Sermon Transcript — December 29, 2007
I just really appreciated Mr.Metzel's sermonette. It was a great lead-in to the sermon as you're going to see. And he gave some very practical lessons among many lessons that can be brought out from the last couple of weeks.
I thought I might give you a little bit of the background on the timeline. On December 3rd, Tom Breen from the Associated Press contacted us, and he was wanting to get some information for an article he was putting together on Christians who don't keep Christmas. So we asked for some written questions in advance that we could respond to. He sent three, and he used a couple of comments from them. He didn't use all of it, but he sent three questions.
Number one: what are some of the major theological and scriptural problems with the Christmas holiday?
Number two: how important is it for Christians to consider those problems when deciding whether they'll keep Christmas? Now those two questions strike right to the heart of the matter. That is the core. What does the Bible say? How important is it? In that lies the crux of our doctrinal position.
His third question also was very perceptive, and that is not the biblical side, but the very practical side, and that question was: Christmas is obviously a cultural phenomenon with a large degree of peer pressure involved. Deciding not to celebrate it has to be a difficult decision. How does the United Church of God prepare people for the objections from friends, neighbors, family members and even young children? What kind of resources are available to those people who don't want to celebrate the holiday, but feel pressured by society's expectations? Very good question. That one never appeared in the article, the answer to it, but it was a good question for us to consider as Mr. Metzel was taking us down that line of thinking.
One of our resources is all these other people that when somebody steps into church for the first time, and they're venturing out on a new way of life, just to realize there are others with me, others who've had the experiences and they know how to answer these things and there's help there. That's very encouraging.
But it was a very interesting couple of weeks. I just have to offer a slight correction to the time line. Once that article appeared on December 13 th, and all of a sudden the publicity starts just spreading around the world, that's what prompted the Alan Colmes producer to contact Mr. Aust, and so that one thing was quickly following another.
Mr. Foster, two weeks ago, on Saturday night called my home, and he said, "This is unbelievable." He said, "I got home from services, and my phone has messages on it. I'm getting e-mails from people. And then the NPR called."
I said, "Put it in an e-mail to so I'll have some record." I got four e-mails from him that night.
He said, "Well, here's another thing that just happened." He said, "NPR called." He said, "CBS called." You know, it was just running away in that sense. And of course, he's not one to put himself in the limelight, but he ended up being a very good person to be in the limelight, as did Mr. Aust and others.
Well, again, the next day, we started getting messages from all over the world, ministers sending in messages. It was in Australia; it was in the Philippines; it's being translated on Spanish television, television. Mr. Gore wrote a message that he took a copy that he downloaded from the internet where it appeared in the Kuwaitee Times. In Kuwait! Of all places, this article appears with Mr. Foster's picture standing there in front of a big evergreen tree that says this is probably the only undecorated tree around. There he is holding a Bible, and pictures and article and everything was right there.
Well what had happened in the process of Mr. Breen doing his research, he lives in West Virginia. So he goes on the website, apparently, sees if there's anybody local to him, which Mr. Foster just happened to be, and he said, "I want to talk to the local guy."
And Mr. Metzel is exactly right in that sometimes people don't want to talk to the headquarters. They want to talk to the man on the street, and a couple of these occasions they refer. They say, "Please feel free to call our home office."
"I don't want to call the home office. I want to talk to you. What do you believe? What do you practice?" And so it is important to be prepared at any time.
Well, this spreads on, the Washington Post decided to do its own article. They interviewed Arnold Hampton and Todd Carey in Virginia, posted an article on line with three pictures. They took pictures of Mr. Hampton preaching; I think it was last Sabbath, or maybe it was Sabbath before last, and they had pictures of his congregation there. And they came to church and took some photos with the article, and then as a result of Mr. Aust's interview, as was mentioned, Mr. Luker gets about a twenty minute interview.
They told Mr. Aust, "We'll probably talk about ten minutes." It ended up being twenty-six minutes, people calling in. By the way, some of those who did call in were church members. At least one was, and gave some support. So we learned a good, strategic move there, you know (crowd laughter). When we know there's going to be an interview, we'll load it up with callers. But most of them weren't.
Well, you just never know when the phone's going to ring, and you might be in the middle of an interview. But with other church members, the exact same thing happened. One of the members in Mr. Foster's area said their neighbor came to them and said, "I read this article. That's your church, isn't it?" And they had a good discussion. The neighbor at the end said, "That's very interesting, but I'll probably stick with the ninety percent who does keep Christmas." Well, sometimes being a witness doesn't mean anybody's converted, but they do hear. They hear what is right.
Well, all of this not only grabbed attention throughout the world, but it grabs our attention, too. We've had a lot of conversations going around on the ramifications, and what do we learn from this? You don't want to miss anything where you have an opportunity to learn something. So we've talked about this a lot for the last couple of weeks, and one of the most striking things that hits is the fact that this happened overnight. We live in a day and age when things can be around the world just like that in a matter of hours due to the media methods today, and what we received in terms of publicity for the truth, first of all; that's the most important thing is it's the truth that people are hearing.
