subordinate to him. Jehovah’s Witnesses have fallen into this latter error, suggesting that Jesus is “a god” but not the Creator God.

These early heresies pressed the church to refine its understanding of the Trinity. In his response to Marcion’s error, Tertullian coined precise language to describe the persons of the Godhead, so that God’s “threeness” and “oneness” are preserved. He used the Latin term trinitas to describe the Christian God and argued that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit share the same “substance.” The Son (also, then, the Holy Spirit) is not simply of “like substance” (Gk. homoiousios) with God the Father, but rather is “consubstantial” (Gk. homoousios) with him: the Son is God, and so is the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed of AD 325 incorporated this explanation and, in so doing, also set aside the idea that either the Son or the Holy Spirit was created by God, as the Arian heresy requires. Nicaea also rejected adoptionism, which regards Jesus as a man whom God promoted by endowing him with supernatural powers.

Each of these heresies—plus, say, the strict monotheism of Islam—attempts to relieve the tension seen among the claims that constitute the Trinity; however, orthodox Christians will remember that tensions and paradoxes are not automatic contradictions. No philosopher or theologian has ever expressly demonstrated that the Trinity entails logical nonsense, and Christianity’s detractors carry the burden of proof in this case. It is one thing to allege that an idea is contradictory, and quite another thing to show with an argument that it is so. On the positive side, the Trinity must remain a central doctrine of the church because it affects all the others, especially the entire work of redemption. If God is not triune, then Jesus is not God; and if he is not God, then he cannot save us, nor can we worship him as our Lord. The sacrifice that he offers for our sin would not, in that case, be supremely valuable. Consider also the application to us of what Christ has done. If the Holy Spirit is not God, then he cannot speak for God as one who knows perfectly his thoughts and gives us the word of God, our Bible. Scripture indicates that God is triune, and sinners need him to be so.

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1. DREAM INTERPRETER

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

Daniel 2:4 - "Then the Chaldeans said to the king, ‘O king, live for ever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.’ "

Genesis 40:8 - "They said to him, ‘We have had dreams and there no one to interpret them.’ And Joseph said to them ‘Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them I me, I pray you.’ "

I can remember a neighbor woman who used to come visit our home when I was a little girl. She herself probably wouldn’t have been remembered except for one specific thing - she invariably had with her a dream book, from which she would interpret dreams that anyone cared to tell her about. (I’m afraid that we were naughty children, sometimes, and made up some dingers for her benefit!) The point is - she really thought that she could look up in a book the various things that had happened in a dream, and then give an accurate interpretation of it.

I don’t imagine that the dream interpreters of the ancient would would have given her a hearing. To them, dream interpretation amounted almost to a science. And, certainly it has distinct religious overtones. Because, you see, dreams were felt to be the means of communication between the gods and men. And, since the gods seldom speak intelligibly to the majority of us, a whole class of men arose who could translate these dreams into understandable terms.

The popularity of these interpreters was probably at its highest in Egypt and Babylonia, since these peoples were especially preoccupied with dreams. We will remember the stories of the interpretations given by Daniel and Joseph, when the professionals were stumped. And we also recall the great honors and riches that were bestowed on them when they gave the right interpretation. It was a very lucrative profession to enter.

And, just as in every age, there were charlatans, men who were in it just for the money. You see, the way it worked, the client came to the interpreter and told him about his dream. If the interpreter inquired further, the client was obligated to give any additional information about himself. Then the interpreter, with suitable magical flourishes and much stage-dressing, gave the meaning. And, here’s where he had a distinct advantage. Since the client was quite sure that the interpreter knew what he was talking about - well, there wasn’t any harm in helping him by giving him some nice gift! That’s one way to ensure a favorable reading!

Now, of course, these were the wealthy people, who could afford to pass out gifts. But even the humble people were great believers in dreams. During the early part of the Christian era, Jerusalem had at least 24 interpreters - each known to render a different meaning to the same dream! And all for about sixteen cents in our money!

Today, in spite of our current interest in the occult, I don’t suppose that many people really consider dreams as precursors of the future. But dreams do still play a very important part, at least in one area of sociological reckoning. This is the part that dreams play in our mental health. Ever since Freud published his monumental work, The Interpretation of Dreams, psychologists and psychiatrists have recognized the importance of the acting out of fears, hostilities, aggressions, etc., in dreams.

So, in a very real sense, our psychoanalysts and psychiatrists today are dream interpreters. Of course, they don’t stop there and make a whole profession of it, as the ancients did, but they certainly recognize the importance of dreams and utilize them in helping their patients.

2. An Angel Came to Joseph

Illustration

Samuel G. Candler

We too often forget about poor Joseph. Every year, we tend to focus on the story of Mary. But this year, it's Joseph.

Now, if the angel can appear to Mary, and then also appear to Joseph, there's a lesson in that. That means that the angel can appear to you and me, too. In the Bible, the annunciation does not occur only once, but twice-not just to a woman, but also to a man.

The Bible, then, carries an implicit message that God does appear over and over again, to various sorts of folks. Matthew and Luke both have it right, but they are different stories. God continues to come into the world, but we have to trust other sources!

What are you giving for Christmas this year? I do not mean what are you getting. We all want something wonderful, I am sure. But what are you giving for Christmas?

The greatest gift you can give this year is to believe in someone's dreams. The greatest gift you can give is to have faith in someone else; believe in their dreams. Believe in the dreams of the person you love. Believe in the dream of your husband. Believe in the dream of your wife. Believe in the dreams of your children. Believe in the dream of your hero, your leader, your friend. Believe in their dreams!

3. No Seagulls Came

Illustration

William B. Oglesby

There's a story from World War II that's been told many times which occurred over the Pacific. Eddie Rickenbacker and some colleagues on an aircraft were shot down and managed to inflate a raft. The food and water were soon expended, and all hope for their rescue seemed to fade. As they related the story later, they described how together they had formed a prayer band and had prayed earnestly for deliverance. It was just at that time that a seemingly miraculous circumstance occurred. A seagull, clearly far off course, began to circle the raft, came lower and lower until at last they were able to capture it. They drank its blood and ate its flesh and were strengthened and sustained. The next day they were found and brought safely to shore. They told the story, and there was spread across the pages of the newspapers of the United States this answer to prayer.

The story then began to take a rather distorted turn. Without anyone really meaning to be judgmental or to cast aspersion on anyone else, there arose the notion that if only one had ample faith, a seagull would come. Now its a spiritual cause and effect; if only we had ample faith, our seagull would come. What about the hundreds of young fliers who had gone off to the Pacific, had been shot down, and were never seen again. We should resist with every fiber of our being the notion that somehow these were persons who had little if any faith, else a seagull would most certainly have come. The presence of the seagull for the persons on that raft was certainly a token that deliverance is always possible; at the same time, there was and is no indication in the New Testament that such deliverance on its own terms is promised. John dies in the prison; almost all the disciples are martyred. There were many persons in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in the time of Jesus who were not healed. There were many fliers for whom no seagull came. "Blessed is he that taketh no offense."

And the meaning for us? The basic assurance is that all things are working together for good, as Paul reminds us in Romans 8, and that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. But this is no guarantee of deliverance from all of the difficulties which beset us. Indeed, we are reminded in John 16 that "in the world we will have tribulation; but we can be of good cheer, for he has overcome the world." The true meaning of faith, then, is the capacity to believe even when no seagull comes, to know that beyond the vicissitudes and tribulations of life there is life transcendent; there is no more suffering nor sorrow nor crying.

4. Sermon Opener - New Wine

Illustration

Barbara Brokhoff

On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell upon the waiting disciples, there were a number of extraordinary events occurring: there was the sound of a rushing wind, cloven tongues of fire appeared, and they all began to speak in other languages and the Holy Spirit gave them ability. The Jews who were visiting Jerusalem, from all nations, hearing them speak in their own tongues, were amazed at this startling phenomenon. They came to the hasty, false conclusion that the disciples must be drunk, and accused them, saying, "They have had too much wine!" "Not so!" said Peter. "It is only nine in the morning -- far too early to be fixed. They are not drunk, but rather filled with the new wine of the Spirit. This is what Joel the prophet foretold many years ago."

In other words, the Holy Spirit is New Wine and it cannot make you drunk. The Spirit will not cloud your mind, it won't cause you to talk stupidly, it won't make you an unsafe driver, and it won't give you a hangover. The disciples were not inebriated, but rather filled with God the Holy Spirit. They had not imbibed on the fruit of the vine, nor had they drunk the nectar of the gods, but they had been filled with the Divine Nectar, the New Wine from heaven. This Spirit will be a wine for all occasions, for all people.

