This week our culture prepares for an event that is absolutely antithetical to the Christian message. Halloween, is something in which many little children participate, dressed up in costume, without any understanding of the spiritual implications they are “toying” with. Many parents tell me how harmless this fun-night is. On the other hand, last week, I had a Nigerian pastor ask me why so many people have “black magic-witch-doctor shrines” at the front of their homes? That’s because the witch doctors in Africa practice for real, what we play with for fun! People who know the spiritual world, understand the enormous gravity of the halloween culture, and especially the spiritual impact it has on our children. This Sunday the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird will preach on this subject from the book of Isaiah. The title of his sermon is “No Longer Deserted at Halloween.” from Isaiah 62. This will be a challenging sermon!
So come, join us as we worship the triune God together. Here’s the announcement:
Church @ Church this Sunday—the 27th October at 10:00am
All Saints “Renovations” Prayer Vigil starts Sunday night the 27th October. Every night at the church from 7:00pm till 8:30pm for the rest of the year.
Ladies’ Refresh Prayer 10:30 am Tuesdays at the church See Jenny Klenner for details.
All Saints Prayer and Bible Study. 8 week video series on “The Lord’s Prayer.” 7:00 pm Thursdays at the church. Everyone welcome.
Daylight Savings begins next Sunday November 3rd. Set you clocks back one hour.
Next Community Lunch Sunday November 17th after the service. Bring some food to share with your Church family. (Remember that we have no heating or cooling facilities until our renovations are complete.) Everyone is welcome.
Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes. Pick up your shoeboxes this Sunday and return by November 17th.
If you have any further questions, or need help in any way, don’t hesitate to contact me.
See you this Sunday.
Thank you Church.
Stay vigilant and prayerful.
Love each other deeply and keep Jesus at the very centre of everything you do.
Sermon: ‘Engraved on Jesus’ Hands (Isaiah 49:13-26)
By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, All Saints Community Church, Crescent Beach
How many of you have ever visited England? We have been there four times. While initially visiting England, we noticed that their underground subways have a rather strange sign: Mind the Gap. They are warning people not to fall into the gap between the train and the platform. All of us have spiritual and emotional gaps in our lives.
Bishop Peter, in a recent sermon, talked about the eighteen inches between our head and our heart being the greatest gap in the universe. There is often a gap between what we cognitively believe and what we experience in our hearts. Bishop Peter works hard to help us be more self-aware of these gaps. Dr JI Packer said: ”True religion claims the affections as well as the head: It is heart-work.”
Steve Cuss said that some of us are honest about the gaps; some pretend that we have no gaps. But only a very few don’t experience a gap at all. In Steve Cuss’s new book Expectation Gaps, he helps us more intentionally mind the gaps in our spiritual lives.
Three common Expectation Gaps identified by Steve Cuss
I believe that God loves me but I don’t always feel it.
I believe that God is with me but I don’t always see it.
I believe that I would be further ahead in my Christian life by now.
In the poem Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sits round it, and pluck blackberries.” Seeing God is often about knowing how and where to look. There are so many signs of God’s beauty all around us that we easily miss in our small, self-absorbed lives. I will never forget when, shortly after my conversion in Grade 12, I noticed the light of God shining through our backyard tree. For five years, I never noticed that burning bush, that sacred tree, but my eyes had opened.
When has God felt closest to you? Would anyone like to share?
When have you seen God at work in your life? Would anyone like to share?
When have you seen God at work in creation? Would anyone like to share?
Have any of us ever felt that we should be further ahead in our Christian life by now?
Steve Cuss commented that sometimes he forgets that God is with him and instead he depends completely on himself. In those moments, he feels like everything is on his shoulders. Can anyone else relate? Do I hear an Amen? With provincial and federal elections coming up, I thank God that the government is on Jesus’ shoulders.
Isaiah 49:13 tells us: ”Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.”
How many of you have ever met a Methodist? They are almost an extinct species in Canada. All of my paternal ancestors were Methodists until 1925, when my father converted to the newly formed United Church at the age of one years old. Does any one else have any ancestors who were either Methodists or part of the United Church? Methodists back in those days were often known as Shouting Methodists. My complicated blacksmith great grandfather Tom, who bootlegged to the RCMP, was a Methodist lay preacher. He was remembered by relatives as preaching the hot gospel. Methodists loved to shout for joy and burst into song. Singing, thanks to Charles Wesley, was foundational in the Methodist experience.
After this overflowing of shouting and singing in vs. 13, vs. 14 starts with a but. “But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.””
Have you ever been tempted to believe that God has forsaken and forgotten you? It is a deeply painful thing when we believe that we are all alone and forgotten. CH Spurgeon said that God keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt Him.
What has helped you fight back against this lie from the devil that God has forgotten you? Does anyone want to share?
Sometimes when struggling with acute anxiety, depression or a dark night of the soul, it can feel very difficult to pray or read the Bible. This can leave good Christians with a lot of false guilt and shame. I have learned to let people in psychiatric facilities that it is normal and okay to find it difficult to pray or read the Bible. That doesn’t mean that they are bad Christians.
It is so easy to get stuck in our family’s default ways of coping. Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. It is too easy in our Christian life to be stuck on the treadmill of false expectations, of would-ofs, should-ofs, could-ofs, if-only. Steve Cuss insightfully said: “Once I get off the treadmill, I can remember the Lord.” What if we got off the expectation gap treadmill and stopped beating ourselves up? What if we chose to be as kind to ourselves as we are to others? Part of healthy self awareness is to be aware that we are loved even in our brokenness. Do you show the love of neighbour to yourself, loving your neighbour as you love yourself? It really doesn’t work to try to love your neighbour as you hate yourself.
Many kind Christians secretly curse themselves as stupid, ugly, and useless. A lot of this comes from the broken tapes of our childhood and teenage wounds. How overreaching is your inner critic? If someone compliments you, can you receive it, or do you just reject it? One of Satan’s names in Revelation 12:10 is accuser of the brothers and sisters. He does it day and night. What if we stopped agreeing with the devil’s accusation? What if we started overcoming him by the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony, and because we loved our life not unto death.
In Isaiah 49:15, God says: ““Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”
Has anyone every forgotten their umbrella? Has anyone forgotten their wallet or purse? How about your keys? Has anyone forgotten where they parked the car? Has anyone ever forgotten their children? 😉 How long did it take you to find them? I am reminded of how anxious Mother Mary and Joseph were when they lost Jesus at age 12 in Jerusalem. God however never forgets any one. Isaiah 43:25, Jeremiah 31:34, and Hebrews 8:13 teaches that God forgets your sins through the cross and can’t even remember them. He will never, however, forget your name. You are not just a SIN number to God. He called you by name while you were still in your mother’s womb. Psalm 139:14 tells us that each of us are fearfully and wonderfully made. As the poster says, God doesn’t make any junk.
What did Jesus quote from Psalm 22 while hanging on the cross? My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani! Jesus on the cross chose to be god-forsaken so that we might never be forsaken again. God will never forget you. Could your mother ever forget you? In one of our Winston Churchill High School 40th anniversary booklets, several men flippantly answered the question ‘Do you have any children’ by writing ‘None that I know of’. I have never heard a women say that. Mothers still remember all their children, including those who were miscarried, or aborted. Unlike doctors, surgical nurses in secular hospitals are forced to do abortions.
Some of my nurse friends felt no grief until they met Jesus. Their consciences came alive. One who wanted but couldn’t have children, switched to a catholic hospital to avoid doing more abortions. It is so wonderful that Jesus can bring healing and forgiveness to those who regret their abortions. While tragic, abortion is not the unforgivable sin. Our prayer teams can really help. I’ve even prayed once with a man who regretted his involvement in an abortion. That doesn’t happen often.
So can a woman forget her baby? It is possible but highly unusual if that happen. Moms, how many of you have forgotten about your children? How often do you think about them? Do you ever lose sleep over them? What helps you surrender them to Jesus? Even if they have rejected and cut you off for a season, you can’t forget them. Neither will God forget you. Psalm 27:10 powerfully reminds people that though our father and mother forsake us, the Lord will receive us. That is very good news.
His covenant with you cannot be broken. By night and by day, Jesus is always thinking of you. His eye is always upon you. God never ceases to remember you. He is not too busy for you. He does all things well. You are his beloved, the darling of His heart.
Jesus in Isaiah 49:16 says: See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” The New American Standard Version calls the verb ‘inscribed’. Have any one here ever cut yourself with a knife? Did you have to go to hospital? My grandfather master mechanic/blacksmith chopped off half of two fingers. You are not just tattooed on Jesus’ hands. You are carved there. That is why the resurrected Jesus’ wounds were never removed. You are included in his wounds, in the broken body of the Messiah.
As a young child in Sunday School, I loved the song ‘he’s got the whole world in his hands.’ I never realized as a child however that his hands still have holes in them. Even his mighty resurrection didn’t remove his wounds. Acts 11:21 said says that the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. God’s wounded hands are mighty to save. When the Bible says that Jesus sits on the right hand of the Father, this is the power of God in action to bring healing, salvation and deliverance. You may remember the prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4:10 ‘Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your Hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from the evil, that I may not cause pain!’ How many wants God’s wounded hand to be with you?
John 10:29 gives us wonderfully good news that no one can pluck you from his scarred hands. With his wounded hands, he fights for you. No one can really love without being wounded. Have you noticed? When young men went to war, mothers would write the names of their sons on their hands, so they would always be thinking about you. In WWW1, mothers would keep a photo of their son always with them.
CH Spurgeon called vs 16 ‘this inestimably precious text’ ‘a precious drop of honey’. He said ‘People speak about the seven wonders of the world. Being carved on the palm of his hands is a wonder in the seventh heavens.’ Revelation 13:8 mysteriously tells us that Jesus the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world.
The very nature of love is sacrificial giving. Loving mothers are radically sacrificial. I have seen that in my mother and also in my dear wife Janice. 1 Corinthians 5:7 tells us that Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us. All the sacrifices in the Bible point to the ultimate sacrificial love of Jesus nailed to the cross. Dr John Stott memorably said that if it were not for the cross of Christ embracing our suffering, he would have become an atheist. Only the wounded hands of Jesus make sense of senseless suffering.
I will never forget the altar call in Uganda when dozens of couples came forward to get married. Getting married is not easy in Uganda as you have to pay for the bride’s dowry with a number of cows. One man with his partner and baby told me that while he wanted to get married, he didn’t know if he was ready for that much responsibility. He seemed pretty involved to me. 😉 Many men think that marriage will kill them. It actually statistically gives them a longer and more satisfying life. Many men also fear having children, that they can’t afford it. I did. Marriage and parenting are all about sacrificial love. So is grandparenting. Do I hear an amen? How many of you as grandparents have wounded hands with your grandchildren’s names carved on them?