Now we are also happy that they become familiar with the United Church of God because that is a gateway to other truths that they need to know, that we have the opportunity to teach and represent the way of God. But we didn't generate it. We weren't looking for it. This wasn't a campaign. This wasn't something we budgeted for last February, and then we had the big December blitz to try to get on radio programs and newspapers. This was something that could not have been manufactured. It could not have been manufactured the same way.
We were talking the other day, the thought hit us; what was the significance of this publicity and this opportunity in terms of money? How much would it have cost us to get the same coverage? I don't know if we can even calculate it, 'cause I don't even know if we could have gotten the coverage had we asked for it. But to go on all of these papers with advertising? To write our press releases and put them out there; we've done that before. We've written press releases on things, and not a single paper picks it up. You send it out, so this comes out of the clear blue sky, we're not really doing anything, and it teaches us a very important lesson, something that I want to talk about today.
One of the major aspects we have discussed about this, Mr. Salyer wrote about on Thursday in the ministerial journal, our monthly journal, and I'll just quote a paragraph or two. "The quick lesson I learned from this," he said, "or rather had refreshed in my memory is that God can do whatever He chooses whenever He chooses. The amount of effort and money it would have required for us to go out and get this much public exposure for our name and a single doctrine would have been enormous. We will never know how many people will go looking for us on the internet to follow up on this question about Christmas. And they will find much more if they are interested in pursuing other things that are going to be right there for them.
Here in the media area of the work, we often remind ourselves that God can raise up stones to preach the gospel if He should choose. But since none of us want to be replaced by a stone, we try to find ways to preach the gospel more effectively through traditional human means. We're doing our best, and it's a huge, huge endeavor in terms of media, to find the best way to reach different target audiences in a world that is so vast. Sometimes media experts say, "Well, who's your audience?"
"Well, the world." Can we define that? Yes, we can, but we can't leave anybody out either, and it's a big challenge.
But he writes, "Still we know that our only hope of reaching the world lies in faith that Christ is the Head of the church and will bless our feeble efforts as He sees fit. We will continue to seek the open doors and use the far-reaching methods of walking through them. No doubt the Father and Jesus Christ want us to be diligently fulfilling our commission to preach the truth to the world, but just as surely, They know that in the end it will be done, '. . . not by might or bypower, but by My spirit,' says the Lord of Hosts. (Zechariah4:6).
"It is very clear to us, this would not have happened; this could not have happened without God opening the door. It is as simple as that." And that's where I want to focus today. It's a good time for us to review some principles because it made me think as I was thinking about this for a while, I've had concerns for a long time that I think we've maybe slightly strayed from a core understanding of a foundational truth that we have maybe gone soft a little bit on our clarity of understanding something. And if we go soft on this clarity, it begins to take our minds in a different direction that really becomes self-centered; it becomes self-reliant; it leads to vanity, and it leads to failure. It leads to blindness. And it leads to having to learn a lesson over and over again that we shouldn't have to learn over and over again.
But there are those of us of a certain generation who heard it preached many times, and yet we have a new generation coming up that might not have heard it preached so much, and it has to be clearly instilled in our minds because it is something that helps tremendously with the sense of humility, a sense of awareness of our power and how reliant we are because really, that power isn't very much. And on the human scale the work is not going to be done by human power, but only, "by My spirit," and one of the things that God's spirit will do is found here in Revelation 3:7. It's found here and it's been driven home in the last couple of weeks by these events.
Revelation 3:7 — (And) to the angel of the church in Philidelphia write, "These things say He who is holy, He who is true, He who has the key of David . . ." Now those things are very important concepts. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on them, but here you have a definition of the personal character of God. I wish I had time to elaborate on what does it mean - He who is holy and He who is true. You can do your own study on that, but this is an important foundation to understand who we are dealing with as the Head of this church. ". . .and He who has the key of David . . ." This has to do something with the governmental characteristics. What does He do? And what is His authority to do it? The key of David is a statement about the regal right of Jesus Christ, the authority that David was given over the house of Israel. And the house of Israel today is the church. This is actually a quote from Isaiah 22:22, and when you read there, you see a story of a man named Eliakim, to whom the key of David was given, and the story here is that it was transferred from a man named Shebna who was basically removed from the office. He was removed from office because he was unworthy, and it was given to Eliakim, and the government of the nation was transferred to him, and the statement is made that we find here in Revelation 3 is pertaining to Jesus Christ. And it's basically showing He is absolute. The church is at the disposal of Jesus Christ. He can shut it up against whom He wills, and He can open it up to whom He wills. And if He shuts it, no man is going to open it, and vice versa. This key can be understood as applying in different ways. It can be a key of knowledge where truth is opened up. It's a key of power and authority. Christ has that. Christ knows. He gets into every room of your mind. He understands His people. He knows us.