Before his Ascension, Jesus had wanted his followers to know that the same Lord who had called them and ministered to them in his physical presence would now, through the Holy Spirit, always be with them. They must realize that the crucified, resurrected, and now ascended Lord would return. The same Spirit which dwelt in him would now dwell in them.

On this anniversary of the Day of Pentecost, when the Christian Church was born, let us be deeply grateful that the Spirit of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, has come to us. Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be impossible. We would have no understanding of spiritual things without the Spirit of Truth. We would never enjoy Christian fellowship with one another without the unity of the Spirit. We could never be effective Christian witnesses without the Spirit's power. In fact, we would have no life without the life-giving Spirit. Just as the body without breath is a corpse, so a church without the Holy Spirit is dead!

The rest of the sermon follows this outline:

1. They Waited And Prayed
2. The Specifics Of The Spirit's Coming
3. This New Wine Makes A Difference

5. Repent and Keep the Dream Alive!

Illustration

Joel D. Kline

African American poet Langston Hughes questions in one of his poems, "What happens to a dream deferred?…Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?…Or does it explode?" Dreams long squelched by injustice may well explode in anger and rage, but I suspect that, for most of us, the far greater danger is of our dreams drying up like raisins in the sun. Is there any greater tragedy than those whose lives have become little more than mere existence, their dreams long since petrified and forgotten?

John the Baptist was one who would not allow his dream to be shattered. It was a dream of a coming Messiah, the One who would set life aright, the One who would open the way to abundant joy and peace and hope and life. And to keep that dream alive, the Baptist shouted a message of repentance. Biblical repentance is not simply a matter of remorse for past sins and shortcomings; much more, it is a turning around, the taking on of a new set of values, a new perspective towards life, a new way of living. Even more, repentance is a matter of embracing a whole new identity as the people of God, recognizing that something radically new is unfolding and that you and I have significant roles to play as participants in the story.

6. Today Is All We Have

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

The talented motion picture director Peter Bogdanovich is well known for what are called “nostalgic” movies. When he made “The Last Picture Show” and “Paper Moon,” someone asked him why he is attracted so much by the past.

Mr. Bogdanovich said, “I like any time better than now. I just don’t like what’s happening today. The music bores me, the cars are ugly, the people are droll. So I retreat to the past.”

I know a lot of people who feel that way -- anytime is better than now, so they retreat to the past or they lose themselves in dreams of the future. The truth is the past is gone and can never be retrieved or re-lived. The future is not yet, and we will have it not by grasping or dreaming of it, but only as it comes to us as a gift.

Today is all we have
Today is all we need,
And today is all we can handle.

7. Living in the Magical City of Our Dreams

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

There is an old Rabbinic story about a poor man who left the village of his birth, and set out to find the city of his dreams, where all was bright and perfect. After a day's walk he lay down to rest the night in a forest. Before going to sleep he removed his shoes and placed them carefully in the path, pointing them in the direction of his journey toward the magical city.

While he slept, a practical joker came along and turned his shoes around so that they pointed in the direction of the village he had left behind. The next morning, when the traveler awoke, he put on his shoes and headed down the path in the direction his shoes pointed. He walked all day and at dusk saw the city of his dreams in the distance. It looked strangely familiar and much smaller than he had imagined it would be. As he entered the village, so the story goes, he discovered a street very much like his own, knocked on the door of a house exactly like the one he had left, and was warmly received by his family inside his family, of course. With that the man lived happily ever after in the magical city of his dreams!

The point of that is, rather than transporting us from the problems of this life into some spiritual Eden, the favor of God is likely to turn our shoes around and send us back toward the familiar, with all its frustration and difficulty. We're not blessed with an escape from the harsh realities of life but are favored with a potential for a faith that can transform us in the midst of these realities.

8. Service

Illustration

James W. Moore

Have you heard the beautiful children's story about the three trees? The trees were talking in the forest one day about their dreams for the future. The first tree said it would like to be made into a cradle, so that it might go on living as a support for the fragile life of a tiny new baby. The second tree wanted to be made into a big ship, so that it might go on living, carrying important cargo and influential people to exotic new lands. The third tree longed to stay right where it was, existing only as a tree, but growing ever taller, and pointing ever higher, to remind everyone that there is a God in heaven who loves them. Those were their dreams: One wanted to be a cradle, one wanted to be a mighty ship, and one wanted to be a tall tree, pointing people toward God.

But then one day the woodcutters came and chopped down the three trees...and destroyed their dreams. The first tree was not made into a cradle, but into a simple feeding trough, a manger for animals. But the manger was sold to a family in Bethlehem, and on the night Jesus was born, that simple feed box became the cradle for the Christ Child.

The second tree was built into a boat, but not the kind it had dreamed of not a mighty ocean-going vessel but a tiny inexpensive fishing boat. A man named Simon Peter bought the boat, and on one warm afternoon when the crowds pressed in, Jesus himself climbed aboard that small fishing boats that he might preach good news to the multitudes.

The third tree also was deprived of its dream. It wanted to remain standing tall and pointing toward God. Instead, it was cut down and shaped into a horrible instrument of torture, a cross. But it was on that very cross that Jesus was crucified, transforming a symbol of cruelty into a powerful reminder of God's eternal love for all the people.

The three trees were humbled, but in the plan of God, they were exalted.

That's the way it works: When we, in humility, give ourselves to God, our Lord can do great things through us and for us greater than we can ever imagine.

9. Parable of the Highway to Worship

Illustration

Two worshipers rose early and set out for their appointed place of worship. One rising hummed a hymn, as he made ready for church. On the way he said to himself, "This is the day of the Lord, and I will be glad in it."

He noted a cardinal flitting in the trees and praised God for its beauty. He saw icicles dripping from the drain and was conscious of their beauty.

He entered church warmly greeting all he saw. He entered the sanctuary and bowed in prayer rejoicing in the music, the beauty of church architecture and found food in the sermon. His heart was full and he went forth rejoicing.

The second worshiper rose with reluctance saying, "I would rather stay in bed." He journeyed to church with resentment against others who did not attend, He was angered by the busy noises of folk greeting each other and hastened to his pew which was already taken. Finding another seat, he critically analyzed the music, the sermon and his neighbors. He went forth dissatisfied and weary wishing he had stayed in bed.

It was the same church, It was the same music. It was the same sermon and the worshippers returned to the same home, but there was a world of difference!

Jesus answered them saying, "Therefore speak I to them in parables; because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive."

10. The Holy Spirit Doesn't Have A Copy Machine

Illustration

Richard A. Jensen

The wind of the Spirit blew through St. Mary's Parish but it did not seem to touch the life of Maria Sanchez. Maria had been a faithful member of St. Mary's Parish all of her life. She was baptized there, confirmed there, married there. And yet, when the Spirit blew new life into the lives of so many in the parish, Maria felt excluded.

Some called this blowing of God the "charismatic movement." Whatever it was called it certainly touched the lives of some of the members of St. Mary's in very special ways. Some spoke in tongues for the first time in their lives. Others spoke words of prophecy while others interpreted prophetic words and still others experienced the power of healing.

Maria Sanchez knew these people whose lives had been touched by God in new ways. She was excited for them. She joined them in some of their special prayer meetings. Maria's friends knew of the depth of her faith. This was not in question, at least not in the beginning. Maria was welcomed into their fellowship. She was excited to be there. She experienced the gifts of the Spirit as others exercised them. None of these new gifts were manifested in her life, however. That's where the problem arose.

Maria's newly "spirit-filled" friends wanted to pray for her with the laying on of hands so that she might also be filled with the Spirit and experience the work of God's Spirit in her life in new ways. Maria was more than willing to be prayed for. So the prayer fellowship prayed for Maria.

They prayed -- but nothing happened. No new gifts of the Spirit, that is, became manifest in Maria's life. They prayed for Maria at the next meeting as well. And the next and the next and the next! But -- nothing! It seemed 29to Maria that the matter got focused on the gift of speaking in tongues. "Everyone ought to have this gift," the others told her as they prayed and prayed for her. "Speaking in tongues is a sign of increased holiness," they told Maria.

The prayers did not seem to work, however. Maria Sanchez did not speak in tongues. She did not prophesy nor interpret prophetic utterances nor acquire new and greater faith nor experience new healing power. All the prayers seemed to be in vain. Maria Sanchez experienced all of this as a source of great guilt. What was the matter with her? What was wrong with her faith life? Why couldn't she speak in tongues? In the company of her "spirit-filled" friends she could only see herself as a spiritual failure.