In vs 17, God observes: “Your children hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you.”
One of the greatest moments in one’s life is family reconciliation particularly with one’s adult children. Another great moment is when toxic people depart from your world, so that you can feel safe again. Think of the yearning of many Israelis to have their hostage children freed from the Hamas tunnels after seven months of their being in captivity. Jesus has carved the names of those hostage children on his hands.
In vs 18, we are encouraged: “Lift up your eyes and look around; all your children gather and come to you. As surely as I live,” declares the Lord, “you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride.”
As mentioned last Sunday, God wants all of our children, physically and spiritually, to come back home and be restored to the Holy Trinity. God is family. There is nothing sweeter than home sweet home, both spiritually and physically. God sees all of us, both married and single, as precious wedding ornaments. How many of us were raised with Susan Warner’s Sunday School hymn?:
Jesus bids me shine like a pure, clear light; like a little candle, shining in the light; in this world of darkness, so let us shine; you in your small corner and I in mine.”
Through Jesus’ wounded hands, light shines through into our small corners. Susan Warner asked her sister Anna to write the classic children’s hymn Jesus loves me. Their parents had lost most of their wealth in the 1847 financial crash when 40% of the New York banks collapsed. The two sisters never married and so had to survive by writing music. Their songs were so popular in their Bible studies with the West Point military cadets that the sisters were honoured after their deaths by being buried in the West Point Cemetery.
Isaiah 49:19-21 speaks of God replacing the bereavement and barrenness in our lives with his abundance:
““Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away. The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, ‘This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.’ Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these—where have they come from?’ ””
Some anticipate that tens of millions will return to the land of Israel in coming days. It may feel like the place is too small. You can imagine how excited that Israelis are when new babies are born after the destruction of October 7th.
In a culture of death, of abortion, drugs and MAID, what a blessing it is when people choose life, family and home. All Saints, as mentioned by Janice Inch last week, is a place of safety, welcome and homecoming. All of us are welcomed home by the wounded hands of Jesus.
God in Isaiah 49:22-23 speaks of bringing his people home, saying: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I will beckon to the nations, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their hips. Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.””
God will not disappoint his chosen people the Jewish people as he is calling them to do Aliyah and return home to their homeland of Israel. None of us who turn to Yeshua/Jesus the Jewish messiah will be disappointed. He is the hope for both Israel and the nations as they are grafted into the olive tree. He has both Israel and the nations in his wounded hands.
Isaiah 49:24-26 says that God will contend with those who contend with you. God fights for Israel and for us as we return home:
“Can plunder be taken from warriors, or captives be rescued from the fierce? But this is what the Lord says: “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.””
As God protects and restores Israel, this is a great witness to the nations that they too need to return to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, revealed in his son Jesus/Yeshua our messiah. God has carved Israel on the palm of his hand. By faith in Jesus the Messiah, we gentiles are also carved on the palm of his hand. He will never leave us. He will never forsake. He will never abandon us.
Let us pray. Dear Jesus, thank you for what you did on the cross for us. Thank you for forgiveness. Thank you for healing. Thank you for including us. We are not forgotten. We are not abandoned, in your name. Amen.
How does Bishop Peter bless us at the end of each All Saints service? With the Trinity, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Happy Trinity Sunday!
Often clergy bless people using the sign of the cross. It is a fascinating blend of the Holy Trinity and Cross. Have you ever crossed yourself? You don’t have to, but it can be a meaningful gesture. Eastern Orthodox people cross themselves in the other direction, right to left. Who is being dyslexic, East or West? 😉 I am sure that God doesn’t mind each way.
How many of you were you raised in a tradition that celebrated Trinity Sunday? The word Trinity is not in the Bible, but the concept is everywhere, three in one and one in three.
Now how many of you enjoy going away on trips? How many enjoy returning home in one piece? That can be painful. I will never forget being at the Honolulu airport with my dear wife waiting to return home to our homeland of Canada. My wife encouraged me to dress warmly in preparation for Canadian cold. I got warmer and warmer as we waited in the hot sun. Suddenly, after having unwisely eating half-price food at a Scottish Hawaiian festival, I fainted and threw up on the feet of the airport attendant. Before I knew it, I was suddenly being sent by a very expensive ambulance to the Honolulu hospital. There were no waiting lists there, but also no health insurance, thanks to a temporary computer glitch. How many of you want to find out that you don’t have health insurance while visiting the USA? I decided to get healthy quick, after being filled up with intravenous fluids. Thousands of dollars later, I was so glad to return home safely on a red-eye flight that night. It reminded me of Dorothy in Wizard of Oz saying ‘There’s no place like home.’ I believe that Canada has one of the best health care systems in the world as long as you are willing to wait for a very long time, which is rather complicated.
For years, the two things I didn’t want to do was clean toilets and door knock. Steve Monks, our St. Simon’s missionary for ten years in Baja, Mexico, preached at our church on how he loved Francis of Asissi and cleaning toilets. It seemed a bit over the top to me. 😉 My wife Janice got me started on both, and I have now door knocked over 40,000 homes, half spiritually and half politically. I haven’t cleaned 40,000 toilets yet. 😉 Maybe 5,000 😉
On this Trinity Sunday, I have discovered that healthy Christianity always loves the Trinity. As part of our Christian walking group, I asked people what they appreciated about the Holy Trinity. One engineer told me that while he believed in the Trinity, he didn’t really understand the Trinity. Welcome to the Trinity. You know how engineers like to figure everything out.
Our Light Magazine publisher Steve Almond is having Janice & myself do a series on denominational founders. Menno Simons, Martin Luther, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer all loved the Holy Trinity. John Calvin greatly loved the Holy Trinity and gave this even more attention in his Institutes than he gave to the doctrines of God’s sovereignty and election. Many people think that Calvin is only about predestination but he is actually more about the Trinity.
Speaking of homes, my favorite homes to knock on are the JWs. They usually go into shock when the tables are turned. 😉 Did you know that JWs are not allowed to vote or serve in the military? President Eisenhower was raised in a JW family in which the Kingdom Hall was actually their private house. His dad got kicked out for questioning the JW view of the second coming. After Eisenhower entered the military and politics, his mother was given a full military funeral. The JWs were not pleased. JWs, by the way, are highly allergic to the Holy Trinity, going to great steps to demote Jesus to just being the Archangel Michael. They won’t be having a Trinity Sunday today, just in case you’re wondering. 😉
What do you appreciate the most about the Trinity? People in the congregation commented: unity, the family emphasis, the Holy Spirit, the omnipresence, mutual humility.
Alan Gilman, our long-term messianic friend, while attending one of his ten children’s wedding, recently preached at Pastor Giulio Gabeli’s Westwood Church in Coquitlam. He said something very memorable that relates to Isaiah 49: “Israel is Israel is Israel.” The Church is not Israel; rather according to Romans 11, we has been grafted into the olive tree of Israel. We have not replaced Israel; Rather as Isaiah 49 tells us, the Gentiles, the Goyim, the nations are included in Jesus/Yeshua. This is what the apostle Paul in Romans 16:25-27 calls ‘the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed.’ Christianity is the only ‘Jewish denomination’ that actively welcomed the nations. I love how Alan Gilman insightfully noted: “If the Bible doesn’t drive you crazy, you’re not reading it right.” Is Christianity for Jewish people or for Gentiles? The answer is yes.
The Bible really stretches us and transforms us if we are willing to both deeply listen and also to obey. The Hebrew word ‘shema’ means both to listen and to obey. True hearing, as Bishop Peter often reminds us, is not just cognitive information processing, but also surrender of the will and radical obedience to God’s Word. Why does Bishop Peter keep repeating himself about the surrender of the will? Because we need to surrender our will. There was a Latino pastor who preached on ‘Little children, love one another’ for three weeks. When asked by the elder when he would switch topics, he answered: ‘when you start doing it.’ The Bible is meant to mess with us and change us. The problem is that we don’t want to change, what the bible calls: to return. We want other people to repent and return instead. Repentance (shuv in the Hebrew) actually means to return home to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When Jewish people come to know Jesus/Yeshua, they are not leaving their heritage. They are actually coming home.
I am going to give you some homework in today’s Returning Home message. When is the last time that you have been home? What does home mean to you? (The people in the congregation said: “safe, welcome, family, shelter.’) If you were not born in Canada, it can be complicated as to where you feel fully at home. Many South Africans get shocked when they move to Canada with its sometimes confusing practices, and then return to South Africa where they no longer feel at home, so they return to Canada as their new home. You may have heard the expression: home is where the heart is. You may wish to ask: Where is your heart, and how does that relate to your sense of home? Marriage is intended to be a union between heart and home. My late mother and dear wife have an amazing ability to turn a house into a home. That is a real gift.
Home is woven with numerous precious and sometimes painful memories. Home is about family and togetherness. Home is a place of refuge from the storms of life – a place where we can hopefully relax, recharge and find solitude. That is not everyone’s experience. If you were raised in a alcoholic or addicted home, you may feel like you are walking on egg shells, and find it hard to feel at home.
In our national anthem sung especially during playoffs, we speak of Canada as our home and native land. How many watched the playoffs recently? Did you know that it has been 31 years since Canada brought the Stanley Cup back home. While My dad, grandfather, and great grandfather all lived in Edmonton, my dad who married a BCer became a strong Canuck fan. Either way, I am still hoping that Canada will surprise us and bring the cup back home in 2024. Do I hear a cheer: Bring it home? Bring it home. 😉 Of course my ultimate hope is not whether the Stanley cup comes home, but rather that people embrace the Kingdom of God cup.
Sometimes all of us feel a bit homeless, or not fully at home in our Christian life. Has it been hard or easy to feel at home in church for you? Do you feel at home at All Saints? Do you have to be perfect to be here? No. God is our home, our dwelling place. The Holy Trinity is a community of three persons, and gives us an everlasting family.
Janice Inch, one of our elders came up and shared at this moment how safe it was for her at All Saints to be who she was and to have time to heal. She wants others who come through those doors to feel the same way.
Isaiah 49:1 says to us: “Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.”
Before the digging of the Panama Canal in 1904 to 1914, BC used to be known as the most distant part of the world. You could only sail to Vancouver by first going to the treacherous bottom of South America. Isn’t it wonderful to realize that we were all called to follow Jesus, even in our mother’s womb? Even in the womb, the Trinity is calling us home and even speaking our names before we could ever choose him. Isn’t that amazing that God called our name in the womb? God must care for the unborn children.
In vS 2, Isaiah said “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.”