I have on my key ring right here; it's a little piece of metal. That's all it is. It's a little piece of metal, but it will get into any door in this office. There are a couple of people that have this key. I can give it to you, and you can get access to upstairs right now. But if you don't have it, you're not going to get it. You're not going to get in.
When it comes to the church, Christ has the key to every single aspect of the church. He can unlock our minds. He can get inside. He can look in your mind right now and know what you're thinking right now. And He does. He tells us that. He knows the heart. He is in total power and has total authority, and he has total knowledge of the scripture and He can unlock doors, and He can say, "Hey, I'll give you certain authority. I'll give you the right, the responsibility to do certain things."
He unlocks the knowledge of the scripture to us, and He tells us as human beings then you teach this. He tells parents — you teach your children. He tells ministers — you go out and you preach the gospel, and some of you do that, and some of you teach the church. It's His authority, and He does that. So whatever degrees of His power may be committed to us at one time or another, whatever gifts of His spirit, the supreme power belongs to Jesus Christ, and Christ alone. That's what He means — He is the Head of the church.
Well, it goes on to say here:
Isaiah 22:22 - He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens. This is powerful.
Rev. 3:8 — I know your works . . . He's intimately acquainted with everything that we do, and He can guide us; He can give rewards; He can give correction. It is interesting, this phrase — "Iknow your works . . ." is not unique to the church that He's writing here, Philadelphia. He says it to all seven of these churches. And when you actually study what is said, so many of these works that are talked about have to do with things of the heart, attitudes, ways of thinking, intents, states of mind, and He says, "I know these things, and I have absolute control. I can admit anybody; I can exclude anybody. I can prescribe the terms of obedience in my church. I will invite whom I choose."
So, you read this, and you have to say, "Okay, we'd better stand in awe of the One who is doing this speaking."
And then the implication is quite strong. I know your works. And He said,
Verse 8 — "Behold, See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it for you have (a) little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name." Christ has to be acknowledged as the Door-opener. He is the One who opens doors. It is also implicit when He says, "No one can shut it," that there is an understood statement here that there will be efforts to shut it. And it's always been that way.
When Christ opened a door, somebody else steps up to shut it. We'll see a little bit later where Paul said, "A great door is opened to me, but there are many adversaries." We live in Satan's world. And he understands what an opening of the door to the truth of God means for people, and therefore, he is going to work to shut any door that God opens. There will be adversaries. But God says, "It can't be. I have ultimate power. I open it; no one can shut it. " . . .you have a little strength. . . .you have a little strength," but, He said, "You have kept My word and have not denied My name."
We have, the church has always had very little political authority, very little impact that way. It's been small in numbers, doesn't have a lot of resources. You can turn on the TV tomorrow, and you can see televangelists there who have congregations that in one Sunday service will have more people in one building, in one city, than we have around the world. Lots of people. Lots of big bucks. Lots of expertise.
He says, "You don't have that, BUT, you've kept My word. You've kept the doctrine; you have persevered; you have not denied My name. . .again, the implication is — when you had a chance to — and that comes when persecution sets in, when there are temptations, maybe there would be an open path to deny God's name, but He said, "You didn't do it." Christ appreciates that, and He says, "I will take care of you this way."
Well, God is the Door-opener. And this was not a new concept. The early church had it clearly in mind that the power of God is what made them. And it was only by them, and they used the same terminology. Let's take a look at a few places. In Acts 14, we find a summary statement toward the end of the chapter, Acts 14:27. And the statement itself is very good, very interesting. It's when you go back and read what precedes the statement that it becomes really impressive.
Acts 14:27 —We read - . . .when they had come and gathered the church together, they reported all that God had done. . . Now we're going to see a quick overview of the first thirteen chapters in a moment. But in that overview, the conclusion of it was — God did this. This was all that God has done, and that . . . He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. This was monumental in the early church, and it doesn't say it here, but the story behind the story is that in order to open the door of faith to the gentiles, He also had to open a door of understanding to the Jews. And that was going to be quite demanding to some of them. It was going to be something that it's not where they would have gone. In their strategic planning, they would not have said, "Hey, we're going to have a thrust that opens the doors to the Gentiles." That wasn't the way that they would have operated, but God was the one doing the door-opening.
He'd opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. The Jews wouldn't have done that. If anything, they would have shut it, because they all had to be convinced, from the top down. They had to be convinced. When this issue came up about the Gentiles, and they weren't through with the battle yet because the next chapter was all over — well, they're here, now what? They have to be circumcised, some would say. There was all sorts of understanding they had to come to. God had to open the door to their understanding. But it was very easy for them to say, "What? Don't open the door to the Gentiles. Those are the last people you want to bring in here. We've got a good church going." That's the way they would have thought.
But God was opening doors, and eventually, they had to admit; they could not deny the evidence, and part of the evidence — well, "God did the same miracle with them that He did with us, I guess. We can't deny He's working with them." But God opened the door to the Gentiles.