One day Maria's aunt came to visit her. Maria knew her Aunt Carmen to be a woman of great faith. Maria told her aunt of her experiences with her spiritual friends and of her own despair over God's lack of presence in her life. Aunt Carmen heard Maria's story of pain and replied in great wisdom. "The Holy Spirit has been at work in your life ever since you were baptized," Aunt Carmen began. "It is the Spirit that has taught you to have faith in Jesus. It is the Spirit that has given you your many gifts for the common good of God's people. The Holy Spirit doesn't have a copy machine. Only you have been given the gifts that you have. The Spirit doesn't want you to be like anyone else. The Spirit gives each one of us a different assortment of gifts. Our spiritual task is to use the gifts the Spirit gives us for the common good.""

11. Christ Understands Us

Illustration

C. Welton Gaddy

The gospels of the New Testament do not demand that we understand Christ. Rather, they offer the burden-lightening insight that Christ understands us. We do not have to understand Easter to experience Easter.

Christ's capacity for understanding defies our comprehension. This one who inspires magnificent visions also ministers amid shattered dreams. This one known as the Prince of Peace does not shy away from chaos and conflict. This one who taught us to pray accepts people who are so troubled that they can't pray. This one who offers salvation identifies with people confounded by feelings of lostness. This one who offers unmatched encouragement knows better than any other the depths of discouragement.

Do you hear? Do you grasp the meaning? If you did not sense the joy of Easter morning, if you have not felt Christ rise, if you cannot shout hallelujah, that does not mean that you must drop your head and take off toward Emmaus or some other place to give up. Christ understands. He understands you. So, Christ appears.

The presence of Christ among us does not depend upon the quality of our understanding of Christ or even upon the nature of our reception of his presence. Christ appears in the midst of people not even looking for him.

12. It Might Have Been

Illustration

King Duncan

In the 1800s, poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote one of his most quoted poems in the English language. The poem was titled, "Maud Muller." You've never heard of it? Actually, not many people remember this sorrowful poem, but generations of people have quoted two famous lines from its final stanza.

"Maud Muller" is about a young maiden who, while working the fields one day, sees a handsome young Judge riding by on horseback. She offers him a drink of cool water. Their encounter lasts only a few moments, but it makes a deep impression on both of them. Maud is greatly attracted to the Judge, and she dreams of marrying someone of his gentleness and integrity. She could leave the fields behind and live as the wife of a wealthy and powerful man.

At the same time, the Judge is attracted to Maud. He is tired of his career, and he dreams of marrying a warm, compassionate woman like Maud and settling into a simpler life in the country. But neither Maud nor the Judge acknowledges their attraction to one another. They are from different social classes - they cannot risk breaking the bonds of social conformity.

Maud later marries a man who brings her much pain and hardship. The Judge also enters into a loveless marriage. In the final stanza of the poem, Whittier offers us this warning: "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

13. Pop Quiz: Advent

Illustration

Matthew T. Phillips

On Friday, a teacher told his class that he was going to give a surprise quiz the following week. One clever student—we'll call him Jamie—went home and thought about this pop quiz. He didn't know the subject very well, and was upset that he was going to miss his whole weekend to study. Jamie tried to figure out what day the quiz might be. First, he noticed that it couldn't be Friday, because if they got to Thursday and hadn't had the quiz yet, then everyone would know it was on Friday, and the teacher had said it would be a surprise. Friday is out. Well, now the text couldn't be on Thursday, because if they got to Wednesday with no quiz then everyone would know the quiz was on Thursday, because Friday was already ruled out. Thursday is out too. By the same logic, the test couldn't be on Wednesday or Tuesday. That left Monday as the only possible day, so a test given that day wouldn't be a surprise. Jamie figured out there was no way for the teacher to give a surprise pop quiz, so he spent his weekend playing with his friends, going to church and youth, and watching Monty Python movies. Anyone want to guess what happened? The teacher gave the quiz on Wednesday morning, Jamie was surprised, and he failed.

Did I tell this story just to embarrass Jamie? Certainly not. We read Jesus' prophecy about his second coming, especially the part about the present generation not passing away before all these things come to be, and we reason that since, as far as we understand, part of the prophecy was not true, we should just read this all as a nice set of symbols. That part about expecting the master to come home and keeping awake—we don't really need to do that, because he hasn't come back in the past two thousand years. The odds are pretty good he won't come back this year either. Well, the odds were pretty good Jamie wouldn't fail the pop quiz.

14. When We Are Young

Illustration

Donald J. Shelby

When we are young, our dreams are big and exciting, and we believe we will realize them all. We will have our own prestigious law firm, be a renowned surgeon, a media superstar, president of the corporation, Nobel Prize winning scientist, sing like (Pavarotti), dance like (Fred Astaire), write like Camus, paint like Wyeth, and play golf like Jack Nicklaus. Every young couple who gets married is sure that theirs is going to be the ideal marriage, the perfect union. We don't have to dispute such dreaming, nor disparage ambition and idealism. In fact, give me an idealist any day over a cynic especially a 21-year-old cynic.

Yet, those who have weathered turnings of the seasons know that between the dream and the reality falleth the shadow, as T. S. Eliot observed. Along about age 30 or 35, that shadow descends, and we (may) learn that we do not possess the gifts we imagined we had, that we are not going to sing, paint, or play golf like anyone but ourselves. This is the time when we become too old to be young, and are still too young to be old; time when we must saddle our dreams and accept the fact that some of them will not come true, that certain ambitions will not be met.

15. Chasing Childhood Dreams

Illustration

Denis Waitley

A series of remarkable studies conducted by British behavioral scientists over a twenty-eight-year period confirmed that what we love and do well at as children continues to be our latent or real talent as adults. The lives of fifty individuals were tracked; evaluations began at age seven, and reevaluations took place every seven years until each reached the age of thirty-five.

Incredibly, nearly all of the subjects eventually ended up engaged in a professional pursuit related to their interests during the age span of seven through fourteen. Although most of them had discarded or strayed from those interests from ages fifteen to twenty-one and beyond, virtually all found their way back to recapture their early childhood dreams by the age of thirty-five, even if only as a hobby or an avocation.

16. I Can't Remember

Illustration

Brennan Manning

A few years ago, rumors spread that a certain Catholic woman was having visions of Jesus. The archbishop decided to check her out.

'Is it true, m'am, that you have visions of Jesus?' asked the cleric.

'Yes,' the woman replied.

'Well, the next time you have a vision, I want you to ask Jesus to tell you the sins that I confessed in my last confession. Please call me if anything happens.'

Ten days later the woman notified her spiritual leader of a recent apparition.

Within the hour the archbishop arrived. 'What did Jesus say?' he asked.

She took his hand and gazed deep into his eyes. 'Bishop,' she said, 'these are his exact words: I CAN'T REMEMBER.

17. Last Christmas Letter

Illustration

Martin Luther King

A great way to end your sermon might be to read Dr. King's Last Christmas Letter. I have seldom seen it referenced, since King is most often cited for his "I Have a Dream" speech. But this Christmas Letter is also a dream speech. So here it is in its entirety.

Greetings of the Season:

When the horizons of man’s destiny loom ashen and somber; when the deafening report of weaponry stuns yearnings for peace; when people are alienated from the outside society, spiritually isolated, and weary of heart; when a child is hungry, a father desperate, and a mother fearful, the beseeching question arises, where can one turn?

This year that question is so relevant and contemporary, so deeply serious and urgent for all who will face it that all of us must search now for a reasoned yet comforting answer.

We cannot deny the dreadful conditions found in our society and in the world. Global holocaust is no longer a mere technological possibility; it is a direct and escalating threat. The spirit of man everywhere has been dampened, and often his mind is engulfed in gloom. And there are millions of hungry children, defeated fathers, and frightened mothers in our land and others.

We, these people, you, all of us must have not only hope for the unknown future but also confidence in our capacity to change the menacing present. Let us put hands and heart, mind and muscle to this task. Let us not give up, for surrender and apathy are nothing but failure. In our work let us see scorn and ridicule of us for what they are, scornful and ridiculous. “Keep your hand on the plow,” the old spiritual admonishes. “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ’round,” the freedom song declares.

This is a season when we can summon that kind of determination and bold purpose required to create inner peace and to commit external acts of good will.

Peace and good will, the simplest and most elusive of dreams, the dreams of this season, begin with the individual before they can be extended to collective man. So let us begin with ourselves.

If we as individual human beings will spurn selfishness, we shall appreciate the value of true love of self, and the exhilarating beauty of living. And if we recognize that all people can become truly alive and beautiful, we will understand the cosmic truth that all men are brothers and inseparable. Then we will see where we must go and how we must live. Real brothers cannot kill each other, are incapable of oppressing each other, and are utterly unable to hate each other because they are as one in the embodiment of dignity and respect.