The Trinity often hides and conceals us as they sharpen us into a sharpened sword and a polished arrow. God calls us home in the midst of sharpening us. Has anyone been sharpened sitting under Bishop Peter’s sermons? Canadians can sometimes be a little dull because many don’t know their bibles. Many of us watch way more TV than we read books. It is the Bible and preaching that sharpens our mind. At our Oct 25th South Surrey-White Rock Leadership Prayer Breakfast, we are once again having an Arrow Leadership speaker Carson Pue. Last year Dr Steve Brown from Arrow told us that this was their theme scripture. How many of you want your arrow sharpened and polished by the Holy Trinity this morning?
In vs 3, God said, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.””
How often are nations driven out of their homeland and return two thousand years later? That was a modern day miracle with Israel. You may wonder: Why did the Trinity birth the people of Israel in the land of Israel, and miraculously call Israel back home, to do aliyah in 1948? To display his glory. The Hebrew words Shuv, as in our good friend Marty Shoub, means to return, and Aliyah means to go up to Jerusalem. Why has the Trinity grafted each of us as believers into the Olive Vine? Being grafted in is all about returning home. God calls us home to display his glory.
In vs 4, we hear a large ‘but’. Do you ever say ‘but’ when someone says something nice about you? We need to cancel our ‘buts’ and receive the blessing. “But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all. Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”
Have you ever struggled with self-pity or discouragement in your Christian walk? 95% of people admit to this. You can imagine how many Jewish people became atheists after the holocaust? Where was God when we needed Him? Yet according to Joel Rosenberg, there is a major Jewish revival going on with over 800,000 Jewish people believing in Jesus/Yeshua as their Jewish messiah, more than ever in history. The Trinity is calling his chosen people home back to their messiah. I find this very encouraging because if Jewish people are starting to believe, there is hope even for Anglicans. 😉 Jewish people are starting to realize in their current deep trauma that it is actually Christians who love them and stand with them.
In vs 5-6, “the Lord says— he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength— he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.””
The first return of Jewish people to Israel was after they were exiled to Babylon in 587BC for seventy years. God the Trinity is still passionate about calling home Jewish people. The suffering servant here in Isaiah 49 refers to both Israel and the messiah Jesus, who embodies Israel. It is both the corporate and the individual at the same time. You will notice that returned Jews, like Nicky Gumbel in the Alpha course, are being used to call home the nations to experience the good news of salvation. Jesus’ very name Yeshua means salvation. Through a former atheist lawyer Nicky Gumbel & Alpha, over 30 million people have heard the good news of salvation. Sally, do you have anything to add about Nicky & Alpha? Sally Start commented: “God uses Nicky because he had good mentorship, the centrality of the Holy Spirit, with an undergirding of prayer.
In vs. 7, you will notice what the Lord says— the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel— to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers: “Kings will see you and stand up, princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
God here is speaking both about the people of Israel as a suffering rejected servant, and the messiah Jesus who embodied the very suffering of Israel. Have the Jewish people suffered? Jesus is that embodiment. It is almost impossible for Jewish people to believe in Jesus because they think that he is too Gentile. But God is moving among his own people in revival during these times of great trial. The Trinity calls home the despised and rejected.
in Vs 8, the Lord says: “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances,”
The Messiah Jesus, our suffering servant, becomes a covenant for the people, bringing restoration to the land of Israel. Only those who go home receive their desolate inheritances offered by the Holy Trinity. There are many Jewish people in Israel turning to Jesus/Yeshua during their desolation.
In vS 9, The Lord says to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’ “They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill.”
You can imagine what a comfort this verse is to those families who had their own taken captive by Hamas and hidden in the Gaza tunnels. You may have seen many online hostage posters with three words ‘bring them home.’ This also applies to all of us caught in the darkness of sin and despair. The Trinity is calling us all home. Come home. Come home.
In vs. 10. God promises to feed, guide and lead Israel home: “They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.” I thank God that those of us who are grafted in, are included in this homecoming to the Holy Trinity.
In vs 11-12, God the Trinity shows that He is coming to bringing Israel home and those who are grafted in. “I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up. See, they will come from afar— some from the north, some from the west, some from the region of Aswan.””
Recently in California, there were 30,000 people baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. “Here’s an excerpt: “this lady – probably in her 50’s, started running down to get baptized. I held my arms out open and yelled ‘Welcome home.’ She ran up and hugged me so tight and said, ‘I am free! I am free.’ That’s truly coming home, isn’t it?
Home often has to do with one’s final destination, and returning to where one started. Dying for Billy Graham was described as going home in his final book Nearing Home. Have you noticed how that last verse in many hymns is about coming home, going to heaven? Let’s sing Swing low sweet chariot coming for to carry me home.
How many this Sunday morning want to more fully come home to the Holy Trinity? Let us pray. Dear Father, we often feel homeless, and don’t know where we are rooted. Only in you, and in your son Jesus, can we fully come home. I pray, Lord, for those who are just coming to know you and those who want to grow that there will be a homecoming today, in Jesus’ name. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
What if most of the people in your family died from incurable illnesses?
Born in St Mary’s in Ontario in 1870, John G. Lake moved with his family to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan in 1886. Eight of his siblings died, despite the best care from medical doctors. This family tragedy inspired Lake to seek the healing power of Jesus Christ.
After Lake was healed in Chicago from a digestive disease, his whole family went from chronic sickness to supernatural health. His invalid brother got up and walked after healing prayer, his hemorrhaging sister was healed, his mother was restored at the brink of death, and his wife was cured from tuberculosis.
Upon being filled with the Holy Spirit in 1907, Lake said, “My nature became so sensitized that I could lay hands on any man or woman and tell what organ was diseased, and to what extent.” Rev. Audrey Mabley of Eternally Yours TV describes John G. Lake, a fellow Canadian, as the greatest man of faith for healing that perhaps has ever lived.
For the first nine months after being touched by the Holy Spirit, Lake could not look at a tree without it framing itself into a glory poem of praise, “Everything I said was a stream of poetry.”
Anointing in South Africa
Feeling a call from God in 1908, John G. Lake and Thomas Hezmalhalch, with their large families, boarded a ship to South Africa. Being sure that God would provide, they arrived with just the clothes on their backs and not enough money to enter the country. Waiting in line at customs, a stranger gave them enough money to pay their way into the country. The families were unexpectedly greeted in Johannesburg by Mrs. C.L. Goodenough, who offered a furnished cottage for them to stay in.
The only way that Lake could describe the anointing that fell on him while in South Africa was as ‘liquid fire’ pumping through his veins. Lake believed that the power of God is equal to every emergency. The well-known South African author Andrew Murray commented of Lake, “The man reveals more of God than any other man in Africa.” Mahatma Gandhi notably said, “Dr. Lake’s teachings will eventually be accepted by the entire world.”
So many people were healed in South Africa that Lake was brought by Arthur Ingram, the Bishop of London and Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to address a Church of England conference. Bishop Ingram said of Lake’s Triune Salvation talk, “This is the greatest sermon I have ever heard, and I commend its careful study by every priest.”
Out of this South Africa healing revival was birthed the Apostolic Faith Mission in southern Africa, a movement now numbering 1.2 million people.
Sadly, on December 22, 1908, while Lake was ministering in the Kalahari Desert, his wife Jenny died from malnutrition and exhaustion. She had been feeding countless poor sick people on her front lawn, while waiting for Lake to return.
The Healing Rooms
Feeling a call to Spokane, Washington, Lake left South Africa, where he settled and married Florence Switzer, having five more children. In 1915, he began the Spokane Divine Healing Institute, later called the Healing Rooms, training up ‘healing technicians’. His instructions to them were to go to the home of a sick person and not come back until that person was healed. Some might be gone for an hour, some a day, and some for weeks. Lake commented:,“We pray until we are satisfied in our souls that the work is complete. This is where people blunder. They will pray for a day or two, and then they quit.” Having previously been a manager for a life insurance company, his extensive business experience caused many business people to be more open to the gospel. Lake commented: “If there was one thing that I wish I could do for the people of Spokane, it would be to teach them to pray.” In Spokane alone, 100,000 healings had been documented and recorded within just five years. Dr. Ruthlidge, of Washington DC, said that Rev. Lake, through the Healing Rooms, made Spokane the healthiest city in the nation.
This Spokane Blessing spread back to Lake’s Canadian homeland. A 32-year-old Canadian, William Bernard, had been suffering from curvature of the spine, since being dropped by his nurse at age three. When Bernard said that he had no faith, John G. Lake laughingly said, “I have enough faith for both of us.” After his spine was healed, two physicians certified him as fit for military service. Bernard commented, “I’ve always longed to give my service to my country of Canada.”
Lake fearlessly submitted to a series of experiments at a well-known research clinic where they watched him through x-rays & microscopes in a laboratory context as he successfully prayed for elimination of leg inflammation in a dying man. He called the Healing Rooms the most amazing adventure in the world. The Spokane Better Business Bureau investigated the healings, giving Lake and the Healing Rooms an opportunity to vindicate themselves by presenting numerous local healings with Spokane residents. Most of the cases where people were healed were ones that physicians had pronounced hopeless. One such case involved the healing of a 35-year-old woman from a 30-pound fibroid tumour in her abdomen. The tumour was completely gone after just three minutes of prayer. Lake commented of the Healing Rooms, “The lightnings of Jesus heals men by its flash; sin dissolves, disease flees when the power of God approaches.”
Thanks to Healing Rooms International Director Cal Pierce’s work in Spokane in 1999, there are now 2,961 Healing Rooms in 69 countries around the world.
According to Tiny Marais, Director for the Greater Vancouver Healing Rooms, the Healing Rooms’ teams at the recent Missions Fest Conference prayed for over 230 people, “We saw the hand of God on everyone we prayed for.” Today, John G. Lake’s life, through the Healing Rooms revival, still impacts millions of lives around the world.
About Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird
Books by Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird include God’s Firestarters; Blue Sky, a novel; and For Better, For Worse: Discovering the keys to a Lasting Relationship. Dr Ed’s newest award-winning book The Elisha Code is co-authored with Rev. David Kitz. Earlier books by Dr. Ed include the award-winning Battle for the Soul of Canada, and Restoring Health: Body, Mind, & Spirit.