When you go back and get the context of the early church, it makes it all the more reasonable to say — this was a miracle. This was God's doing. Humans would not have done it this way. Humans could not have gotten the church going. You go to Acts 2, they baptized three thousand people on the day of Pentecost. Peter preaches a marvelous sermon, the best sermon he's ever given. Probably the first sermon he's ever given, but it was great. I mean, you read through that and it's a marvelous message, and it bore tremendous fruit, but he never would have had his audience had not God performed these miracles of languages and hearing and flames of fire and sounds of rushing mighty winds. And people came pouring in there, and God got their attention. Then He opened Peter's mouth and inspired the messages and inspires it to be said in such a way that they are cut to the heart, and they respond, and all those people listening come to be baptized, except some of them. Because in the audience that day, it says they were baptized — those who gladly received His word — but there were others there who weren't baptized though they were in the same audience who just didn't get it the same way.
And it's not only opening a door we see of availability to preach the gospel, God has to open another door, too, to receive the gospel, to hear it, to know what to do. Acts 3, there's another powerful witness, a miraculous healing of a lame man. God opens that door. In Acts 10, He sends Peter to Cornelius, and there is a miraculous vision, and while Peter is wrestling with figuring this out, God reveals that the Gentiles would be converted. Peter sees an open door that he, himself, would not have recognized. He reports it back to the apostles and brethren back at Jerusalem it says in Acts 11:2-3 because as one door opened, he was criticized by the Jewish members there. Read Acts 11:2-3, "You are eating with the Gentiles." There was a door open but not everybody saw it as a door open, and there's a lesson that is quickly learned as you read how the humans were working. How the humans would see it one way, then another would see it another way, and there's a great lesson here, and the lesson is pretty simple. If running the church was left to human beings, it would have died a long time ago because we would have killed it.
Humans have enough trouble running their own lives, but God is the One. It's God's church, and He says, "I'll work in you, and by My spirit, through My spirit working in you, I'll bring you down this road to understanding, to comprehension, to learning how to live the right way, and so He did. Eventually, they realized, Peter was right. Peter was right. They came to see - God also has granted to the Gentiles repentance to life - is the statement. Wow.
You come to Acts 12 and all of a sudden it looks like some doors are closing. Herod begins persecution; James the brother of John is killed; Peter is thrown into prison. You think, man, just when it looks like a door is closing, an angel breaks him out of prison. A door opens, literally. Miraculous.
Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13 go to Cyprus and Antioch, and they preach powerful sermons, and people are stirred up, both ways, for them and against them. It says the next Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. Talk about an open door! God opened the door to powerful preaching, but at the same time one door was open, it says the Jews there were filled with envy, and there was strong opposition.
It's an interesting statement that's made in Acts 13:46, Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles." There was an open door here. There was an open door for you, but you slammed it shut. Didn't want to walk through that door. Reject it, so we'll go somewhere else. Now here's the point: they could NOT accept it. They could not get it. They could not understand it, if God wasn't going to open their understanding. And even when God begins to open understanding, sometimes we humans have a strong resistance. And thankfully, He's merciful to us, and He keeps working with us because we often resist doors. Sometimes we don't see them for what they are. Sometimes we jump at the trap doors and balk at the good doors. That's the way we are as human beings. So they threw them out of the city, eventually, but the disciples, it says, were filled with joy.
Acts 14:1 — They came to Iconium, again, an open door, . . .a great multitude both of the Jews and (of) the Greeks believed.
Verse 2 — But it says also the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren.
Verse 3 - But still, God granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.
Verse 4 - . . .the city was divided; . .it says in Verse 4 -. . .part sided with the Jews, and part with the apostles. The gospel will always evoke a reaction.
One of these web sites that ran the article, a lot of newspapers are doing this because they invite audience reaction, places for comments, and boy, there were some interesting comments about the Christmas article.
Some people would say, "You're a bunch of idiots," you know. And others would say, "No, what they said, this is true. I'm so glad to hear this." They're reading the same exact words and having diametrically opposite reactions. It's not the words, but there's something about the human beings where we have difficulty as humans.
And so it was here . . .the city was divided. . ..
Verse 5 — And there was a violent attempt to abuse them. It says. . . .to abuse and stone them. Now you put yourself in their place; you walk into the city, and, "Wow, an open door here." And first thing you know, "Yeah, stick my head in that door and get your face bashed." That's why the apostles saw something more through God's spirit; they saw more than just the physical circumstances. They had a mission in their mind; they had a calling, and they had a commitment, and they had a belief, and so they were going to go wherever God took them to go and whatever was going to await to them, or for them.
And so they went to Lystra and Derbe. There's another healing of a lame man. They get into here, and they face something brand new; multitudes are running to worship them like they were Greek gods. And they start appealing to them, "Look, don't do this." But they wanted to sacrifice to them.