We who know we are brothers therefore have a duty to bring others back into the broken family of man and into our world house. In the context of the modern world we must live together as brothers or we shall perish divided as fools……

We wish you and yours a joyous Holiday and a New Year of fulfillment.

Martin Luther King, Jr., December 25, 1962

18. Possibilities of Grace

Illustration

Joel D. Kline

The story is told of a youngster learning to play the piano whose mother, to encourage a love for music in him, took him to a Paderewski concert. Soon after the mother and son were seated, the mother spotted a friend a little distance away and walked down the aisle to greet her. The time got a little too long for the youngster, and he wandered off, exploring the wonders of the concert hall, eventually making his way through a door clearly marked NO ADMITTANCE.

When the house lights dimmed, the mother returned to her seat, only to find her son missing. At that moment the curtains on the stage parted, and to her shock, there was her son seated at the keyboard of the impressive Steinway. Oblivious to the crowd, he began to pick out the notes to "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." Just then Paderewski came on stage, quickly moved to the piano and whispered in the boy's ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing." Leaning over the boy, the concert pianist reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around the other side of the boy and added another part. Together the old master and the young novice transformed a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative moment. The audience was captivated.

Just so, is not God able to work through our sometimes-feeble efforts, wrapping arms around us, urging us on, transforming our work into something beautiful? Indeed, God equips us to dream new dreams; God taxes our imaginations, prodding us to envision far more than we ever thought possible. Is this not the power of the Advent season, that we set aside time to consider anew God's gracious gifts, time for wonder and amazement, time for mystery and growth, time to dream with eyes-wide-open. And the promise is that God is with us, encouraging, upholding, challenging, renewing, recreating us, that we might dream new dreams and imagine new possibilities. Possibilities of peace, possibilities of compassionate love and servanthood, possibilities of new life.

19. Find the Road to Jesus

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

Long ago a young man was starting out as a minister in London. He approached an aged pastor who had spent his lifetime preaching the Gospel.

"You have had a great deal of experience," he said to the old man. "You know how many things that I ought to learn. Can't you give me some advice to carry with me in my duties?" "Yes I can", was the answer. "I will give you a piece of advice. You know that in every town in England, no matter how small, in every village or hamlet, though it be hidden in the folds of the mountain or wrapped around by the far-off sea, in every clump of farmhouses, you can find a road that, if you follow it, will take you to London. Just so, every text that you choose to preach from the Bible will have a road that leads to Jesus. Be sure you find that road and follow it."

Good advice for preaching but excellent advice for living. It doesn't matter where we live, who we are, our professions, our level of learning, our achievement; our house, no matter what house it is, can be the house of our dreams because of Christmas. And it doesn't matter where we go, looking for that house of our dreams, we find that house only as we find Jesus.

20. The Storyteller's Creed

Illustration

Brett Blair

If you have ever thought about writing a novel or telling a story, Robert Fulghum, who has written many books, suggest that you keep this creed close by as you write:

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
That dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.

He calls that the Storyteller's Creed. I think he is right on all counts because life, real life, is not about knowledge, history, facts, grief, and death; rather life is about imagination, dreams, hope, laughter, and love. When we hear good stories those are the things that inspire us, move and motivate us. Now you might say to me, "Now preacher, life most certainly is about grief and death. The world is full of it." Yes it is! But they do not have the final word. Grief and death are not the end of the chapter. You see, there is a people whose attitude is not changed by its poverty. There is a nation whose hunger does not drive it to despair. There is a bride whose tears do not cause her to lose hope. There is a church which is persecuted but shall persevere.

One day this great people called the Church of God will leap for joy because it's reward will be great in heaven!

21. An Eyes Wide Open Dream

Illustration

Joel D. Kline

Prophets dream an eyes-wide-open dream of that day when God's realm, God's kingdom shall completely unfold among us, and indeed, among all creation. Such dreams, thank God, are not easily put aside; they are not easily shaken.

In the aftermath of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s leadership of that 1963 March on Washington, Time magazine chose him as its Man of the Year. Asked later whether he was satisfied with the progress being made in the movement toward racial justice and concern for the poor, King responded that we can never be satisfied until the entire dream becomes reality. And is that not the very nature of dreams? As people of faith, we dare never rest content with business as usual, for the dream of life in the kingdom of God is ever before us. We dare never make too easy a peace with the existence of injustice and brokenness, of selfishness and sin, of racism and greed.

22. He Forgives and Forgets

Illustration

David H. Bolton

In A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World, Ron Lee Davis retells the true story of a priest in the Philippines, a much-loved man of God who carried the burden of a secret sin he had committed many years before. He had repented but still had no peace, no sense of God's forgiveness.

In his parish was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ and he with her. The priest, however, was skeptical. To test her he said, "The next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary." The woman agreed. A few days later the priest asked., "Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?"

"Yes, he did," she replied.

"And did you ask him what sin I committed in seminary?"

"Yes."

"Well, what did he say?"

"He said, 'I don't remember'"

This is what God wants you to know about the forgiveness He freely offers you. When your sins are forgiven, they are forgotten. The past—with its sins, hurts brokenness, and self-recrimination—is gone, dead, crucified, remembered no more. What God forgives, He forgets.

23. Good News - Sermon Starter

Illustration

Brett Blair

The story is told of a Franciscan monk in Australia was assigned to be the guide and "gofer" to Mother Teresa when she visited New South Wales. Thrilled and excited at the prospect of being so close to this great woman, he dreamed of how much he would learn from her and what they would talk about. But during her visit, he became frustrated. Although he was constantly near her, the friar never had the opportunity to say one word to Mother Teresa. There were always other people for her to meet.

Finally, her tour was over, and she was due to fly to New Guinea. In desperation, the Franciscan friar spoke to Mother Teresa: If I pay my own fare to New Guinea, can I sit next to you on the plane so I can talk to you and learn from you? Mother Teresa looked at him. You have enough money to pay airfare to New Guinea? she asked.

Yes, he replied eagerly. “Then give that money to the poor,” she said. “You'll learn more from that than anything I can tell you.” Mother Teresa understood that Jesus’ ministry was to the poor and she made it hers as well. She knew that they more than anyone else needed good news.

On a Saturday morning, in Nazareth, the town gathered in the synagogue to listen to Jesus read and teach. It was no big surprise. He was well known in the area; it was his hometown. He was raised there. They wanted to learn from him. So when he read from the Isaiah scroll, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor” everyone understood these words to be the words of Isaiah. It is how that prophet from long ago defined his ministry.

When Jesus finished that reading he handed the scroll to the attendant and sat down. In that day you sat in the Moses Seat to teach to the people. Today preachers stand in a pulpit. So all eyes were on Jesus, waiting for him to begin his teaching. What would he say about this great prophet Isaiah? Would he emphasis the bad news? Israel had sinned and would be taken into captivity by the Babylonians. Or would he emphasis the good news? One day God would restore his people and bring them back from captivity. It was Israel’s ancient history but it still spoke volumes.

Now here’s the wonderful twist, the thing that catches everyone off guard that Saturday morning in Nazareth. Jesus does neither. He doesn’t emphasize those things past. He focuses on the present. He doesn’t lift up Isaiah as the great role model; Jesus lifts up himself. This is the pertinent point. It’s what upsets everybody at the synagogue. It’s why everybody was furious with him and drove him out of town. They were going to kill him. He dared to say that these great words of Isaiah were really about himself. “Today,” he said, “this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Why does Jesus describe himself as the new Isaiah? How is it that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words? Let’s take a look at…

1. The captivity and restoration of Israel under Isaiah’s ministry.
2. The captivity of mankind under Jesus’ ministry.
3. The restoration of mankind under Jesus’ ministry.

24. Joy Unbounded, Glory Fulfilled

Illustration

Leonard Sweet

Pastor/Bishop Kenneth Ulmer (Inglewood, California) envisions the animating, life-fulfilling power of the Holy Spirit as like the transformation that comes over the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon figures as they're inflated. Without any air these huge balloons lay flat on the floor, limp, and featureless figures. But when the wind starts whipping up inside those balloons, they begin to rise, stand up, and stand tall. They become individuals, people and creatures that we recognize and love. Once on the parade route, these balloons take on even more life, for they're animated not just by the air within them, but by the winds that buffet and bolster them down the street.

In today's gospel text, Jesus doesn't appear before Martha and Mary – who are in agony over the death of their brother Lazarus – just to bring them a casserole. Jesus doesn't cluck his tongue and concede that Lazarus' death is a tragedy.