Today is my last of four Lenten Sundays of ‘holding the fort’ so that Bishop Peter and Jenny Klenner could actually have a refreshing holiday in Australia. Let’s all say hi to Peter and Jenny as they will be watching online. He phoned me this week from Singapore to say how much he is enjoying our All Saints online services. The phrase ‘holding the fort’ goes back to the wild west where securing a frontier fort was often the line between thriving or not surviving. Why did those 30,000 American miners from San Francisco, who came for the Gold Rush in BC, voted to join Canada in 1871? It was because Governor James Douglas and Judge Matthew Begbie protected the miners with the rule of law. In the wild west of the States, miners were always being robbed by bandits. Would you like to hear about any bandits that I had to deal with in the past four weeks? Satan, the worst of all bandits, robs people of the Word of God by making them too busy to experience the blessing of reading their bible or even attend church. Satan is a master at making people too busy. I know many people in previous churches who made it to the church parking lot but had a huge struggle to make it in the front door. The devil hates people going to church. He loves to tell us that we can just do ‘me & Jesus’ at the beach, the golf course, or out in nature. He hates our taking part in Christian community.
How many of you remember the six key disciplines, really the six blessings of Lent? 1) prayer 2) self-examination 3) fasting 4) repentance 5) bible reading 6) generosity especially to those in need.
This morning, we will be particularly focusing on the covenantal blessing of bible reading, not only at Lent but especially at Lent. The Bible has two covenantal sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament. Testament is another word for Covenant.
I will never forget when my first congregation St. Philip’s Dunbar did an unheard-of thing of holding six bible study groups during Lent. They loved it so much that they wanted to continue, but St. Philip’s had so many committee meetings that the bible studies collapsed. We had a neighbouring Anglican Church with thirty-five different committees. God so loved the world that he didn’t send a committee. He sent his only son.
Our St. Philip’s Youth Group read the bible once a year out of duty, so of like swallowing castor oil because it is good for you. Some people view reading the bible like going to the dentist to have a root canal. How many of you enjoy getting a root canal? After the youth had me lead the obligatory one-time event, they enjoyed it so much that they decided to read the bible twice a year. Unknown to me, the youth then signed a petition asking for me to lead a weekly youth bible study. When I approached the rector about this, he said no to my leading this. He told me that the young people are already too busy, and I have all these committees to attend. But he softened and agreed when I said that I would only attend every other week, and I would train up youth to lead on alternate weeks.
AW Tozer, AB Simpson’s successor, said that Satan’s greatest weapon is our ignorance of the Word of God. I am firmly convinced that we in BC need a revival of reading God’s Word. We have become an increasingly illiterate culture. Only one in five Canadians read between one to five books a year. Many Canadians are no longer reading anything. Only 11% of Canadians read the bible once a week or more. While 54% of Canadians have a bible in their home, only 39% of Canadians have actually read it to some degree. Some of our Canadian politicians might have more wisdom if they regularly listened to the wisdom of the scriptures. Do I hear an amen?
The first Anglican Bishop of Liverpool JC Ryle said in his book Practical Religion: “Happy are those who possess a Bible.”
Ed: How many bibles do you own? When did you receive your first Bible?
Bishop Ryle went on to add: “Happier still are those who read the bible and obeys it.”
In our home church, we did a Living Bible skit where I dressed up as a 5’ 10 ½” cardboard Living Bible. The local Anglican priest in the skit visited an Anglican family and asked them if he could look at their bible. They went to their dusty book shelf, and frantically looked for the family bible. It was nowhere to be found. They desperately looked everywhere, all around town, until finally they discovered the Living Bible who had run away to the local Baptist Church. When asked why he ran away, he said that he felt lonely and ignored. When the Anglican family promised to pay him more attention, the Living Bible agreed to return back home.
I never saw another teenager or member of my family ever read a Bible until the Jesus movement in 1972. In our High School, you never saw a bible. You never thought that it existed. Did you ever observe a member of your family actually reading your bible? Who was that? The Bible, for me, was some obscure book read by clergy in a church building. The Anglican clergy from my youth never preached from the Bible. They seemed to give rather forgettable moral lessons on being a more moral person. Let me show you some bibles that have changed my life, beginning with my original Good News for Modern Man in Grade 12. I had to tape it together with duct tape. A worn-out bible is a potential sign of spiritual vitality. My second bible was the paraphrase Living Bible. My third Bible was the more academic New American Standard Version. My fourth Bible was the more readable while still accurate New International Version. Since then, I have been studying and preaching from the NIV interlinear Hebrew and Greek. What Bible translations have you read over the years?
The Bible radically changed my life in 1972. I could not get enough of it, and carried my bible everywhere, something that was scandalous in our Winston Churchill High School. When I lived in Montreal during Grade 6 & 7, I took part in a pre-confirmation class where I read a summarized version of the Old Testament, which I loved for the history and the battles. Returning to Vancouver, our ex-diocese did not focus on the bible, so I never got to read the New Testament, and was never given a bible for my confirmation. The only bible that I knew about in our household was my older sister’s white leather KJV bible with a gold chain which she had been given when confirmed in Montreal. I would sometimes sneak in her room to read her bible as a teenager. None of it made any sense, though I liked the pictures. Our Anglican youth group in Vancouver had no biblical or Christian content in it, no bible study, no singing, and no prayer. Only after a Jesus movement revival broke out at our local Anglican church did young people openly read their bible, pray, sing about Jesus, and even share their faith. We were tasting the everlasting covenantal joy that Isaiah 61 kept talking about.
During Lent, I have read five books by one of my heroes AB Simpson, including this one The Christ of the Forty Days. He memorably said that when the presence of Jesus is revealed to us, the Bible becomes a new book, a book for our hearts, a book full of our living Saviour. When I became born-again, the bible switched from being a closed book to being an open book.
How many of you feel that you need to cut back on bible reading during the remaining week of Lent? It is very difficult to say yes to more bible reading until we prune our busy schedules. We live in such a frantically busy culture. What might you need to say no to so that you could say yes to a double portion of bible reading this final Lenten week? You may want to think about it.
Next Sunday is Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Easter blooming requires Lenten pruning. As Isaiah 61:11 says, “For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.” Where might God need to prune you so that seeds would sprout and grow with righteousness and praise among the nations? I believe that Jesus wants covenantal seeds of blessing to sprout and grow in your life. How many of you want that?
Now, Isaiah 61:7 says “Instead of your shame, you will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace, you will rejoice in your inheritance. And so, you will inherit a double portion in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours.” This is a very powerful verse.
Six times in the Bible, specific reference is made to a “double portion.” When someone receives a double portion, he gets a gift twice as much as that given to others.
Now you might want to consider this a double-or-nothing sermon. It is amazing how deep the doubling concept is in our English language: 1) double-decker 2) Double-edged 3) Double-barreled 4) Double-header 5) Double helix 6) double vision 7) Double-dealing 8) double-dipping 9) double-crossing 10) double-standard 11) Double entendre 12) Double feature 13) double-take, and my wife’s favorite: 14) Double jeopardy. Are there any other Jeopardy fans here today?? Quite a few 😉
I remember having double and triple portions on New Year’s Eve at Frank Baker’s Restaurant in West Vancouver. Has anyone else here had a double portion blessing at Frank Baker’s amazing all-you-can-eat smorgasbord? They had endless Tiffany lamps and a James Bond Aston Martin car with all the gadgets. Their trumpeter Lance Harrison had us do the Congo line singing O When the Saints Come Marching in. I had no idea that I was singing about Jesus’ second coming.
I want to ask you: Is it wrong to expect more from God? Some Christians unconsciously view God as a bad-tempered miser like the one who was outraged when Oliver Twist said ‘more gruel, sir’. So we may think that God might get angry at us if we ask for more. An inner voice may tell us, “Why don’t you just get used to life as it is”? Jesus, in contrast, wants to give us life abundant. He wants our cup to run over with blessings. Since the Spirit of Jesus in Ephesians 5:18 is actually our double portion, we don’t have to worry about hangovers. You know the whole drinking and drugging culture. What is one of the greatest downsides of getting drunk or on drugs? The effect wears off. You always need more, and the morning after can be very unpleasant. You will be very pleased to know (I checked with Bishop Peter on this 😉) that God’s double portion is sugar-free, calorie-free, and very low in cholesterol. Isn’t that good to know?
The concept of the double portion is first found in Deuteronomy 21:17: “But he shall acknowledge the firstborn . . . by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits of his strength. In the Old Testament, the right of the firstborn was that a firstborn son received twice the inheritance of that of a father’s other sons. So the Isaiah 61:7 emphasis on double portion, which is now for all of us as believers, is actually a covenantal focus on inheritance and sonship as God’s beloved children. Ephesian 1:14 says that the Holy Spirit seals our covenantal inheritance. In Ephesians 1:17-18, we are told that God opens the eyes of our heart so that we may see the riches of his glorious inheritance. Many of us as Christians don’t realize what an amazing inheritance we have been given in Christ. Galatians 4:7 tells us that because we are God’s children and no longer slaves, we are guaranteed a godly inheritance. 1 Peter 1:4 says that our inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. You know, the children of billionaires, how long does their inheritance often last? It goes pretty quickly. Often sports stars, their multi-millions fade away very quickly. Studies show that their wealth is often soon gone. Again and again, the bible affirms our covenantal inheritance in Matthew 5:5, Acts 20:32, Colossians 1:12, Hebrews 9:15, and Titus 3:7. The double portion is not something that we earn by trying harder, but rather receive by faith as our Kingdom inheritance.
Because Hannah could not have children, her husband tried to comfort her with an extra blessing. In 1 Samuel 1:5, we are told: “But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her.”
Near the end of Elijah’s time on earth, he offered his assistant Elisha a gift, saying: “What can I do for you before I am taken from you?” Elisha answered in 2 Kings 2:9, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” The doubling of miracles through Elisha confirmed that he had indeed been granted a double portion. We dealt with that a lot in our new book the Elisha Code which just came out in hardcover.
In Job 42:10, God restored to Job twice as much as he originally had before his time of testing. It could be said that Job also received a “double portion.”
The promise of a double portion in Isaiah 61:7 followed a period of double shame and double disgrace. Look at the history of the Jewish people, how often they have been sent into exile, how often they have been persecuted and shamed. Many people have been raised in a culture of shame, dishonour, and loss of face. The devil loves to give people a double portion of shame, guilt, fear, self-hatred, and hopelessness. The devil wants to say to us ‘shame on you’ while Jesus wants to say ‘shame off you.’ The devil wants to cripple us, to make us feel unworthy to receive God’s double portion. He will whisper to you: “You’ve made too many mistakes for God to still love you. God might love other people, maybe Bishop Peter and Jenny because they are worthy, but not you. You’re a sinner. You’ve blown it. It’s amazing that they even let you attend All Saints.” That’s what the devil will whisper. But, you see, God the Father loves you just as much as he loves Jesus his Only Son. Our covenantal God loves being generous to you. Double trouble often precedes and potentially prepares us for double blessings.
