[Twenty-first in a series of posts on Last Things] Encore Post: Jesus had quite a bit to say about his return. The signs that we are in the last days are clear. He will return suddenly, so be ready! The angels will descend, the dead will come to life again, and we will all gather before his judgment throne. The lost will then be thrown with the devil and his angels into hell, and we will go with him to live forever. But where is the talk about the Tribulation and the Millennium? Jesus never speaks of seven years of special punishment of the world for their sins, or of an earthly reign at the end of time, much less a thousand-year one. So, where does the talk of a millennium on Christian radio, in endless end-time and prophecy books, come from?
The concepts of the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, and a one-thousand-year reign of Christ before the final judgment are less than 200 years old. John Nelson Darby first taught the idea that faithful Christians would be “raptured” — removed from the world at the end of the current age, just as God poured out his wrath in a seven-year “Great Tribulation” when the Anti-Christ would rule and severely persecute people who became Christians, mainly Jewish people. At the end of this period, Christ was to return to rule the world for 1000 years. After that, he was to judge the world, condemning the lost, the devil, and his angels to hell, while the saints would live with God forever.
These views, popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible and evangelical authors, became an established theology among Fundamentalist, Evangelical, and independent Protestant churches. Some pastors and evangelists speculated that current events fulfilled Biblical prophecies, treating the Bible like a giant algebra problem. Some even set a date for the rapture — and recalculated when the prediction failed. Yet the whole view of the end is not accurate.
All the signs Jesus taught apply throughout the time between the Ascension of Jesus and his return at the end of time. No one knows the day or the hour of his return (Mark 13:32). It will be a typical day like any other — until it is not. (Luke 17:26-35) Jesus calls on us to stay awake. We do not know when he is coming for us — at the end of days, or at the end of our days. Either way, we should be about what God has called us to do, so when he comes to take us home, we are ready to greet him.
Encore Post: Great forest fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and floods are all over our news. Acts of unspeakable evil and cruelty occur on almost a weekly basis. A nation routinely kills babies in the womb, celebrates immorality, and lectures the church when it doesn’t join them. All the signs of the end of days fill our TVs, cell phones, and computer screens. It makes you just want to scream, “Tear open the heavens and get down here, Lord, and do something about it! What are you waiting for? (See Isaiah 64)
To most of the world’s religions, the high god who made the world is a distant god, who made the world and is tired of it, going away to leave it to lesser gods and our own devices. We are left alone to deal with the mess that is our world and our part in making it worse. Even more modern thinkers, like the Deists, thought of God as a great watchmaker, who made the world capable of running itself, wound it up, and walked away. Pop songs muse: “God is watching us… from a distance” and “The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died.” We just have to cope, they advise.
Advent breaks into that mood and reminds us that it is not true at all. The God who made the world and called it “very good” intends to do something about it. He promised to come himself, in the person of his Son, born of a woman, to become one of us. It reminds us that he kept that promise and to prepare to celebrate his coming, receive him as he comes to us each day, and how he will finally come to set things right.
The season of Advent developed over the centuries to do just that. Like Lent prepares the church to celebrate Easter, Advent prepares the church to celebrate Christmas. For some, it was also a season of repentance, as a deliberate counter to the wild and immoral way pagans celebrate their December holidays. So in many places, during Advent, the color is purple or black; the Gloria is not sung, and people fast. For others, it is a season of hope, with blue as the color and carols sung to anticipate Christmas.
Either way, the church cries out: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come!” Come as you did, born to die that we might live. Come with your grace and live among us. Come and bring us all home to be with you. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The theme is this: The Lord anoints a king from Bethlehem.
When you’re trying to pick someone for your basketball team, usually you pick the tallest person, the best shooter, or the fastest runner. You would never pick the short, stubby kid who’s just there to get out of the house for the afternoon.
Or when you’re trying to pick someone for a job, you usually want someone with experience, or someone who is responsible, or someone who has good references. You would never pick someone who is least qualified, least educated, or least able to do the work. There are no blind umpires; for example, city folk oftentimes are not ready for farm work.
We look at appearances. We judge the book by its cover. What did they just call it in the College Football Playoff? The eye-test? It’s no longer about how many wins you have, but how you look on the field. We look at appearances, but God looks at the heart.
That’s the case in our reading this evening. Saul was the tallest and the most handsome guy to be king, the very first king over Israel. By all appearances, he looked like a leader, talked like a leader, and he was anointed and appointed to be the leader. But Saul’s heart was rotten. Saul’s faith was failing. Like so many people in our world today, Saul believed in himself, but He did not believe in the God who anointed him.
It comes as no surprise that Samuel the priest was quite disappointed. Our reading says, The Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Surely we have felt this way before. We picked the best player, but then he got injured. Or we picked the most qualified employee, but he left for a bigger and better job and was not loyal to the company. Bigger is not always better. Taller is not always faster. Stronger is not always smarter.
And so the Lord says to Samuel, Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” Who? Where? Jesse from Bethlehem? Who is that? What about Jonathan, Saul’s son? No, it will not be Saul’s son. It will not be Jonathan. For as the Lord says, He does not look at appearances; the Lord looks at the heart. The Lord will anoint a king from Bethlehem.
But Samuel the priest is not up to the task. Like Moses, he is scared to death of the mission of God. He is scared to death of the power of the earthly king. And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ And invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do. And you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you.” Aren’t we all like Samuel? Scared to death to invite our neighbors to church? Scared to death that we might be cancelled by the culture? Scared to death that we might offend someone we care about?
We all are. And yet God’s answer is simple. Do what God says. The text reads, Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem. And he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. Do what God says. Priest, make a sacrifice and anoint my man to be king. It is often difficult to do what God says for all the reasons given above. But when we do what God says, we have nothing and no one to fear.