Jesus goes to his best friend's tomb and calls out, "Lazarus, come forth!" As experienced by Ezekiel and the psalmist, once again the animating spirit of God moves with power and precision, and brings a dead man walking right out of his tomb! This is what God settles for. Miracle, rebirth, deliverance from the pit, and eternal redemption. God doesn't define winning as not losing. God doesn't settle for anything less than joy unbounded, and glory filled dreams fulfilled.

25. A Dangerous Encounter

Illustration

Daniel Shaw

A young pastor from Zimbabwe once wrote: "I'm apart of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have the Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. I'm a disciple of his. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future secure. I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits or popularity. I don't have to be first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean in his presence, walk in patience, am uplifted by prayer, and I labor with power." This young pastor was later martyred for his faith in Christ.

Be careful around this place. It may look safe and comfortable, but it really is very dangerous, because behind everything here lurks that one who calls us to follow him and fish for people. And if you hang around here long enough he's going to get you!

26. In the Know

Illustration

Michael Horton

One of the earliest and most potent threats to early Christianity came from the heretical group known as the Gnostics. Blending elements of Christianity, Greek philosophy, and oriental mysticism, the Gnostics denied the orthodox view of God, man, and the world, and Christ. The apostle John included them in the camp of the Antichrist.

The Gnostics were so called because of their view of revelation. The word gnosis is the Greek word for "knowledge." In many cases the Gnostic heretics did not make a frontal assault against the apostles or against the apostolic teaching of Scripture. In fact, many of them insisted that they were genuine, Bible-believing Christians. It wasn't that they rejected the Bible; they just claimed an additional source of knowledge or insight that was superior to or at least beyond the knowledge of Scripture. The "Gnostikoi" were "those in the know." Their knowledge was not derived from intellectual comprehension of the Scripture or by empirical research, but was mystical, direct, and immediate. God "revealed" private, intuitive insights to them that carried nothing less than divine authority.

Here is a typical Gnostic statement: "We cannot communicate with God mentally, for He is a Spirit. But we can reach Him with our Spirit, and it is through our Spirit that we come to know God….This is one reason God put teachers (those who are really called to teach) in the church to renew our minds. Many times those who teach do so with only a natural knowledge that they have gained from the Bible and other sources. But I am referring here to one of the ministry gifts. Those who are called and anointed by the Spirit to teach. God has given us His Word, and we can feed upon that Word. This will renew our minds. But He also puts teachers in the church to renew our minds and to bring us the revelation of the knowledge of God's Word." (Kenneth E. Hagin, Man on Three Dimensions (Tulsa, Okla.: Faith Library, 1985), 1:8,13.)

Notice that this quotation does not include a direct assault on the Bible. The Bible is recognized as God's word. But in order to understand the Bible we need something beyond our natural mental ability. We need the Spirit-anointed teachers to "bring us the revelation of the knowledge of God's Word." This is a typically Gnostic statement, but the quote is not from Valentinus or any of the other early Gnostics. It is from the pen of a modern missionary of Gnosticism, Kenneth E. Hagin. It is from Hagin's Man on Three Dimensions. Hagin's theology echoes the tripartite epistemology of early Gnosticism (man as having three separate entities: body, soul, and spirit).

Robert Tilton also claims a direct pipeline to divine revelation: "God showed me a vision that almost took my breath away. I was sucked into the Spirit . . ., caught away . . . and I found myself standing in the very presence of Almighty God. It just echoed into my being. And he said these words to me. . . exactly these words . . ."Many of my ministers pray for my people, but I want you to pray the Prayer of Agreement with them" . . . I have never seen the presence of God so powerful. This same anointing flooded my Spirit-man . . . It's inside of me now, and I have supernatural faith to agree with you. From that day forth, as I have been faithful to that heavenly vision, I've seen every kind of miracle imaginable happen when I pray the Prayer of Agreement with God's people." (Robert Tilton, newsletter from Robert Tilton Ministries, Word of Faith World Outreach Center, Box 819000, Dallas, TX75381.

It seems that in Robert Tilton the church is blessed with a twentieth-century apostle whose visions of revelation exceed that of the apostle John and whose miracle powers surpass that of the apostle Paul. If we are to believe Tilton's astonishing claims, there is no reason we should not include his writings in the next edition of the New Testament.

Paul Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), has revelatory dreams and has warmly embraced the neo-Gnostic dogma. His network has become a prime distribution center for the growing movement. Kenneth Copeland also receives phrases from God in "his spirit."

27. Touched by God

Illustration

King Duncan

Many of you are familiar with the 1957 motion picture The Bridge over the River Kwai starring Alec Guinness. It was selected as one of the 100 great films of the 20th century. It is the story of a group of British prisoners of war during World War II held by the Japanese in northern Burma in very difficult circumstances.

Ernest Gordon, at one time chaplain at Yale University, wrote a book called Through the River of the Kwai, which shared his experience as a prisoner in that camp. It is a story of utter degradation and desolation.

Gordon says that when the young soldiers in that camp realized that they were going to be there for a while, they began to have Bible studies and to pray diligently that they would be delivered from their circumstances much as Israel prayed for deliverance from Rome. He said that, at first, their praying for deliverance was shallow and superficial. They railed against God for letting them be in that situation. As time went on, however, something happened and their railing against God disappeared. They began to move toward a more mature faith. They began to pray about their relations with one another. No longer was it "Why, God?" but it was "How should we act, God?"

Gordon said the most spiritual moment of that experience was Christmas 1944. Out of deference to the holiday, the men were not given work detail that day and were given a bit more food. He said that as they moved around the prison yard, they sensed that things were somehow different. In one of the barracks (basically at hatched hut with a dirt floor and open sides where the men slept), one soldier began to sing a Christmas carol. It was echoed over the infirmary where men were dying. Then all around the camp, the men began to sing, and those who could, those who were ambulatory, came to the parade field and sat there in a great circle. Gordon said, "God touched us that day."

He called it the most sacred event that he had ever been involved with. No preaching, nothing of the usual church paraphernalia, just men united by their common misery, singing of God being with them and God's sovereignty. And he said, "We were touched by God."

28. Say Yes by Saying No

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

Have you ever realized that the best way to say yes to something is to say no to its counterpart?

There is an interesting expression of it in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul said, “Do not get drunk with wine, which will only ruin you; instead be filled with the Spirit. (Ephesians 5:18, TEV)

It works! You can eliminate the negative by accentuating the positive. The best way to get rid of a bad habit is to replace it with a good one.

William Glasser wrote a book on this dynamic which he called “positive addiction.”

What are some things to which you might become positively addicted?

physical exercise
good eating habits
deliberate unselfishness
refusing to repay evil with evil
holding back rather than jumping to conclusions
refusing to believe the worst by holding to the best

It’s a good discipline -- learning to say yes by saying no.

29. Faith and Expectation

Illustration

Larry Powell

Acts 1:4-14 contains certain encouragements to the followers of Christ to be an "expectant" fellowship. With this in mind, let us consider some specific instances where expectancy is implied.

1. Acts 1:5: "For John baptized with water but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." What is the difference between John’s water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

a. John’s baptism. Water baptism was commonly practiced by the Jews long before the appearance of John. It symbolized religious purification, and in a more specialized use it was applied when new converts entered into Judaism (proselyte baptism). John, however, baptized both Jews and Gentiles as a rote of moral purification for the approaching Kingdom of God. Although John’s baptism would enable those who submitted to it to meet the "Day of the Lord," it was to be distinguished as different from a future baptism, administered by one who "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

b. Baptism of the Holy Spirit. This baptism consists not in symbolic gestures of initiation, but in the receiving of "power." It does not ordain anybody for, or against, the future but rather manifests itself in a spiritual experience in the present. An initiatory baptism is symbolically accomplished once, whereas the baptism of the Holy Spirit may occur quite unrehearsed many times over. The element of expectation is contained in the selected scripture by the phrase, "But before many days, you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

2. Acts 1:7-8: "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father had fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." The disciples have just asked Jesus a legitimate question regarding the nature of his mission. A simple "yes" or "no" answer would not have been sufficient inasmuch as if he replied, "Yes (I have come to restore the Kingdom of Israel)," it would have been a lie, and if he had replied "No," they would have become disillusioned with him in the beginning. Instead, he informs them that it is not for them to know all the mysteries of God - but there is a consolation: "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." Perhaps it is like saying to someone, "You cannot adequately define love, but nonetheless you can experience it." Here, the power of the Holy Spirit is promised, and they are encouraged to expect it in their own experience.

3. Acts 1:11: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?" I suppose the most logical answer would have been, "Because we are bewildered!" It would have been extremely difficult to have acted otherwise while witnessing their Lord being lifted up into heaven on a cloud. If that were not enough, two men in white robes suddenly appeared to stand by them and question their amazement. In all probability, at least one of the inferences here is that rather than gazing into heaven, it would be more proper to get on with the business of the Kingdom, teaching and preaching, and doing "whatsoever I have commanded you." However, they should pursue their tasks of soul-winning with an attitude of expectancy because "this Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way."