My wife wanted me to tell you about an Afro-American woman who runs a Christian fitness company in California. She was mega-successful, but she would always crash and burn. She lost everything, including her business, ending up divorced from overworking. Her breakthrough happened when she finally accepted at the core of her being that she was not unworthy to receive God’s double portion. I want to tell you today: you are not disqualified. Don’t listen to the devil when he tells you that God doesn’t love you.
Did you know that each of us as believers has a covenantal inheritance of both fruit and gifts? The Holy Spirit wants to give us a double portion of gifts and fruit, a double portion of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. A double portion blessing is a double blessing of the fruit of everlasting joy. As Isaiah 61:10 puts it, I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. If you are not rejoicing, you need a double blessing. Now you might be thinking, “I’ve got too much trouble in my life.” Well, if you have double trouble, you’re exactly whom God wants to give the double blessing.
1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 describe the double portion of various spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit wants to pour out upon us. The Spirit of the Father breaks the power of shame off of our lives, turning us from saving face to saving grace.
You see, double blessings is like a magnificent rose among many thorns. Brent Rue, a Vineyard Megachurch pastor, told us that many pastors want a mega church. He went on to say that with mega churches come mega-problems. So there is the rose in the middle of many mega-thorns.
Isaiah 61:8 tells us that our covenantal God loves justice and hates robbery and wrongdoing. When we are going through the worst of times, God will never give upon on us. Do I hear an Amen?
He is covenantally faithful to us even we break his everlasting covenant. God has never given up on the chosen people of Israel even when he has disciplined them and sent them into exile. There is always the miracle of return and restoration, both for the Jewish people, but also for those of us who have been grafted in from the nations. We have a godly covenantal inheritance. Those of us who are grafted into the olive tree can trust in the faithfulness of God to all his covenants, including Jeremiah’s new covenant.
Isaiah 61:10 compares this double portion blessing to our covenantal wedding robes. Have you ever dressed us for a wedding in some function? Why do people do that? It is covenantal. It says: “For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” Our covenantal wedding clothes are actually ‘military’ in nature 😉. Part of the double portion blessing is daily embracing the Ephesians 6:10-20 clothing of the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the Gospel shoes of peace, and praying in the Spirit at all times. Whenever I door-knock both evangelistically and politically, I find myself often putting on the covenantal spiritual armour. How of you ever put on your spiritual armour? How many do it on a daily basis? It can be a deep blessing, even a double blessing.
Isaiah 61:9 tells us that part of the double portion blessing is not just for ourselves but also for our children and grandchildren, both physically and spiritually. How many of you love your children? Covenant promises are for me and my household. Our descendants, says vs 9, will be known among the nations. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed. 1 John 1:4 says I have no greater joy that knowing that my children are walking in the truth. If you don’t have physical children, you can have spiritual children. So digesting a double portion of the Bible really helps us walk in the truth.
In conclusion, I love how Bishop Peter and Jenny invest week in and week out so deeply in us as their spiritual family to help us love God’s Word and walk in the truth. Do I hear an amen? Do people appreciate us?
God has doubly blessed us at All Saints. That’s why we’ve never had any troubles here 😉 Double troubles and double blessings go together. Because Canada is the most international nation on earth, we right here are blessing the nations in Canada both locally and indirectly through their international family networks. So many people in Canada are connected all around the world. Right here in Crescent Beach, through the Double portion of God’s Holy Spirit, we are impacting the world with the great Commission and the Great Commandment.
I believe that God wants to doubly bless you today to be a double blessing to others. This is your covenantal inheritance. I want to ask you: who this Lent would like to receive a double portion, a double blessing for yourself, your family, and for the nations? Let us pray. Dear Lord, you are so radically generous. Help us not to disqualify ourselves. Help us not to listen to that voice that says that we will never be good enough. Lord, help us to open and receive all that you have for us of your double portion, your double blessing, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
You will notice that Isaiah 61 begins by saying: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me. The Hebrew and Greek words for the Holy Spirit is Ruach and Pneuma, which is the same word used for wind or breath. Think of a pneumatic drill powered by the air, the wind. Everything about Jesus is related to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of Truth, the Paraclete our comforter and counsellor, and the Holy Ghost, from the German Geist for Spirit. The Holy Spirit is compared metaphorically to Clothing and a higher power in Luke 24:49), to a Dove in Matthew 3:16, to a Pledge and Earnest Money in 2 Corinthians 1:22, to a seal in Ephesians 1:13, to Fire in Acts 2:3, to Oil in Acts 10:38, to water in John 7:38, to Wind in John 3:8, to breath in John 20:22, and to wine in Ephesians 5:18. What is your favorite biblical image for the Holy Spirit?
Matthew 1:20 tells us that Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Matthew 3:16 tells us that the Holy Spirit descended like a dove upon Jesus during his water baptism by John the Baptist. Luke 4 tells us that Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for the forty days of Lent. In John 14:26, Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would be his representative on earth when he returned to heaven. The Holy Spirit is mentioned over 90 times in the New Testament. In recent history, the Holy Spirit was often the forgotten third person of the Trinity. As the Nicene Creed puts it, the Holy Spirit is worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son. He is not an impersonal Star Wars force. He is God. The Holy Spirit is not a something. He’s a someone, a person. The Holy Spirit has an amazing personality that you would enjoy getting to know.
Do any of you, by the way, know who Muslims think that the Holy Spirit is? Because they reject the Trinity, they shrink the Holy Spirit into just being the Angel Gabriel.
John 14: 16 tells that the world (and often many of us church folks) neither sees or knows the Spirit of Truth. Many of us had accurate theology about the Holy Spirit without personal experience of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:17-18 quotes Joel 2:28-32 that God in the last days will pour out his Spirit upon all people, on both men and women, young and old, even upon the servants. The Good News is that hundreds of millions of people, especially in Africa, are experiencing a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. Most Anglican Christians live in Africa, well over forty to fifty million where they are experiencing a wonderful Spirit-led revival. Each of the three times that Janice and I have ministered in Africa, we have come back refreshed and renewed in the Spirit.
You will remember how in Luke 4, Jesus preached from Isaiah 61 in Nazareth. It did not end well, as his home town rose up, attempting to throw him headfirst off a cliff. What is it about Isaiah 61 that was so upsetting to his home town crowd?
To say that the Spirit of the Lord has anointed Jesus is to affirm him as the Messiah, the anointed one, in Greek the Christ.
Jesus’ mandate from the Holy spirit in Isaiah 61 is to proclaim good news to the poor. The term gospel means good news. The term evangelism or evangelical means to share good news. Historically, the poor are the most open to the good news. The poor can be those economically poor, but also poor in spirit. You will remember that Jesus said in the beatitudes ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God.’ Blessed are those who know their need.
Isaiah 61 vs tells us that the Holy Spirit sent Jesus on mission. Part of that apostolic sending is to bind up the broken-hearted. Has Jesus ever done that for you? Has he ever used you to bind up the broken hearted? Why is it so essential to the gospel to bind up the broken hearted?
Isaiah 61 tells us that through the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus will proclaim freedom for the captives. E. Stanley Jones describe these captives as those who have been disinherited and exploited because of race, class, social standing, and lack of education. 2nd Corinthians 3:17 tells us that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Romans 8:15 tells us that through the Holy Spirit, we as children of God are no longer slaves to fear. The Holy Spirit set my hero E. Stanley Jones free from a sense of inferiority. His father was an alcoholic who had sold most of his family’s furniture to feed his addiction. God reminded Jones according to 2nd Timothy 1:7 that God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind. The baptism or soaking in the Spirit is a baptism of God’s love. Has anyone experienced freedom from captivity in their Christian walk? Has anyone experienced a baptism of God’s love in your life? What was that like for you?
Has anyone been released through the Holy Spirit from darkness, as Isaiah 61 talks about? This reminds me of Isaiah 60 “Arise and Shine for your Light has come”. The Holy Spirit is vital in our being released from all forms of darkness, including physical and emotional sickness. Often the inner healing happens before the physical healing. Forgiveness of deep inner hurts often results in remarkable physical healings. Countless millions in Africa, Asia, and South America have come to know Jesus personally when they experienced the healing power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told us in Acts 1:8 that we shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, and we shall be witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, including Crescent Beach.
I am so grateful that this is the year of the Lord’s favor. How many appreciate the favour of the Lord in your life? In the creeds, the Holy Spirit is called the Lord of Life. Judaism and Christianity are all about embracing the gift of abundant life. We live in a culture of abundant death where abortion and MAID attempt to remove suffering through eliminating human beings. Romans 8:6 tells us that the mind governed by the Holy Spirit is life and peace. Romans 15:13 describes our being filled with joy and peace so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Does anyone need less peace and joy in their lives?
You will notice that Jesus did not quote the second half of the verse, which refers to the Judgment of the Lord which awaits his second coming. As we say in the Creed, he, Jesus, shall come again to judge the living and the dead.
I love how Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, comforts all who mourn, and provides for those who grieve in Zion. We are very aware of how many Israelis have been deeply grieving since the October 7th massacre. Jesus said in Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” We are called in 1 Corinthians 12:15 to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. 2 Corinthians 1:4 says that the Father comforts us in our sorrow that we can comfort others with the comfort that He has given us.
Has God the Holy Spirit ever given you beauty for ashes, as mentioned in Isaiah 61:3? What did that look like for you? The oil of joy is such a gift where life is weighing us down. That is why Paul reaffirmed in Philippians 3:3 that the joy of the Lord is our true security. What are we tempted to trust in for our security?
How many have ever put on a garment of grumbling? How did that work for you? Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, puts on us a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. There is something very radical when we give thanks while others curse. E. Stanley Jones said after a massive stroke that he still could give thanks, sometimes because of, and sometimes in spite of. How has giving thanks and praise brought breakthrough in your life? Has anyone ever heard of Merlin Carother’s book Prison to Praise?
How many of us want to be oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor? In this world of chaos and destruction, we need to be deeply rooted in a way that displays his splendor.
We live in a difficult time when everything that can be shaken is being shaken. Hebrews 12:28 tells us that only the unshakable Kingdom will remain. The Spirit of Jesus is helping us to rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; The Spirit of the Father is enabling us to renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. That is incredibly good news in this time of gross darkness, particularly in BC.
Jesus in Luke 11:11-13 said: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? So, if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” God only gives good gifts. We don’t need to fear giving over our will to the Holy Spirit, who is a good and loving God. Galatians 5:25 teaches us that since we live by the Spirit, we need to keep in step with the Spirit. I Corinthians 6:19 reminds us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
All born-again Christians have the Holy Spirit living inside of them, but it is still too easy according to 1 Thessalonians 5:19 to quench the Spirit, Ephesians 4:30 to grieve the Spirit, Act 7:51 to resist the Spirit, and Isaiah 63:10 vex the Spirit.