Verse 18 - . . .they could scarcely restrain the multitudes from sacrificing to them. That's a pretty good day of preaching when you can stir people up that much, but then in:
Verse 19 — The Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there; and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. Now if you're a disciple watching all this, you're getting emotional whiplash from one day to the other. There's an open door? Oh, that door's shutting! There's an open. . . Well, no . . . Paul survived. He lives to go on another day.
You talk about exciting times. If they saw what we had the last couple of weeks, they'd say, "Yeah, that's nice. You should have been around back then." But God was teaching something here. One thing was very clear: they were willing, but they weren't the ones opening the doors; God was opening doors, and He was doing it in fabulous ways, ways that no human could manipulate and manufacture.
From Pentecost to healings to visions to angels breaking them out of jail, miraculous things happening, miraculous protection. God was doing it, and so it is not hard to see by the time you come to Verse 27:
Verse 27 — That to summarize the whole thing, they reported. . .all that God had done with them. . .God did this. It was so clear in their minds, and that He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. And He opened the door of faith to the Jews, too. It was just a miraculous thing; without God doing it, it just won't happen. This is important for us to keep very clearly in our minds. We are not a work of human beings. We can't be.
This past week at Louisville in the ABC sessions, they had a couple of classes on the seven last sayings of Christ, the seven statements that He made while He was being crucified. And they were all fascinating. There's a lot that we can learn from them. But one of them in particular is instructive in this particular theme that we're following. Let's go to Luke 23. This is a powerful example, not of what the entire church was doing and different apostles, but this had happened earlier for an individual, just one person. And yet this one person and what took place here is representative of what takes place when God starts dealing with any individual.
Luke 23:33 — It says: And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.
Verse 34 — And one of the first statements, . . .Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do . . ." So they're right there; they hear this statement, and they see what is going on. And as time goes on,
Verse 35 - . . .the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, "He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God." You can just hear their sarcasm dripping, their sneering. It's so easy to do when you're in the place of being the bully. And they're poking fun, they're sneering; they're mocking Him; the soldiers mocked Him coming and offering Him sour wine and saying, "If You're the king of the Jews, save Yourself."
And they tacked up an inscription over Him that was written in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, This is the King of the Jews. And then one of the criminals chimes in. Now you'd think he's not in the best position, but there is sort of a mob mentality that takes place over people, so one of these guys hanging there himself chimes in and blasphemed Him saying, "If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us."
Now what is interesting in one of the other gospel accounts, it says that both robbers reviled Him. There was a point in this whole event where both of these robbers were reviling Him. But now, something happens.
Verse 40 — . . .the other, answering, rebuked him saying, "Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?
Verse 41 — "And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this Man has done nothing wrong."
Verse 42 — And then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come (into) to Your kingdom."
Verse 43 — And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." I'm not going to go into the thing that we often get sidetracked on of trying to answer whether this was a heaven/hell issue. That's another subject. What I want to focus on is — what took place here. There's something absolutely profound that took place in this whole dialogue.
It was a demonstration of Ephesians 2:8 where Paul wrote, "For by grace you're saved through faith, and that not of yourself; it is the gift of God." It is the gift of God, to come to a point that this man came to. What could he do? What in the world. . .he's hanging there; he's a few moments, hours away from death; he is suffering himself, and he has this conversation with Christ that demonstrates a change of heart that is really unbelievable in so many ways.
He was making a statement of faith here that Christ responded to. Christ responded to him. Let's stop and analyze this a little bit, just the faith factor for him to say this. What kind of faith did it require? I mean, looking at it, this was before any of the miracles took place. The sky had not gone dark for three hours, no earthquakes, you know, nothing miraculous had occurred to grab his attention. All that he could see was he was asking this statement of someone else being crucified who by all appearances was not even able to save Himself. What was he expecting? I mean, there was no physical evidence that Christ could save Himself, much less him. The only thing that he could see was somebody being crucified in weakness and disgrace. That was the only visible thing humanly.
His enemies were triumphing over Him. His friends had left Him. Public opinion was virtually unanimously against Him. The whole idea of a Messiah that the Jews had been looking forward to, this was not it. This would have been a stumbling block to any concept of the Messiah coming to save Israel. Everything worked against Him. There was nobody in the crowd standing up and saying, "Behold, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world."
And yet this man comprehended something. And when you read what he says, you begin to see the scope of understanding and comprehension that he came to. He grasped certainly the understanding that there's a future judgment because the first thing he told his other guy, his other robber on the stake was, "We're going to have to appear before God. Do you not even fear God?" There will be a time of judgment. And he said, "It's going to be just for us." What he was doing, he was clearly admitting his own sinfulness. He was not hiding anything; he wasn't trying to justify it; he said, "What is happening to us is just. This is our due reward because we know what we are. We're criminals. And we have no basis for excuse."
But he also recognized that Christ was sinless. He told the man, "This man has done nothing wrong."
And this was a statement repeated by other people, even Judas said, "I have betrayed innocent blood."
Pilate said, "I find no fault in Him."