4. Acts 1:14. "All those with one accord devoted themselves to prayer." And we may be sure that their prayers contained expectancy. Expectancy for what? For the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the return of the risen Lord.

30. Public Notions of Jesus' Identity

Illustration

Brett Blair

Some, said Peter, say that you are Elijah. Now why would people think that Jesus was the long deceased prophet Elijah? Elijah was, of course, a highly revered personality in the religious life of the Hebrews. His defeat of the 450 prophets of Baal on the top of Mt. Carmel was a story that was known even by little children. It was a commonly held belief among the Hebrews that one day Elijah would return and that would mark the end of the world. In the very last passage in the Old Testament, in the Book of Malachi, we find these words: "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes."

Most of you have read Charles Schultz's comic strip Peanuts. One day we see that the television is on but there is no one in the room listening to it. The announcer is talking about a golf tournament that is in process. He says: Smith has to make this putt to win the championship. There will be no tomorrow." And just as he says, "There will be no tomorrow," in walks Lucy. She immediately goes into a panic and starts running around and yelling to the other children: "The world is coming to an end. They just announced it on television." Her panic quickly spreads as we see all the peanuts kids as they go wildly screaming about. Finally in the last square we see all of the children huddled on top of Snoopy's doghouse waiting for the end of the world. And Charlie Brown finally speaks up with a puzzled voice: I thought that Elijah was supposed to come back first."

Well, Charlie Brown knew his Bible. Elijah was suppose to come back before the end time. When the disciples told Jesus that some people thought he was Elijah, they were expressing a common thought among the people that the end was very near.

31. HOW TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

Illustration

John H. Krahn

How often has each of us struggled over an important decision? We considered the variety of alternatives; often we discussed the decision with our family and friends. Sometimes we prayed over it and sought God’s direction. "What would God want me to do?" we asked ourselves.

Unfortunately, there is much confusion about the subject of the will of God. The words, "It is the will of God," are used too freely. A catastrophe happens and people say glibly, "It’s his will." We sometimes do inappropriate things and pass them off by saying God willed that we did it. Many talk about searching for the will of God as if it were somehow lost and needed to be found.

First and foremost in God’s will is that all people be saved. The Bible tells us that God wills all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Throughout Scripture we find God desiring that everyone have the joy of Jesus as their Lord and Savior. To not have Jesus is to be firmly in sin’s control ... to have faith in the Son of God is to be alive to our full creative potential as he controls our lives. Through a cross and a vacant grave our salvation has been secured. Jesus, unlike any of the gods in other religions, is a personal God, and those who know him personally will be well on their way to know the Father’s will. To have said, "I believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior" is to have taken the first step.

Our second step in knowing the will of God is to be Spirit-filled. In Ephesians 5:17 we read, "Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." To not be willing to understand the will of the Lord is to be foolish. Now what is the will? We continue to read in verse 18, "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit." Now most of us are at least qualified to discuss what it’s like to be filled with wine or some other spirited liquid. To be drunk is to be controlled by the agent within. We act differently when we have the spirit within us. Likewise to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be controlled also by an agent within. We have no more control over ourselves than we would have if we were drunk with alcohol. To be filled in the Spirit is to be dominated and controlled by the Spirit.

The third and final step in discovering the will of God for our lives you’re really going to like; you’ll eat it up. It is to do whatever you want to do. That’s right. Do what you want when you have a decision to make. In the Book of Psalms we read, "Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Notice that it says the desires of our hearts are given to us by God when we delight in him. God puts the desire in our hearts so that what we want is really what God wants. His will becomes our will, and conversely, our will is his will. The third step is possible when we have taken the first step of believing and the second of being filled by the Holy Spirit. Having taken the first two steps and having become well-versed in Scripture, we follow our desires (really God’s) and live according to his will. We set out in life without fear, and as we make our way, he provides us with the necessary corrections along the course.

32. Pillars Driven into the Sand

Illustration

Jef Olson

Pastor Jef Olson writes of his first-hand experience with "houses built on sand":

On our initial visit to the Outer Banks of North Carolina our family was in awe of two realities. First, we were reminded of the awesome presence of the ocean – the unrelenting pounding the beach took as wave after wave spent its energy in a rush of spray and foam, the continual movement of sand and shell in response to the force of the water, and the realization that nothing could stand forever against the mighty power contained in the vastness of the ocean. Secondly, we were amazed at the foolishness of homeowners who sank hundreds of thousands (in some cases, millions) of dollars into beachfront homes. These homes sit on pillars driven into the sand, not on bedrock, but driven deep in the hope that the sand itself will provide the foundation necessary to support the house…and keep it secure from wind and sea. Of course, every generation or so wind and sea combine to generate life-denying hurricanes, the force of which has the ability to destroy everything in its path. Palaces were reduced to hovels, remnants of dreams foolishly held by homeowners who believed they could defy, or at least withstand, the meteorological laws of nature.

33. What to Give Jesus

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

There was a Director of Christian Education at a church who organized a Children's Christmas pageant. She let the children decide what gifts they'd give the baby Jesus in the pageant. Some wanted to give him stuffed animals. Others wanted to give him toys. One little girl named Sally had several conversations with the Director before she admitted what she wanted to give the baby Jesus. Finally the Director asked, "Sally, what do you want to give Jesus?"

"Oh, I'm too embarrassed," said Sally. "I shouldn't tell you."

"That's O.K. What is it?"

"A kiss," she said. And the night of the pageant, that is what she gave him. All the other angels brought their gifts of toys and animals. But Sally bent over the manger and gave the little baby a kiss.

A loving sigh went up from the congregation as they watched. Sally knew the secret of giving. And she gave the baby Jesus exactly what God was giving us when God gave us Jesus in the Cradle, something that matters, something that summed up God's Hopes and Dreams, something from the heart.

That's what God gave, something from the heart. God gave us Himself, when He gave us His Son.

34. Beauty Beyond the Pitfalls

Illustration

Unknown

This is a Mothers' Day sermon. I'm preaching without apology and with appreciation for that time - honored institution without the benefit of which we wouldn't be here!

Every Mother's Day sermon I've run across starts with an explanation - this one's no exception. As ministers, we're reminded not to get too sentimental about motherhood because:

for some, motherhood is an accident, and not always a welcome one;
for some, biological motherhood isn't possible;
for some, mothers weren't all that nice;
for some, motherhood under the very best of circumstances is still less than a bed of roses and a primrose path.

If I can take some liberties with poet Wilhelm Busch's words, I'd have to say: "(Mutter) werden ist nitch schwer; (Mutter) sein dagegen sehr." (To become a (mother) is not so difficult; on the other hand, being a (mother) is very much so!)

So, with all those qualifications, why bother with Mothers' Day at all? I'll tell you why - because for all its stumbling blocks, pitfalls and broken dreams, for all the soiled diapers, soiled wallpaper and spoiled plans, we're talking about a beautiful ideal, a natural part of God's creative plan to bring love and caring to light. Motherhood is a constant demand for the gift of love and caring.

35. A War Poet

Illustration

Michael P. Green

Wilfred Owen, a poet of the World War I period, described in the lines below his attitude after seeing a friend gag in a green field of gas fumes during an enemy gas attack. Owen himself was killed in action a week before the armistice but left a legacy of poems that decried the futility and horror of war.

If in some smothered dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face.
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest,
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.*
[*“Sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country,” Horace]

36. Start Anew

Illustration

Alan Loy McGinnis

Thomas Edison's manufacturing facilities in West Orange, N.J., were heavily damaged by fire one night in December, 1914. Edison lost almost $1 million worth of equipment and the record of much of his work. The next morning, walking about the charred embers of his hopes and dreams, the 67-year-old inventor said: "There is value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Now we can start anew."

37. Let My Little Light Shine - Sermon Starter

Illustration

King Duncan

There are all kinds of theories about how to motivate people.

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Don Sutton hadn't won a game in eight weeks. A critical press was suggesting that he be dropped from the starting lineup. The future looked bleak, and Sutton felt terrible. Then, before a game, Dodgers manager Walter Alston tapped him on the shoulder. "I'd like to speak with you, Don," he said. Sutton prepared himself for the worst.

"Don," said Alston, "I know how the past couple of months have been for you. Everyone's wondering whether we can make it to the play-offs . . . You know there's a lot of pressure . . . I've had to make a decision." Sutton had visions of being taken off the mound. Then Alston continued. "If the Dodgers are going to win this year," he said, looking Sutton in the eye, "they're going to win with Don Sutton pitching. Come what may, you're staying in the starting job. That's all I wanted to say."