It is such a joy, as Romans 8:26 puts it, that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us through wordless groans. Many scholars see this as an allusion to praying in the Spirit, to speaking in tongues. Nicky Gumbel calls it a love language. Some have the misunderstanding that speaking in tongues is always an ecstatic experience, and so they seldom speak in tongues unless they are a spiritual high. Rev. Dennis Bennett, the author of the best-selling book Nine O’Clock in the Morning and one of my Anglican heroes, recommended that people pray in tongues in their prayer closet on a daily basis. I compare speaking in tongues to flossing one’s teeth. It is best done on a daily basis, whether one feels like it or not. Over the past forty-five years, I have observed that daily speaking in tongues does not guarantee spiritual maturity, but it can help one grow in their prayer lives.
Nicky Gumbel says that you can be filled with the Holy Spirit without speaking in tongues. There are no first-class and second-class Christians. Nicky also says that all Christians can potentially speak in tongues. How many of you have ever heard of Vicar Alexander Boddy from All Saints Anglican Church in Sunderland? Janice and I visited there on our last trip to England. The Holy Spirit poured out on that church in 1907, and for the 25 years, countless people came at Whitsuntide/the Day of Pentecost to receive an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the most famous recipient was the Bradford plumber Smith Wigglesworth, who after receiving his prayer language, went on to have a world-wide healing ministry. Has anyone heard of Smith Wigglesworth?
Being filled with the Holy Spirit again and again, according to Ephesians 5:18, makes us more fully Trinitarian, not just conceptually, but also experientially. It is not mere coincidence that we are water-baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. At the end of every worship service, we are blessed in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Healthy revival and renewal is always deeply Trinitarian. Jesus lays down his will to the Father. John 16:13-14 tells us that the Spirit of Truth points not to himself but to Jesus. The Spirit helps us experience intimacy with Jesus, making us more Christocentric and therefore less eccentric, as in off-centered. As Nicky Gumbel puts it, it is the Holy Spirit who makes Jesus real to us. That is why the Alpha Course weekend with the three talks on the Holy Spirit is such a gift. More than 24 mi E. Stanley Jones said that ‘every rediscovery and re-emphasis on Jesus has brought and still brings revival and renewal. This Lent, we all need to more fully receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Bishop Peter often says that breakthrough comes through surrendering our will. What if this Lent we actually surrendered to the Holy Spirit? What if we let go and let God the Holy Spirit take control? How many are willing to ask God for a fresh Isaiah 61 outpouring of the Holy Spirit this Lent? Let us pray. Come Holy Spirit and fill us afresh with abundant life. Amen.
March 3rd 2024 All Saints Sermon by Rev. Dr. Ed Hird
““Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations— their kings led in triumphal procession. For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish; it will be utterly ruined. “The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the juniper, the fir and the cypress together, to adorn my sanctuary; and I will glorify the place for my feet. The children of your oppressors will come bowing before you; all who despise you will bow down at your feet and will call you the City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel. “Although you have been forsaken and hated, with no one traveling through, I will make you the everlasting pride and the joy of all generations. You will drink the milk of nations and be nursed at royal breasts. Then you will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. Instead of bronze I will bring you gold, and silver in place of iron. Instead of wood I will bring you bronze, and iron in place of stones. I will make peace your governor and well-being your ruler. No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise. The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end. Then all your people will be righteous and they will possess the land forever. They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands, for the display of my splendor. The least of you will become a thousand, the smallest a mighty nation. I am the Lord; in its time I will do this swiftly.””
Have you noticed how Isaiah 60:10 says that foreigners and their Kings will rebuild the open walls of Jerusalem on Mount Zion? Vs 20 tells us that the everlasting Light of God will cause the days of sorrow to end. The Jewish people have seen so many days of sorrow, sometimes from people who claim to be Christians. Historically, many gentile nations have often robbed the Jewish people rather than generously bring them the wealth of the nations. Do you remember the first nation that robbed Israel and then blessed as they left? Exodus 12:36 calls it the plundering of the Egyptians after four hundred years of slavery. It is not rocket science to observe that nations that curse Israel and the Jewish people never do well, for as Jesus said in John 4:22, Salvation is of the Jews.
How many of you have a friend, family neighbour or colleague whom you would like to come to know Jesus personally? In the Jesus movement revival, we led countless people, including some of our Jewish friends, to Jesus, largely because we didn’t know any better. Most of our Christian friends were hiding in the closet about their faith until the Jesus movement happened. When Jewish people in Israel prophetically receive the wealth of the Nations, I am believing that this will include receiving what Romans 11:33 calls the depth of the riches of the wisdom and[i] knowledge of God! Paul tells us in Romans 11:25 that in the last days after the full number of the gentile nations have come in, there will be an end-times revival in which all Israel shall be saved. That is why we need to keep praying expectantly for our Jewish friends for a turning to the Lord and a removing of the veil. Do I hear an amen?
Both Bishop Peter and I have talked a lot about the Bible-based Chosen TV series, which is distributed first by Lionsgate Films on the large movie screen, and then on the Chosen App, YouTube, Prime, and Netflix. It first came out in 2017 and is now in its fourth of seven seasons. More than 600 million people already have watched the Chosen series. How many have watched any of it yet? What was your favorite episode?
New research reveals that roughly half of the viewers of The Chosen are not Christians. As mentioned last Sunday, the darkness out there is getting so gross that many of the unchurched are getting curious about Jesus the Light of the Nations. The research shows that Gen Z and younger, many who know nothing about Jesus and have never been to church, are loving the Chosen series. They can’t get enough of it. Here’s an advance tip: Season 5 of The Chosen will spotlight Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem for Holy Week. Season 6 and Season 7 will include the crucifixion and resurrection. You won’t want to miss it. How many of you are willing to check out the Chosen series? More importantly, are you willing to invite a friend or family member to watch a chosen episode with you? It is one of the easiest ways to do evangelism in this gospel-resistant culture.
How many of you love Isaiah? I deeply love Isaiah. I am genetically related to Isaiah who is now four years old. His mom chose this name because the prophet Isaiah spoke about beauty for ashes, an anointing of joy for a spirit of heaviness. How many of you have met any of our grandchildren? If you have met Isaiah, you will never forget him. Our grandson Isaiah is full of life, bubbling over.
As you know, All Saints is currently doing a five-week Lenten sermon series on Isaiah entitled “Arise and Shine, All Saints.” The New Testament quotes the book of Isaiah 71 times. Isaiah is the most Christian, in Hebrew, the most messianic book in the Old Testament, which Jewish people call the Tenach. How many of you know what the term Tenach stands for? It is an acronym for the three section of the Old Testament: 1) Torah (Law, the first five book), 2) Neviʾim (Prophets), and 3) Ketuvim (Writings, or the rest of the Old Testament).
Isaiah 2:5, as quoted by 1 John 1:9, calls us to walk in the light of the Lord”. Isaiah 5:20 warns woke people, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.” Isaiah 7:14, as quoted by Matthew 1:22, prophesies that a virgin will give birth to God’s son, one of his names which is Immanuel, God with us. Isaiah 9:1, as quoted by Matthew 4:15, calls Jesus a light in darkness. Isaiah 9:6 prophesies that Jesus the Messiah will come as a baby. I love the beauty of the King James Version which Handel’s Messiah drew upon “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 11:1, as quoted in Luke 1:31-33, calls Jesus the root of Jesse, King David’s father. Isaiah 28:16, as quoted in Matthew 21:42-44, calls Jesus the rejected Corner Stone. Isaiah 29:18 & 35:5, as quoted in Matthew 11:5, prophesied that Jesus would cause the deaf to hear and the blind to see. Isaiah 40:3-5, as quoted by all four Gospels, predicted the coming of John the Baptist who would prepare the way for Jesus the Messiah. Isaiah 42:1-4, as quoted by Matthew 12:18-21, prophesied that Jesus the Messiah would be gentle and not crush the broken.
The strongest and longest OT prophecies about Jesus are found in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, which is never read nowadays in the synagogues. Many of my messianic Jewish friends have come to know Jesus, who they call Yeshua, by reading Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. There was a Jewish person who was first shown Isaiah 53 and asked who it was talking about. He said, “Well, it’s obviously about Jesus. But I don’t trust your New Testament.” He was then amazed to discover that this was not from the New Testament but the Old Testament.
Have you noticed that Isaiah 60 keeps telling us in verses 3, 5 to 6, 11 (even in Isaiah 66:12-13) that those coming to the Light of Jesus will bring the Wealth of the Nations? The King James Version called this the Wealth of the Gentiles. In Hebrew, it is called the wealth of the Goyim. In 140 places, the KJV translates the term goyim as the heathen. The words ‘heathen’ and ‘nation’ are often interchangeable in the KJV, as in 1 Chronicles 16:24 “Declare his glory among the heathen, his marvelous works among all nations.” This is where we get the word ‘ethnic’ from (ethnos in the Greek). To be called heathen did not mean that you were uncivilized, just not Jewish. Those of us who are not Jewish and love Jesus are actually Christian heathens.
Now when business people, economists and politicians hear the term Wealth of the Nations, what person and book comes to mind? Adam Smith’s 1776 book Wealth of the Nations. How many of you have ever read Wealth of the Nations? How many of you have ever taken a course of economic? I want to invite you up for a little dialogue.
In 1776, Smith’s second book The Wealth of the Nations was so popular that he became known as the Father of Economics and the Father of Capitalism. For some people today, Capitalism has become a negative word associated with Scrooge-like greed and cutthroat business practices. Karl Marx blamed capitalism for all the world’s ills.
Most people have no idea that Adam Smith was a devout Christian economist. In his two books, including his lesser-known book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, God was mentioned a total of 403 times. Biblical economics is based on our being faithful stewards, realizing that all things come from God, and of his own have we given him (1 Chronicles 29:14). Stewardship in the Greek is the same word as economics (oikonomos, manager of the oikos, the house). Smith wanted everyone to earn a decent living, saying ‘No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which the far greater of the members are poor and miserable.’ Smith observed how God transforms private interest into public good by his invisible sovereign hand.
Born in 1723 in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, Adam Smith never knew his father who had died five months before his birth. Smith regularly attended the local church with his devout mother Margaret. His strong Christian faith is often ignored or minimized by modern economists. You cannot really understand Adam Smith without appreciating his 1759 book The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
He said: “As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.”