Pilate's wife had just previously said, "Have nothing to do with this just man," but now this robber sees the unjustness of the whole situation.
He says, "We deserve this, but He doesn't. There's no reason why He should be here."
It's not hard for us in looking back on our process of baptism to recognize we were in the same state. The guilt versus innocence versus what is just and what spiritual crime is all about. But how did he get here? Don't gloss over the word when he said to Jesus, "Lord," because that word — Lord — means — Master, Ruler. There was a recognition of Lordship, but more than that even, he saw something else about Kingship. Why would he look at Him and recognize there's something here that's worthy of Lordship?
He heard the people, the rulers, the priests, they're all standing there jeering at Him, "If you can save Yourself, come on down." There was nothing physical to give him that.
But he also must have had a comprehension of something when he had heard Christ say, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they do." Here's somebody who can appeal to the Father for forgiveness on behalf of others. But he also said something else that's quite deep. He expressed faith in Christ's Kingship.
Notice what he said. "WhenYou come into Your kingdom," that's a powerful statement. Your kingdom. Your coming. I don't care what You look like now hanging up here, dying. I believe You're coming to Your kingdom. When You come to Your kingdom — He wasn't on any throne then; didn't have any crown on His head then, except a crown of thorns. There were no servants waiting on Him, but he said, "When You come to Your kingdom," and he was looking forward to something. WHEN You come. He wasn't expecting it now, but when You come. . . There's a lot in this, and then in all humility, what did he ask for? He didn't ask, "Can I sit at Your right hand?" "Can I sit at Your left?" He asked very simply, "Would You remember me?" That's about as low as you can be. "All I ask, would You remember me?"
Christ said, "You will be with Me." Didn't tell him when. This man still has a process to go through. He'll be resurrected, but what he had done was to take a step through a door opening in the mind. You ask yourselves; you cannot read this without asking — how can you account for this kind of comprehension? How can you account for this kind of faith? How can you account for this kind of courage to make a stand there against another person and in front of the whole crowd? How can you account for that on human reasoning? Well, you can't. You account for it through recognizing the power of God to work in a person. The power of God to open up the mind to see some things.
The great religious leaders assembled there could not get it, but this lowlife, the way everybody else would see him, this common criminal, got it. The guy on the other side didn't get it. He's hearing the same things, but he blasphemes. One of them blasphemes, while the other turns in humility to Christ. How do you account for that? You account for it by the opening of doors. The opening of the door of the mind. That's a miraculous thing. God gives that faith even in the most unfavorable positions, like he says in I Corinthians, "So no flesh will glory in His presence." This is God's work. It is God working in the mind of a human being.
I said earlier that I fear sometimes that we might have strayed from having this deeply in a reverential part of our minds and in our thinking. The reason I say that, over the years, I think we had this more in common at one time, that we're not here except by God's work. But sometimes I hear people say things like, it's either implied, or you think, well, we're thinking about this, or sometimes directly stated — you know, we could get more people in the church if we would only do this or that. If we would only try this approach, or try that approach.
I've heard people go so far, I've had debates with people about music. If we sang this type of music, more people would be attracted to the church. Well, more people would be attracted to a type of music that they like, but other people don't like that type of music. It's so subjective. But that's not going to convert people; that's not what opens the mind. It's not even going to necessarily make people listen to the truth. The truth of God is not easy to follow, to walk down that path. It takes God working in a very powerful way.
Now what makes this occasion here with this thief all the more evident is that in John 6 earlier, Jesus had had a long discourse with people that, you know, by all appearances humanly they should have been doing what the thief was doing. These are people who had seen miracles. These are people who had heard Him give powerful sermons, not utter a couple of words. These are people who had seen Christ at His best, but they didn't believe: they murmured, and so even though they'd been given full proof of His Messiahship, Christ pointed out something, that this led Him to observe that something is more necessary than just a miracle to open up the mind of a human.
He says in:
John 6:44 — "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day." "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him . . ." God, the Father, has to be involved in somebody's life. It's not just what they see on the external. God has to be working in the mind.
It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God, therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. There are a whole bunch of us in this room who are second generation Christians, maybe third generation, maybe fourth. Our parents are supposed to teach us; we're supposed to learn from our parents; we're supposed to teach our children. But to come to conversion, to come to conversion, God has to be working, and we have to respond to God. We have to have the Father working in our lives, and He does work in our lives, and we have to be willing to step through the door, and walk through the doors that God opens. For anybody growing up in the church, God opens a marvelous door. What happens when we say, "Nope, not going to walk there."
There's a responsiveness to God that has to take place, but it is not easy in a human mind. God will work with the mind; He will try to influence; He will teach. The holy spirit convicts us of sin, but it is a work of God.
Verse 37 — "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me. . ."
Verse 65 — He said it again - "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
Verse 66 — From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. God has to work. I Corinthians 2 I think just a couple of weeks ago we heard a sermon about this, or maybe three or four weeks ago, and going through I Corinthians 2 about the way the mind is, this human spirit and the spirit of God and how God has revealed these things to us. God reveals these; God opens; these things are not known except by the mind of God.