Sutton's losing streak lasted two more weeks, but because of his manager's encouragement he felt different about it. Something in him was turning around. He found himself pitching the best ball of his career. In the National League pennant drive, he won 13 games out of 14.

There are all kinds of theories about how to motivate people. We can do it through guilt, through fear, through shame. But these were not Jesus' methods. Jesus motivated through positive messages of hope and encouragement.

Consider our lesson for today. Jesus says to his followers, "You are the light of the world. . . ." Can you imagine that? Here was a motley crew of farmers and fishermen and tax collectors and housewives in a tiny and remote village in an obscure part of the world and Jesus was saying to them, "You are the light of the world." Talk about a statement of faith! Let's go farther than that. Talk about a crazy idea! Light of the world? That bunch? It must have sounded absurd at the time even to them. Only Jesus could have seen that through this motley crew God would indeed change the world forever. At the time, however, it probably sounded like so much idle chatter. "You are the light of the world," he said and so they were. Now do you want to hear something really absurd? So are we.

Jesus says to us this morning that WE are the light of the world. Think about that for a moment. Sink your teeth into it savor it. You and I are the light of the world. What does it mean? Well, let me suggest some possibilities.

We Have a Responsibility for the World.
We Have Something the World Desperately Needs.
We Are Not the Source of Our Light, but We Reflect a Much Greater Light.

38. Pentecost, The Exciting Birth of a Church

Illustration

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

It was one of the most wonderful and exciting moments in the history of the Christian faith. The Holy Spirit had fallen fresh on the lives of believers. People were filled with the passion and fires of the Holy Ghost. They were shouting joy from all directions. They were gathered from every persuasion and city, every nation and province, all glorifying God, speaking in foreign tongues but understanding each other, expressing different voices but still in one accord. This was the time of Pentecost, when God saw fit to pour out the spirit which spawned the birth of the Christian Church.

Today we need the fervor, fire, tongues, passion, and Spirit of Pentecost. Today the Christian Church needs a rebirth of the spirit, where souls are on fire with the love of Christ, where barriers are broken down and superficial divisions which sequester and divide people are bridged through a unity of the Spirit. Today more than ever the church needs to recapture the fires of Pentecost so that souls can break free from bondage, and healing, deliverance, and the full power of God's anointing can be experienced in every medium and every idiom by people filled with Holy Ghost madness.

Too many churches today are devoid of the Spirit of Pentecost because they are dry, stale, and discordant, where parishioners are in a somnambulist stupor; where worship services are vapid, staid, and wooden; where the preaching is dull, flat, and insipid; where the singing is Geritol-tired and without the vim, verve, and verse which speaks of a crucified, died and risen Lord; where if anyone taps his foot and says, "Amen," he is stared into silence, and if anyone shouts, "Thank you, Jesus," or "Help me, Holy Ghost," parishioners call EMS, the DS or 911! Too many churches have become mausoleums for the dead rather than coliseums of praise for a living God. They have lost the spirit of Pentecost! They have lost their enthusiasm. They have lost their joy for Jesus and find themselves suffering from what William Willimon calls "Institutional and Spiritual Dry Rot." Pentecost marks the beginning of a new spiritual movement in Christ; a movement birthed through the fires of the Holy Spirit; a movement steeped in the spirit of hope, renewal, and spiritual transformation. It is a movement where souls are on fire with the passion of the Holy Spirit and the Church today more than ever needs to recapture that spirit. If the Church is to survive the next millennium it must recapture some of the praise and enthusiasm it had two millennia ago. The spiritual energy and vitality of Pentecost has sustained the Church through two millennia.

39. The Smoke Signal

Illustration

Michael P. Green

Long ago, in the days of sailing ships, a terrible storm arose and a ship was lost in a deserted area. Only one crewman survived, washed up on a small uninhabited island. In his desperation, the castaway daily prayed to God for help and deliverance from his lonely existence. Each day he looked for a passing ship and saw nothing. Eventually he managed to build a crude hut, in which he stored the few things he had recovered from the wreck and those things he had made to help him.

One day, as the sailor was returning from his daily search for food, he saw a column of smoke. As he ran to it he saw his hut in flames. All was lost. Now not only was he alone, but he had nothing to help him in his struggle for survival. Stunned and nearly overcome with grief and despair, he fell into a deep depression and spent a nearly sleepless night wondering what was to become of him and questioning whether life itself was even worth the effort.

The next morning, he rose early and went down to the sea. There, to his amazement, he saw a ship lying offshore and a small boat rowing toward him. When the once-marooned man met the ship’s captain, he asked him how he had known to send help. The captain replied, “Why, we saw your smoke signal yesterday, but by the time we drew close the tide was against us. So we had to wait until now to come and get you.”

Do not despair when calamity strikes, for God is always able to bring a blessing out of what seems to be a curse.

40. Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day

Illustration

William H. Seward

Washington, D.C. March 30, 1863

Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

41. God is Laughing at Us

Illustration

Jon L. Joyce

"LO YOUR KING COMES TO YOU. TRIUMPHANT AND VICTORIOUS IS HE, HUMBLE AND RIDING ON AN ASS, ON A COLT, THE FOAL OF AN ASS."

Surely one sign of the lack of perceptiveness of us humans is sometimes we don’t know when we are being ridiculed, laughed at, satirized, made fun of. I remember when we arrived in Japan for the occupation years ago, the missionary’s son who was our regimental interpreter, told me to watch how the Japanese people greeted me. If they would bow and say "Koneechiwa Gozaimas" they were indicating that I was a very honorable person. If they bowed twice, they were indicating that I was a very, very honorable person, but if they bowed three times, they were making fun of me. They were indicating that I thought that I was more honorable than I really was. This is one of the great thrusts of Holy Scripture that we fail to recognize. We don’t see when Almighty God is making fun of us. We can’t seem to understand when God is laughing at us. The Word warns us: "He who sits in the Heavens shall laugh. He shall hold you in derision." But when it happens, we don’t catch it at all. We don’t get it. We don’t understand the satire.

Why do you think God allowed his only-begotten Son to be born in a livery stable? Why was he born in a one-horse town that was the least of Judah? Oh, yes, He was born the Son of a son of David, but that son was only a carpenter, and he certainly wasn’t on any social register. Why do you think that his disciples were all peasants? Why did Jesus pal around with the cheating tax gatherers and with the other outcasts of the society? Why did he walk through hated Samaria and associate with people from that half-breed, heretical race? And now why, again, this Palm Sunday procession?

Oh, don’t you see? God is laughing at us. He is satirizing our own behavior. "Triumphal entry" you call it? Nothing could be further from the truth. Could anything be more stupid and clumsy looking than an unbroken ass’ colt? The sophisticated people of Jerusalem looked down their aristocratic noses from the cool shadows of their balconies to see what all the shouting was about, and all they saw was a motley mob of hicks from the sticks waving palm branches and the very clothes off their own backs. Quite a show! Just about as exciting as a couple of dozen hippies engaged in a march on Washington, and I’m sure that it caused just about the same amount of stir in the City of Jerusalem.

Never did a story build up to a bigger letdown. The palm wavers obviously thought that Christ was riding in to take over the government of the Jews. The Kingdom had come at last! And here they were right in the front pew! They watched him as he stopped the procession and went into the Temple, and when he was inside, they waited breathlessly for some cataclysmic sign from Heaven. And what happened? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! In fact, even the Gospel writers couldn’t quite get the flat taste of it out of their mouths. Mark ends his account by saying: "He went into the Temple, and when He'd looked around at everything, the hour already being late, He went out again." Period! That’s it!

Don’t you see, beloved, God is making fun of us? He’s satirizing all of our triumphal entries. He’s paradying all of our parades. He’s laughing at all of our strutting, preening, prideful pomp and circumstance. He’s saying: "This is the kind of thing you enjoy, my children." And what does it all come to? Nothing! You have forgotten one important word in your ancient prophecy of Zechariah that you now see being fulfilled. You have forgotten the one important word, "Behold, your King comes to you humble," - HUMBLE - "and sitting on an ass’s colt."

42. The Reason Why

Illustration

Staff

On February 15, 1947 Glenn Chambers boarded a plane bound for Quito, Ecuador to begin his ministry in missionary broadcasting with the important "Voice of the Andes." But he never arrived. In a horrible moment, the plane carrying Chambers crashed into a mountain peak and spiraled downward. Later it was learned that before leaving the Miami airport, Chambers wanted to write his mother a letter. All he could find for stationery was a page of advertising on which was written the single word "WHY?" Around that word he hastily scribbled a final note. After Chambers's mother learned of her son's death, his letter arrived. She opened the envelope, took out the paper, and unfolded it. Staring her in the face was the question "WHY?"