Adam Smith was not just a philosopher and economist. He was also an early psychologist and sociologist who served at Glasgow University as Professor of Moral Philosophy. He was such an academic rock star in Glasgow that the university bookstore even sold a bust of his head what he was still alive! Smith was fascinated about what made people tick, especially how emotions/sentiments affected our life choices and ethical decisions.
With most of his students training to become ordained clergy, he taught them extensively about natural theology, how God our creator impacted our natural world:
…every part of nature, when attentively surveyed, equally demonstrates the providential care of its Author, and we may admire the wisdom and goodness of God, even in the weakness and folly of man.
Smith was struck by the miraculous order of God’s good universe. He called the universe God’s machine, designed to produce at all times the greatest quantity of happiness in us. Romans 8:28 reminds us how all things work together for the good.
Since he was fatherless, Smith deeply appreciated that God was indeed our heavenly Father. He commented that ‘the very suspicion of a fatherless world must be the most melancholy of all reflections’, leaving us with nothing but endless misery and wretchedness.
All the economic prosperity in the world, said Smith, can never remove the dreadful gloominess of a world without God our Father. Smith taught that with this conviction of a benevolent heavenly Father, all the sorrow of an afflicting adversity can never dry up our joy. Smith, who sometimes suffered from depression, knew that because he was not cosmically alone, he had reason to keep going. After experiencing academic burnout, he left Glasgow University, serving as a European tutor for Henry Scott, the future Duke of Buccleuch and his brother. While in Paris, he became friends to Voltaire and the French physiocrat economists, led by Dr. Francois Quesnay, the Royal Physician to King Louis XV. After the tragic death of Henry Scott’s younger brother, Smith returned home, never to visit Europe again.
Let me ask you a question: Who first brought the wealth of the nations to Israel as predicted in Isaiah 60? None other than the wise men who brought their three gifts to Jesus the Messiah of gold, myrrh, and incense. Haggai 2:7 says that the gold and silver belong to the Lord. My scientist brother-in-law had a great bumper sticker “Wise Men Still Seek Him.” Isaiah 60 Vs 5 prophetically said “Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.” Where did we get the idea that the wise men came on camels? From Isaiah 60. Where did we get the idea that the wise men or magis were kings? From Isaiah 60 vs. 3 and 11. And also in the prophecy of Psalm 72:10-11, it says “May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tribute to him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba present him gifts. May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him.”
What reason did Isaiah 60 give that the wise men came to visit Jesus? The darkness became so gross that they were drawn to the light. Have you noticed in 2024 that the darkness is getting pretty gross? I am believing that many unchurched people in 2024 will be so grossed out by the extreme darkness in BC that they will come to this glorious Lighthouse in Crescent Beach. We the people of the light need to be ready to welcome them with open arms. These lost, broken people will not come to the light already cleaned up and fixed.
According to Matthew 2:2, what led the wise men to that perfect light? (the Star of wonder, Star of night) That reminds me of a song.
Did the wise men visit Jesus at his birth? Not likely. Likely over 40 days later. Perhaps a year or two later. Do you know, by the way, why the wise men were late for Christmas? Being men, they wouldn’t ask directions.
How many wise men does the bible say came to Jesus? It doesn’t say. It just said three gifts. Their names were not likely Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.
What was the final thing the wise men did after they gave Jesus the wealth of the nations? They worshipped him. Did you know that the JW New World Translation bible wipes out any references to worshipping Jesus, retranslating proskuneo as merely obeisance, whatever that means? How many of you believe that Jesus the King of the nations is worthy of worship and adoration? That reminds me of a chorus: O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore him
O come let us adore Him
Christ, the Lord
Why do we have an offering of our tithes and sacrificial offerings each Sunday in our worship service? Because Jesus is worthy of our worship, worthy of receiving the wealth of the nations. Do I hear an Amen?
Jesus, in sixteen out of the thirty-eight recorded parables, spoke about stewardship. As we seek first God’s Kingdom, our needs will be met. (Matthew 6:33) Jesus tells us in Luke 16: 11 “if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” Money is small potatoes in God’s eyes. The true wealth of the nations is about love, forgiveness, justice, and God’s Word.
Abundant living depends on abundant giving. Jesus taught that it is better to give than receive (Acts 20:35). Tithing our first 10% to God and then giving sacrificially expresses the truth that God the King owns it all, and we are his Kingdom caretakers. E. Stanley Jones told the story of a poverty-stricken boy named Colgate who met a steamboat captain who encouraged him to give his heart to Jesus and give one tenth of all he made to God. The boy promised both, and through his Colgate Toothpaste Company, ended up giving millions to serving others.
What might happen to Canada in 2024 if we chose to lay the wealth of the nations at the feet of Jesus’ unshakable Kingdom?
Is there a ‘hidden code’ to the Bible – a code hidden in plain sight – we have been missing for generations?
By studying the ministry of Jesus, we can rediscover the blueprint he was following to launch the first century church. It is a blueprint patterned after the prophetic Old Testament ministries of Elijah and Elisha.
Together, let’s crack the Elisha Code, renew our first love and become participants in the next great end times revival – a revival marked by a double portion of Christ’s miraculous anointing.
Ed Hird is an author and conference speaker. For more than 40 years he has served as an ordained Anglican pastor around Metro Vancouver. He is now an elder / preacher at All Saints Community Church in Crescent Beach. He received his Doctor of Ministry in 2013, in addition to a Master of Divinity and a Bachelor of Social Work.
David Kitz is a Bible dramatist, author and speaker who has served as an ordained minister with the Foursquare Gospel Church of Canada. He lives in Ottawa.
Part Three of the Lenten Proverbs series The Lenten Discipline of prayerfully seeking the Lord (Proverbs 28:1-28)
Jesus is Lord! How’s your prayer life these days? How many of you want to pursue the Lord Jesus more passionately this Lent? God is restoring a deeper intimacy and giving us an undivided heart. One of my heroes E Stanley Jones memorably said: “prayer gathers up our highest, most sacred, & our most real moments.” “Jesus is Lord!” as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:3, Romans 10:9, and Philippians 2:11 is the earliest creed of the early church, and also the motto of the Christian Ashram retreat movement which Janice & I help lead. Jesus is called Lord over 700 times in the New Testament. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess…
How many of you want, as Revelation 2:4 puts it, to return to your first love? What was it like for you when you first fell in love with the Lord Jesus? The Asbury outpouring, the Jesus Revolution movie, and the Chosen TV series are all signs to me of God restoring our first love for Jesus. God is clearly on the move. Lord Jesus, don’t pass us by. We are so hungry for your presence, Lord Jesus
Many of are believing that the dam of spiritual resistance is about to break in Canada. Do I hear an amen? Jesus is Lord of Canada!
One of Bishop Peter’s heroes Bishop JC Ryle of Liverpool said. “A man’s state before God may always be measured by his prayers. Whenever we begin to feel careless about our private prayers there is something very wrong in the condition of our souls. There are breakers ahead. We are in imminent danger of a shipwreck.”
I believe that it is time to seek the Lord Jesus. Do I hear an Amen? Lordship is about surrender, obedience, and revival
As 2nd Chronicles 7:14 puts it, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.
As we are seeking his face and turning in repentance from our wicked ways, God is breaking shame and despair off our lives.
Nicky Gumbel, founder of the Alpha Course, recently said: “When we pray, God hears more than we say, answers more than we ask, gives more than we imagine – in his own time and in his own way.”
Jeremiah 29:13 says “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Mendelsohn does a wonderful version of Isaiah 55:5-6. ‘Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near’. God wants to be found. He is not hiding from us. He is more willing to be found than we are willing to seek him. In times of outpouring, God is somehow easier to be found. Lent is about our heart seeking God’s face, his presence. As Psalm 63:1 puts it, earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you in a dry an weary land where there is no water.
The good news is that God chose us before we chose Him, he loved us before we loved him, and he sought us before we sought him. God is the hound of heaven relentlessly pursuing and seeking us. How many of you have ever heard the Bethel song about God’s reckless love:”
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the 99
And I couldn’t earn it
I don’t deserve it, still You give yourself away.
You are never too far from the Lord Jesus. All you have is turn back, changing direction, and He is right there embracing you. Lenten repentance is all about turning back to the God & Father of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob, revealed in Jesus Christ. The highest thing we can say about God the Father is that he’s Christ-like.
As Matthew 28:20 reminds us, the Lord Jesus is always with us. As believers, he indwells us. But we so easily get distracted from an awareness of this reality. That is why Psalm 105:4 says to seek his presence continually.
I will never forget visiting the Psychiatric ward in Abbotsford in 1982. A man told me that he never prayed to God, but only to the Virgin Mary. I sensed that he was really talking about his parents, not God. I asked if Mary was like his own mom. “Yes, exactly”, he said. “I can tell her anything.” When I asked if God was like his father, he totally agreed: “You just can’t talk to either of them.” I said to him that his issue wasn’t with God, and that if he would work on his father wound, he would get a breakthrough with God. That next week, a psychiatrist phoned me to tell me that this man had a breakthrough because of this insight.
I’ll never forget ministering in Honduras in 1994 where the brand new Anglicans wanted to know what I thought about Mary. I said that I agreed with her when she said at the Cana wedding ‘Whatever Jesus says, do it’. Because Mary is huge in Latin America, they later asked me again what I thought about Mary. I said that I agreed with what the book of Ephesians said about Mary. Nothing. The female in Ephesians is not Mary but rather the bride of Christ the Church.
I will also never forget in 2010 visiting Canada’s oldest spiritual pilgrimage near Quebec City. This church was highly focused on St Anne de Beaupre, who they claim to be mother Mary’s mother. I wonder: Why do some people seem to give more attention to St Anne or to Mother Mary than to her son? Some people have the idea that Jesus is too busy or not accessible almost like a medieval King. The best one might hope for us to slip the King a second hand message through a member of the royal family or nobility. How many of us have ever had a one-to-one personal sit down day with modern-day Kings like President Biden or Putin or JinPing? They are just too busy and detached. But Jesus is an approachable, foot-washing servant king.
If Mother Mary was here today, she would say to us: “Seek my son Jesus directly.” Jesus is Lord! As 1 Timothy 2:5 puts it, Jesus is the only mediator between God and humanity. There is only one without sin. Romans 3:23 refers to everyone except Jesus.
Mary, being mortal, died just like the rest of us. I will never talk to Mary until I get to heaven, because the Bible doesn’t want us to talk to the dead. That’s the sin of necromancy explicitly forbidden in Deuteronomy 18:10-11: “There shall not be found among you any … that uses divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.” 1 Chronicles 10:13, 1 Samuel 28:7-19, 2 King’s 21:6, Isaiah 8:19, Leviticus 8:19, 19:31, 20:6 , & 20:27 also forbid talking with the dead “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.”