As we all know, Samuel anointed David, the son of Jesse. The Lord anointed a king in Bethlehem. But David’s brothers, who are not anointed, give us a clue about the coming King who is both David’s Son and David’s Lord. Each of these names points us beyond David to Jesus, the King of Israel.
Jesse’s firstborn son Eliab’s name means “God is my Father.”
The next brother Abinadab’s name means “Father who vows.”
And the third brother Shammah’s name means “loss.”
The fourth brother Nethanel’s name means “God has given.”
The fifth brother Raddai’s name means “Ruler coming down.”
The sixth brother Ozem’s name means “eagerness.”
And finally, David’s name means “beloved.” Let’s put it all together. God is my Father. He is a father who vows and makes promises. God will lose His Son. God will give His Son. God’s Son is a Ruler coming down. God’s Son is eager and willing to forgive and to save His people from their sins. And finally, Jesus is the beloved Son, with whom God is well-pleased.
Jesse’s sons’ names clarify the promises of God. Certainly, the Lord anointed David to be king in Bethlehem. And certainly the Lord anointed a king greater than David to be king from Bethlehem for the whole world. Certainly, David’s name means “beloved.” And certainly Jesus is the beloved Son whom God has given because He loved the world.
David would not be the first king we would choose, for he was the youngest, the smallest, and the shepherd boy. And yet God made Him mighty for the nation of Israel. And Jesus certainly would not be the first king of Israel that you would think, born in a manger and hanged on a cross.
And yet, the Lord anointed His King in Bethlehem, King Jesus, who lives and reigns still and always. And this King did far more than win battles and expand territory. Jesus saved us from sin, rescued from death, and defeated the devil. His territory is in your hearts and souls. For God does not look at outward appearances, but He looks at the heart, hearts of faith and joy in Him. And His territory is right here in this church and right there in the heights of heaven.
David was great, but Jesus was greater. David was a king, but Jesus is still King. David was anointed, but Jesus was anointed, the Messiah of the Old Testament and the Christ in the New Testament. David was beloved, but Jesus was God’s only begotten and beloved Son.
The Lord anointed a King in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ, who reigns both now and forevermore.
[Twentieth in a series of posts on Last Things] Encore Post: Many of our evangelical brothers and sisters are fascinated by Biblical prophecy. Seeing the evil around us, they are convinced that we are living in the very last years and months before Christ returns to raise the dead, bring an end to sin, death and the power of the devil, gather all in the final judgement and begin the marriage feast of the lamb that has no end. They are not alone — in every period, Christians were convinced they were living in such times — even St. Paul and Martin Luther!
What makes their view unique in the church’s history is that they accept a theological view called Dispensationalism, a Christian school of thought that was born in the 1800s. It adopted the ancient view that Christ would reign on earth literally for 1000 years after he returned in glory. It was set in the way of looking at history, inspired by the 19th-century cultural movement known as Romanticism. Dispensationalism was developed by Charles Nelson Darby, D. L. Moody and C. I. Scofield.
Dispensationalists believe God divided the world into seven dispensations (also called economies and administrations). In each age, God supposedly revealed himself in different ways. Salvation was offered according to different plans for each age (for example, under the Law of Moses, salvation was by works, but in the church age, by grace), and humans were held accountable to the set of rules for that age. They get to these views by treating prophecies written in figurative and symbolic language at face value and using the interpretations they discover to understand, in a complex way, the simple and clear words of Jesus and the apostles.
For them, this age will end when the events predicted in prophecy occur. They look to current events to fulfill these prophecies, treating the Bible as a giant algebra problem. Some have used such calculations to predict end-time events. Among these are the rapture, when all true Christians will suddenly be removed from the world, leaving only unbelievers, the Tribulation, when they will be punished, and those who come to faith, seeing these events are persecuted, and the Millennium, when Christ and the church will rule the world for a thousand years. Two problems with this: Christ promised he would return suddenly, and the last judgement follows immediately (so the Bible is not an algebra problem), and these versions of a rapture, a millennium, and a tribulation are not in the Bible.
[Nineteenth in a series of posts on Last Things] Encore Post: As the turn of the millennium approached, people began to wonder if maybe Jesus would return. They sold all their property and gave the money to the poor. They went on a pilgrimage. Some gathered with the Pope to celebrate the last moments of the millennium. It is said some died of heart attacks, expecting the end of days. But when the bells of St. Peter’s tolled in the New Year and Pope Silvester the First made the sign of the cross in benediction, the Trumpet did not sound, and the dead were not raised. With great relief, they welcomed in the year 1000.
840 years later, a Baptist farmer became convinced that he had decoded the Bible’s prophecies of the Second Advent. It would be on March 21st, 1843, he announced. So people sold all their property and gave the money to the poor. They traveled distances to hear William Miller. When March 21st came, they gathered with him in white robes. But the trumpet did not sound, and the dead were not raised. The disillusioned called it the Great Disappointment.
Throughout the years, Christians have been tempted to ignore Jesus’ warning that no one knows the day or the hour. (Matthew 24:36) In 1988, one man claimed, “But that doesn’t mean you can’t know the month and the year.” Truly distressed by the trials of this world, they latched onto the thought that they were in the last days. In the process, they missed the work that God had for them to do.
Rather than focus on any one day, Jesus calls on us to always be ready, because we do not know when he will return. That is true not only of the end of days but of the end of your own days. Our lives are short and in God’s hands, who alone knows when it is best for us to be by his side. When that day comes, be it in the end of days or at the end of our days, his angels will come and escort us home forever. In the meantime, be alert! Work while it is still day, because you do not know when you will rest from your labors. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