No doubt this was the questions Jesus' disciples asked when He was arrested, tried, and crucified. And it was probably the questions Joseph of Arimathea asked himself as he approached Pilate and requested the Lord's body (v.58). It must have nagged at him as he wrapped the body in a linen cloth, carried it to his own freshly hewn tomb, and rolled the massive stone into its groove over the tomb's mouth. In the face of his grief, Joseph carried on. He did what he knew he had to do. None of Jesus' relatives were in a position to claim His body for burial, for they were all Galileans and none of them possessed a tomb in Jerusalem. The disciples weren't around to help either.

But there was another reason for Joseph's act of love. In Isaiah 53:9, God directed the prophet to record an important detail about the death of His Messiah. The One who had no place to lay his head would be buried in a rich man's tomb. Joseph probably didn't realize that his act fulfilled prophecy. The full answer to the why of Jesus' death was also several days away for Joseph and the others. All he knew was that he was now a disciple of Jesus and that was enough to motivate his gift of love.

43. Home

Illustration

Nick Kenny

Home is where the heart is,
you have often heard it said.
Home is where the songbirds sing
their sweetest, overhead.

Home is like the rainbow’s end
that beckons us in the blue.
Home is where your brightest dreams
take root and all come true.

And yet it’s more than just a place
where people sleep and eat.
A home that’s real has something
indefinable and sweet.

It may be just a cottage
or a castle with a dome,
But if God dwells within its walls
it really is a home.

44. The Great Leap of Faith

Illustration

Eric Ritz

The allied troops under General Wellington fought Napoleon on June 18, 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo, a village in Belgium just south of Brussels. News was transmitted by the use of lights across the channel to anxious Britishers. The words were spelled out, "Wellington defeated...." and then a fog, so typical of England, fell over the channel. England thought the battle was lost and the dreadful news was spread quickly, throwing the land into despair. But when the fog lifted, they could see the final word, "Wellington defeated Napoleon." And the mood in Great Britain changed from one of tragedy to triumph. The whole country exploded in thunderous celebration as the news was relayed. Napoleon had been defeated.

We know from the Gospel records that there was a great deal of circumstantial evidence that at first clouded the landscape for the disciples. It seemed that the Roman authorities had taken their fondest hopes and greatest dreams from them on Good Friday. They were living as victims--when God had achieved for them the victory. How tragic it is for Christian believers to continue to fight the Good Friday battle and always remain a victim when we could claim the resurrection power of Christ and be a victor. However, I understand that it does take a leap of faith to believe that Christ has won the big war when our world looks the way it does today.

45. Out of the Box Gifts

Illustration

Leonard Sweet

Three days before the first big winter storm hit, the phone rang. It was "Odie," the local plumber, volunteering to come over and do some work. He offered to drain out the hot water tanks and outside pipes ahead of the blast of arctic air headed our way. "Odie" wasn't trying to drum up any business for himself. In fact, if all our pipes burst he would make a lot of money repairing the damages. He was simply thinking of others and offering the gift of his unique talents to help out a family with a man with no handy-man skills.

Odie's phone call has been the best Christmas "gift" idea we've heard so far this year. What, you say? I've never seen a "Phone Call from Plumber" listed in a Christmas catalogue as a gift idea. Let me explain.

Retailers of all sorts are frantically slashing prices on their merchandise to entice consumers to buy more stuff, to get more goodies. Here are some past sample ads collected during one week leading up to Christmas:

*Wal-Mart wants us to buy more so we will "live better." (Unless, of course, we get trampled to death buying more).

*A TV commercial Mom says she wants to see her kids doing the "present dance"—hyper children ripping and tearing and prancing around piles and piles of dismembered packages.

*Sears proclaims our purchases will fulfill all the "dreams" of others.

*A television commercial promises: "Change your TV . .. Change your life."

But has it ever struck you as odd that we celebrate Jesus' birthday by giving presents to ourselves? If it's Jesus' birthday, why isn't he getting the presents? Isn't the one who is celebrating the birthday the one who is supposed to get the gifts?

Maybe we change that rule at Christmas because we don't want to have to think about what kind of presents Jesus would like. What would most please Jesus to get for Christmas?

46. The Difference between Interest and Commitment

Illustration

Steve Goodier

Melodie Hartline relates in Reader's Digest (September, 1996) that in her job as an employee of a jewelry store, she often arranged for engaged couples to have their wedding bands engraved with something special. She once asked a bride-to-be what she would like inscribed inside her fiancé's ring.

"We aren't very romantic," she replied. Then she related that they were marrying on her fiancé's birthday so he wouldn't forget the date!

Melodie persisted, "Isn't there something you'll want him to remember as he looks inside his ring?"

"There sure is," she said. And that's how "Put it back on!" came to be inscribed inside her husband's ring.

Perhaps she was trying to "help along" her husband's commitment to the relationship.

Catherine, from Scotland, may have wanted to help along her lover's commitment for several decades. And finally, her 68-year-old boyfriend, George, proposed after 44 years of courtship. Why the wait? "He is a bit shy, you know," Catherine said.

At the heart of any meaningful relationship is commitment. Further, commitment is vital to the success of any endeavor. Happy people are committed people. They commit to other people, they commit to themselves, they commit to God, and they commit to their dreams. They know that nothing is possible without firm resolve.

Author Ken Blanchard has said, "There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses - only results."

What about you? Are you ready for results?

47. It's How You Play the Game

Illustration

Gary Smith

Suffering from terminal spinal cancer at the age or 47, former North Carolina State basketball coach Jim Valvano spoke with a reporter. He looked back on his life and told a story about himself as a 23-year-old coach of a small college team. "Why is winning so important to you?" the players asked Valvano.

"Because the final score defines you," he said, "You lose, ergo, you're a loser. You win, ergo, you're a winner."

"No," the players insisted. "Participation is what matters. Trying your best, regardless of whether you win or lose that's what defines you."

It took 24 more years of living. It took the coach bolting up from the mattress three or four times a night with his T-shirt soaked with sweat and his teeth rattling from the fever chill of chemotherapy and the terror of seeing himself die repeatedly in his dreams. It took all that for him to say it: "Those kids were right. It's effort, not result. It's trying. God, what a great human being I could have been if I'd had this awareness back then."

48. Jesus Christ - No Mere Man

Illustration

Michael P. Green

The following observation is largely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte but not definitively verified: “I marvel that whereas the ambitious dreams of myself, Caesar, Alexander, should have vanished into thin air, a Judean peasant, Jesus, should be able to stretch His hands across the destinies of men and nations. I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I myself have found empires; but upon what do these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded his empire upon love; and to this very day millions would die for Him.”

49. Presenting the Glory of God

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

Speakers and writers must present the glory of God as clearly and compellingly as human language will permit. Otherwise both preacher and people will be reduced to dreaming little dreams and attempting for God only little things, when they could be doing so much more. Otherwise they will succumb to what Annie Dillard terms "the enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end." The trouble with that, says Dillard, is that God and "the world is wider than that in all directions, more dangerous and more bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus."

50. Servants of the Most High

Illustration

Brett Blair

In Letters to Scattered Pilgrims, by Elizabeth O'Conner, envisions that Christians can transform the world. Listen to her vision: "If we are each obedient to our visions the cities would have green spaces, birds in their trees, and architecture to quicken the awareness of the divine life throbbing in the whole of the world. And the towns? the towns would have galleries to hold the works of their artists; theaters for the performing arts would spring up in their squares; scientists and poets would confer with each other; students would gather for debate and reflection, children would want to continue in life, and church congregations everywhere would be struggling 'to make serious use of the wings the creator had given.' Everyone would know what it meant to be the servant of the Most High."

Okay. Now, when I hear words like this, I want to respond with, "I am the Walrus, goo goo g'joob." Beatles fans will understand.

This kind of Utopian Christianity is only possible in a perfect world. It is even said that John Lennon later disavowed his secular version of this starry eyed optimism, his song Imagine. Even as the best of Christians, we struggle with sin: revenge, hatred, lying, sexual desires. Paul understood the struggle. What he wanted to do, he did not do. What he did not want to do, he did. The great Apostle lived with the same tensions as you and me.

Now I'm going to say something controversial. Here it is: When we become Christians we do not lose our sinful nature. That's what I hear Paul saying in Romans 7. So, where do we find the freedom our hearts so desperately need? Paul pivots in chapter 8 and answers his own dilemma: There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus I have been freed from the law of sin and death.

You hear that? Forgiveness. That's the victory. And, that's our freedom.

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