Romans 2:4 — says: Don't you know that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? It's not human goodness. It's the goodness of God that opens a door. The whole concept of calling comes from these understandings that it is God who calls. It's a miracle that takes place. And we must remember this. We must remember this to go about our work in humility, whether it's our personal daily lives or whether it's efforts to preach the gospel that in this world around us with the job we've been given, God will have to open the doors, and then we will have to walk through them. We will have to have the faith. We will have to have the discernment. We'll have to have the insight to know when God opens doors.
But I'll tell you, what happened last week was very interesting, the last two weeks. God opened the doors to be able to preach the gospel in a certain way to the world. He opened maybe some doors of understanding for some people out there. That's what He did to the world, but to the church, He told us, "Don't forget what I can do."
He didn't have to convince any of us about Christmas with articles, did He? But what He did was very important for us. "Don't forget, I can do some things that you'll never be able to. In fact, you won't be able to without Me." It was a profound thing to witness again. It is God, as Acts 2:47 says — . . .the Lord adds to the church those who are called.
So you have preaching, and the preaching of the cross as Paul said to those who perish, it's foolishness, but to those who are saved, it's the power of God. You have a message that goes out, and you scratch your head and say, "Well, why does this person get it and that person doesn't?" It's because God is working. God is the one. Why do people read the same newspaper, and it profoundly changes one person's life, and it just hardens another person into more anger.
One of the first mistakes my parents made was a common one coming into the church. They had to learn this. I don't mind telling it because they've told it many times. They heard Mr. Armstrong say it; the ministers told them about it; other people who'd been in the church already told them about it, but my folks said, "Our friends are different. Our family's different. All we have to do is go tell them about this, and they'll love it. They'll love it."
They were told, "Don't try to convert your neighbors and your family because it won't work."
But in that first flush of excitement and first love, you think, "This is so great, so logical, everybody will understand it." You run ninety miles an hour to go get to them, and you run into a brick wall. It did not enlighten the family. It created some problems that lasted a long time, and they learned. They learned the lesson that, look, this calling, I'm not here because I figured it all out. I'm not here because my mind said, "This is great logic, and everybody should see this. Why I saw it."
You begin to get the point - I saw this in spite of the way I think. God showed this to me in spite of the way my mind would go, and the credit goes to God. Well, they began to understand these things. They began to understand; this is not a matter of human logic. If it was, we'd just try to figure out a way to just explain it to different people, and they'll get it. It's not a matter of human logic. It's a matter of spiritual discernment and God opening doors.
Paul talked in I Corinthians 16:8,9 about great and effectual doors open to me, and there are many adversaries. Notice how he said it. He didn't say, "There's a great door opened by me." He said, "There's a great door opened to me." Paul was a great man in so many ways, but he recognized the door was opened by the one who has the key of David. That's who opened the door. That's who opens the mind. We watch for it; we try to walk through the doors, but God's the one who does it.
He said, "There are many adversaries," and that's true. He taught the church in II Corinthians 2:10-12, he said:
II Corinthians 2:12 - ". . .when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of (by) the Lord." Paul always gave credit. The Lord opened this door. And that's the way it should be.
Colossians 4:2 - Let's do turn here. There's a great lesson using some of the same terminology, but Paul is emphasizing something slightly different to the church at Colosse, in Colossians 4:2, he said:
Colossians 4:2 - Continue earnestly in prayer, be (being) vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Now in Colossians 1, he'd told them, I pray for you, and here's what I pray about. Now he comes here, and he says, but I want you to pray, too, and here's what you need to pray about, he said.
Verse 3 — meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains.
Verse 4 — that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. It doesn't matter if he was in prison; it doesn't matter if he was virtually alone, that he was surrounded by wicked people, even exposed to death. He said, "I need a door opened to preach effectively. "I may be in chains, but the gospel, the power of God, is not bound by chains." And God can open a door, but he said, "Pray about this."
You could just see his focus. Paul's in prison, but he wasn't saying, "Please pray to God that He'll open a door and get me out of this stinking cell." He wasn't asking for that. He was saying, "Open a door for the word. Open a door for the word. Pray about this." The same prayers are needed today. The same prayers are needed today.
We're going to pray for laborers; we've got to be praying to God to open minds; open hearts; open doors in a very difficult world
Paul wrote to the Ephesians as well. He said, "Pray that utterance may be given to me that I mayopen my mouth boldly and to make known the mystery of the gospel." Even those words — mystery — should tell us something about the nature of how easy it is to understand it to the carnal mind. He said, "For which I am an ambassador in bonds that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." He said, "I'm in bonds; I'm in prison; I'm in chains, but that won't stop God necessarily."