Speaking to dead soldiers in WW1 gave rise to huge spiritualism and occultism in the United Kingdom. Fallen angels, also known as familiar spirits or spirit guides, can give you accurate information while pretending to be your dead uncle or aunt.
I do honour Mary and give thanks for her faithfulness. She was an amazing lady. When I get to heaven, I will be happy to say ‘Hail, Mary., full of grace. Blessed are you among women’. In the meantime, I give thanks to God for Mary who is full of grace and blessed among women. When Jesus is central in our life, then Mary goes back to her proper place. Mary was Jesus-focused, not Mary-focused. Jesus is Lord!
I also don’t recommend praying to the saints. It matters to whom we direct our prayers. Jesus is Lord, not the saints. Our name as All Saints Church reminds us that all of us as believers are forgiven saints. Bishop Peter like the rest of us is a saint, Saint Peter. The Anglican Church in its Catholic/protestant wisdom kept all the saints before the 16th reformation, but never added any others. How many of us miss Bishop Peter and Jenny, two of our All Saints saints? How would you feel if I started praying to St Peter during his absence?: ‘Our Peter who art in Australia, help us with our problems back in Crescent Beach’. We don’t pray to the saints or to Mary, not even St Peter in Australia. Jesus is Lord!
Who we actually pray to is huge. As the Ten Commandments puts it in Deuteronomy 5 & Exodus 20, we don’t pray to or worship or make graven images of any other gods or idols. As Christians, we don’t pray to Buddha, Krishna, or any of the other 330 million gods in Hinduism. Jesus is Lord! As Trinitarian Christians, we can pray to any member of the Trinity, or to all three at once. As the Athanasian Creed of 450AD affirms, “…the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord. Yet there are not three lords; there is but one Lord.”
Some of you may wonder why born again Christians need to seek the Lord Jesus. We need to for the same reason that married people need to regularly pursue their spouses. We all need more of Jesus. Jesus is Lord!
Corrie Ten Boom said if the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy. Has busyness been hampering your prayer life lately? Our anxious busyness can cloud a greater sense of his beauty and majesty. Have you ever slipped into complacency in your spiritual life? Have you ever been on spiritual autopilot, business as usual? You may remember how Keith Green powerfully song: “My eyes are dry, my faith is old, my heart is hard, my prayers are cold, and I know how I ought to be, alive to you and dead to me.”
What if this Lent especially, we choose to seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness. If God is only second, before you know it, he will become last in our busy agenda. North America busyness loves to swallow us alive and exhaust us so that there is nothing left for the Lord Jesus.
Psalm 10:4 says that pride will actually block us from seeking the Lord. The good news of 1 Chronicles 28:8 is if we humbly seek the Lord, he will be found by us. Hebrews 11:6 says that he rewards those who seek him. Jesus said in Matthew 7:7 “seek and you will find, knock and the door will open, ask and it shall be given to you” let me ask you, this Lent, are you seeking, asking, knocking?
Like the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, would you like to see nothing but the Lord Jesus? Are you ever tempted, like Peter, to build three tabernacles?
How many of us want more abundant life this Lent? Amos 5:6 & Psalm 69:32 calls us to seek the Lord that we may live, abundantly live. Jesus is Lord of Life!
1 Chronicles 22:19 & Colossians 3:1 tell us to set our mind and heart to seek the Lord, on the things that are above. What direction are we setting our focus? Whatever has our attention has us. What if we prayed each day, especially during the remaining 20 days of Lent 2023, according to 2 Thessalonians 3:5 that the Lord would direct our hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ? The Lord Jesus is the King of hearts.
Joel 2.12-13 says ‘return to me with all your heart,…rend your heart, not your clothing’ Maybe Lent 2023 could be the time to seek him with our whole heart. Do any of us this Lent need to ‘up our game’ in terms of seeking the Lord? Have we been a bit distracted or half-hearted lately? How many of us would like a more Spirit-filled Lent?
What might happen this Lent if, as Proverbs 3:5-6 puts it, we would trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding? What might happen if in all our ways we acknowledged him? How many of us today want God to make our ways straight?
There is nothing you can do during Lent that will make Jesus love you more. Some of us this Lent need to renounce the secret lie that we are not lovable. He already loves you deeply with an everlasting love. The Lenten disciplines of seeking a rebuke, self-examination, and seeking the Lord will allow you to receive more of his love. Believing is receiving. Jesus is Lord!
How many of us want more joy this Lent? 1 Chronicles 16:10 & Psalm 70:4 says that those who seek the Lord will experience joy and gladness in Christ. Jesus is Lord over anxiety and discouragement.
Psalm 34:4 says that those who seek the Lord will be delivered from all their fears. Jesus is Lord over our fears.
Proverbs says in 2:3-6 and 28:5 that those who seek the Lord will receive wisdom and understanding.
How many of you have Bible verses on your wall? Did your parents or other family members do this? My mom had John 3:16 on the kitchen wall until I got her to take it down, because it was too religious. During the Jesus Revolution, I had mom put John 3:16 back on the wall and added a picture of Jesus. One of my favorite wall plaque verses nowadays is Isaiah 40:31 “They that wait on the Lord…” Our impatience is often our greatest enemy. How many of us struggle with impatience? A huge part of seeking Jesus is quietly waiting on the Lord. Richard Sibbes said that ‘The soul is never quiet till it comes to God and that is the one thing the soul desires.’ As Psalm 46:10 puts I, Be still and know that I am God.
How many of you ever listen to worship music as you have your daily devotional time? Music touches the heart. I love many styles of music. Recently God has been ministering to me early in the morning through Gregorian chant, Keith Green music, and through quiet flute music as I sing and pray under my breath in the Spirit. I use headphones because of Proverbs 27:14, as my wife is not a morning person. What kind of music helps you prayerfully seek the Lord?
Proverbs 28:1. The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
Lord, give us a boldness to seek your presence. It takes courage to seek the Lord. If you come from a so-called nonreligious or addictive family, it may be very difficult for you to seek the Lord. It may feel awkward or uncomfortable. You may even have to battle your inner family voices telling you that this will never work. Your inner family tapes may be telling that prayer is only for hyper religious super saints. In our family, my ex agnostic father was the son of an atheist rather until age 87. My dad was the first adult male who ever attended church. Church in our family was good for women and children, not real men. Many of us in our selfishness are often more avoiders than seekers. Perhaps rather than seeker-sensitive service, we need avoider-sensitive services. Starting with Adam & Eve, many of us are hiding from God, sometimes in plain view. Our greatest need in worship is not just to be welcoming to newcomers but to be welcoming God. We need Spirit-sensitive services.
2. When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order.
3, A ruler who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain that leaves no crops.
There are many verses in Proverbs 28 about difficult, corrupt politicians and leaders, and how some people try to hide from their governmental overreach. The Bible is remarkable current in this current push for digital ID and so-called 15-minute cities where our freedom of travel and assembly may be at risk. Listening to much of the news nowadays is enough to drive you to despair, or better yet to prayer. It’s that bad. Prayer, you say! I had an elder in a previous church who was so upset over the election of an unnamed politician that he refused to pray for him. I told him: “the Bible doesn’t give you that option.” How deeply our nations needs 1 Timothy 2 prayers for our politicians, especially for the most painful ones.
4, Those who forsake instruction praise the wicked, but those who heed it resist them.
5, Evildoers do not understand what is right, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully.
Have you noticed that we live in a Isaiah 5:20 culture where evil is often called goodness and goodness is called evil. Up is down and down is up. The only way forward in our desperately confused world is to prayerfully seek the Lord Jesus. Radical obedience & self-surrender are key ways to seek the Lord. Jesus is Lord over our confusion and uncertainty.
6. Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse.
7. A discerning son heeds instruction, but a companion of gluttons disgraces his father.
8. Whoever increases wealth by taking interest or profit from the poor amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.
9. If anyone turns a deaf ear to my instruction, even their prayers are detestable.
The King James Version of ‘detestable’ here is abomination. How many of us would like our prayers to be an abomination in the sight of the Lord Jesus? Deafness regarding receiving a rebuke and self examination is deadly to a vital prayer life. Detestable prayers include those prayers done by angry, critical self-appointed prayer warriors. I believe in spiritual warfare, and tearing down strongholds in our mind using Ephesians 6 armour. But why do we never hear about prayer peacemakers or prayer reconcilers. It is so easy in our argumentative culture to even weaponize the Lenten spiritual disciplines, so that even the Bible and prayer become ways to attack others and win points while often losing the person. Jesus is Lord over our detestable deafness.
10. Whoever leads the upright along an evil path will fall into their own trap, but the blameless will receive a good inheritance.
Prayer protects our spiritual inheritance from evil path. Jesus is Lord over our future inheritance. Do not be manipulated by the nihilistic prophets of doom and gloom who are telling our younger generation that there is no future for them. They might as well not get married and have families. Just take free drugs and let the government look after you until you’re ready for your own personal MAID service.
11. The rich are wise in their own eyes; one who is poor and discerning sees how deluded they are.
Prayer is so key to protect us from the deceitful pride of riches. Many of the Uber rich think that they have the inherent right to control our lives and tell us how to live. Jesus however is Lord over economics. Jesus, not mammon, is our only master.
12. When the righteous triumph, there is great elation; but when the wicked rise to power, people go into hiding.
The political corruption and overreach in Canada is bad enough to drive us to our knees in prayer. Jesus however is Lord, even over politics!
13. Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
Secrecy kills spiritual intimacy with the Lord Jesus. We are as sick as our secrets. May 1 John 1:9 revival cause us to come out of the dark and walk prayerfully in the Light. Jesus is Lord over our darkest secrets that no one else knows.
14, Blessed is the one who always trembles before God, but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble.
Does any one have trouble right here in River City, oh, I meant Crescent Beach. 😉 True prayer is about a soft, trembling heart. Remove our hearts of stone and stiff necks, Lord. Jesus is Lord over our stiff necks! Romans 10:9 says that if you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Maybe there is someone here today who has never personally received Jesus as their Lord but would like to today. I invite you to receive Him today if that is you. Maybe there is someone who has hardened their heart and needs to come back to the Lord Jesus. Let us pray.
Books by Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird include God’s Firestarters; Blue Sky, a novel; and For Better, For Worse: Discovering the keys to a Lasting Relationship. Dr Ed’s newest award-winning book The Elisha Code is co-authored with Rev. David Kitz. Earlier books by Dr. Ed include the award-winning Battle for the Soul of Canada, and Restoring Health: Body, Mind, & Spirit.
Edhird's Blog 