You know, it's interesting, he wrote the Philippians, you can jot this down and look at it later, in Philippians 1:12-14, something did happen because he wrote the Philippians and said,
Verse 12 - "I would that you should understand, brethren, that the things that happened to me. . ." and there were some pretty bad things that physically happened to Paul. ". . .the things that happened to me have (turned out) fallen out rather for (to) the furtherance of the gospel,
Verse 13 — "(so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ). . . .so that my bonds — so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all of the palace and in other places.
Verse 14 — " and many (most) of the brethren in the Lord, waxing (having become) confident by my bonds (chains), are much more bold to speak the word without fear." Paul realized what I am going through has also opened a door to help other people, the brethren, become more confident, to speak without fear. And it's also opened a door within the palace. So no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what the circumstances may be, we ought to pray earnestly.
Clyde Hubbard is an elder in West Texas, and he was here this week at the office, and he was telling a small group of us; he attends the Coleman, Texas, church. Probably most of us don't even know there's a church in Coleman, Texas, probably couldn't find it on a map. There's a little church there, about thirty people, and he said there's a group in that church, and he said it's mostly elderly people, and they decided a while back that they were going to fast once a month on the same day. And every month, they fast.
He said now they fast, number one, to draw close to God. But secondly, they fast for any specific needs that they become aware of. He said that's what they do, is they fast. I thought, wow, what a great example, but what if everybody did that? What if everybody responded to some of these prayers like this, and if you could see, "Hey, if God has done this over a Christmas article, what else could He do?
I don't know what God's plans are for that, but I think he showed us something very clearly, very clearly. It's important. It's very important.
I want to not leave without covering one more thing about doors opening. I said at the beginning that if we don't recognize God is the door opener, it leads us to other ways of thinking that are empty, that are vain, that are shallow. We become self-reliant and set us up for failure. And God says something about this in Genesis and in Revelation. He makes a point that not all doors are opened by Him, that there are some doors He leaves it up to us to open, and there are some doors He said, "You'd better be aware that you keep them shut." Because we have some control over some doors.
Some doors, He's waiting for us to open; He wants us to open. And others, He says, "Beware."
But we make some choices on those, and we need to know the difference. The first statement about a door in the Bible is found in Genesis 4:7 where, in the story of Cain and Abel, God made this clear statement.
Genesis 4:7 — "If you do well, will you not be accepted? But (And) if you don't (do not) do well, sin lies. . ." Where? ". . .sin lies at the door." At the door of our mind, the door of our heart, the door of our attitude, the door of our behavior. "And unto you shall be it's desire (its desire is for you,) and you shall rule over it." You must rule over it, in other words. You must rule that door. Sin lies right there, and it'll slip in; it'll get a foot in the door real quick. Crack the door, foot goes right there. Looks for inroads, and we realize very quickly we have to realize that that door is very easy for sin to walk through, and that we cannot rule it without God's help there, too.
We come to the end of the Bible, the opposite extreme, Revelation 3 again.
Revelation 3:14 — ". . .to the church of the Laodiceans. . ."You find this Verses 14 through the end of the chapter, and He talked about their works were just lukewarm, but they had something settle into their thinking. . .
Verse 17 — "Because you say, 'I am rich, am (have) become wealthy, (and) have need of nothing' — and don't (do not) know that you're (you are) wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked —
Verse 18 - He said, "I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.
Verse 19 — "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.
Verse 20 — "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." " I'm knocking on your door, but to go through these things, buy gold refined in the fire, white garments, to see the real condition, to respond to the correction, you're going to have to open that door, because I'm standing there, (knock, knock, knock, several times.) It's not real complex. It's not real complicated except the human mind is deceitful above all things, and so we have to guard very carefully, but it's really not that complex.
When your doorbell rings, does it ever confuse you? You're under the microwave, open it up, "What's cooking?" Grab the phone, "Hello?" What's going on? My two-year-old granddaughter know what the doorbell rings when it rings. They were visiting at the house. The doorbell rings. She jumps up and trots to the door because somebody's at the door.
It's not real complex spiritually when God is knocking, He's pleading, "Please, open the door."
Verse 20 — "If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in (to him) and dine with him, and he with Me.and everything will change." But you've got to open that door.
It's funny sometimes. God can knock and just punch that doorbell and lean on it, and we're deaf. Satan comes up; sin lies at the door, "Hello?" One little rap, and we open the door, and sin comes right in so easily. There are doors out there that God leaves it up to us what we will do with. It's very clear.
James said, "Grudge not against one another, Brethren, least ye be condemned." When the temptation comes to grudge against another person, that's not a door to open. Behold the judge stands before the door. The judge stands before the door.
Well, God stands before the door of His church today. He sees past the door, He watches; He's judging; He's observing; He wants us to respond to His knocking, and every now and then He does something like He did last week or two, and He gives us a demonstrable sign that, "I can do things that you can't do. I can open doors in ways you can't do it. I'll be with you. I'll open doors, and you won't be able to do it without me. But I promise you, I'll be with you." At the same time, He tells us, "Please open the door to Me as well."