Word of Salvation – Vol. 21 No. 27 - April 1975

 

The Same Spirit

 

Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf, B.D. on 1Peter 1:10-12

(Pentecost Sermon)

Scripture Readings: Ezek. 37:1-14; Acts 2:1-18 and 36-39

Psalter Hymnal: 206:1,2,7,8; 95:1,2; 393, 405, 400:4,5.

 

Do you remember "The Little Red Schoolbook"?  Well, in there you can read how children are told that they had better ignore their parents and teachers (if they feel like doing so) because older people cannot possibly keep up with the times any more.

Adults are paper tigers who really cannot harm you but must be put out of the way for the world has changed too much.

Now I reckon that is not only dangerous dynamite – that way of writing to young people – it is also a bad lie.  For the greatest things of our world have NOT CHANGED.  Marriage still doesn't work without love, a business partnership still can't keep going without trust from both sides, young and old people still need friends, and we all still prefer peace to war even though, just as centuries ago, wars that nobody wants keep cropping up.

The fact that we now can fly in jets and satellites does not change that other fact, that we still need oxygen to breathe.  And our fluorescent lights have still not proven that, now there are less dark shadows – there is therefore no devil.  Just like all scientific discoveries together have not been able to prove that there is no God.

But if there is a God... has He changed, maybe?  Has He got somewhat modernized?  Churches are modernizing all the time.  Rules and regulations that stood for ages are now going by the board.  New bible translations sound very much different from the stately Thee's and Thou's in King James' English.  Ministers that used to stride solemnly in an aura of almost papal pomp have become nice little chappies you call by their Christian names.

But what is worse – sins that used to be bad, aren't any more – if you listen to some people.  Sundays are now for fun, that used to be for worship only.  Ministers and professors adjust with little screwdrivers and spanners the Law of the Lord: anything goes these days – divorce, abortion, dirty movies, and how long is it since somebody was put under church discipline?

Is God changing too?

We all get angry about South Africans practising apartheid but who has got really upset over his sins, lately?  His own sins, that is, not anybody else's?  There are some people here in church who are getting increasingly unhappy in such a world: has God changed?  And His Word?  But how then must I bring up my children?

And there are people unhappy about the CHURCH, too: Are we adjusting God to our "changing times"?  Somebody overseas has said Jesus didn't die for sinners after all: His Blood was NOT the payment for our crime against God.  And that man is still a minister in the sister Church!  Is God changing?  Is the Gospel changing until finally nothing is left but a wishy-washy, soft soap do-gooder programme, a nice humanistic welfare idea of how man can be nice to man?

NOT ACCORDING TO OUR TEXT!

NOT ACCORDING TO OUR BIBLE!

If there is one truth jumping at us from these pages in 1 Peter, it is that God does NOT change, and — particularly today: that the SPIRIT OF GOD does NOT change, neither does He change His message!

I want you to listen with me to God's Word this morning as it tells us of THE ONE AND SAME SPIRIT.

            1.  Who unites us with the Old Testament prophets.

            2.  Who unites us with the New Testament missionaries, and above all

            3.  Who unites us with the Lord of Glory, the Rich Saviour of poor sinners.

You see, whenever people these days want to attack the Bible, or suggest changes in the Bible or our view of it, they always come up with "The Holy Spirit".  "The Holy Spirit" is then leading the church into new insights and new views.  But our text tells us that the Holy Spirit who worked in the Old Testament prophets is THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST pointing at the same Gospel we now have!  Have you ever wondered about that amazing Bible, written over a period of one thousand six hundred years and bringing the same message right through?  Well, says Peter, that's no wonder: This is the same Holy Spirit at work then... and now!  On the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the young Christian church it was this self-same Peter who preached a sermon.  It really was a sermon on Psalm 16 and Joel 2!  And from these texts he preached Jesus – the Lord of glory, who died for sinners and rose again!

"Look at them!" ― (says Peter) ― "Look at them, these old prophets!"  Elijah and Isaiah, Micah and Zechariah what are they doing in that grey, grey past?  Are they telling the people that there is an easy way to God – just anything goes?  Oh no!  They tell that God is holy!  That He hates furiously even the smallest infringement of His law!  But are they then teaching that we must be saved by doing that whole law ourselves?  No!  They knew ― only too well they knew ― that no-one can do that!  They wrestled with the problem, they probed the scriptures, but God showed them clearer and more clearly all the time that there was to be an Offering for sin!  They called the people of God to repent!  And then there would be an offering for sin!

They had a tough life, because Israel wanted an easy-going religion!  They did not listen!  But they went on to preach the same message all the time: that God is holy and that sin is terrible and that salvation only comes when we repent and then salvation does come because God in sovereign love gives a Victim to bear our griefs, a Lamb to be slaughtered for our iniquities.

They wondered ― often they did only half understand ― IF THAT!  But the Spirit prompted them... told them... there is no way but the Christ ― said the Spirit!  There is no way but Him WHO HAS TO COME for the sin of God's people said the Spirit ...and that SPIRIT was "The Spirit of Christ".  Yes it is FROM THE FATHER AND FROM THE SON THAT THE Spirit goes forth, as the Nicene Creed says.

In this the Church of the West was right!  Christ was preparing His own coming!  The great and wonderful Lord of all the universe was busy with that tiny speck of matter called earth.  And He was transmitting His clear signals to the sinners there: His Spirit told the prophets who often understood little, but they had to say... they had to write down that ONE message:- That God's Anointed One, God's Christ was to be the only way out for a sinning race to come back from death to life!

As Jesus said it after He died and rose again: "Did not the scriptures tell right from Moses and the prophets how the Christ HAD TO DIE AND RISE AGAIN?"

Repent - said Jeremiah - and so that's the Spirit talking to US!  Stop trying to serve God and false gods - said Elijah and that's Christ's Spirit talking to us!  Return to God why should you die? – cries Ezekiel – and so that's the Spirit of Christ calling you and me!

Throughout the whole Bible there comes to us the urgent voice of the Maker and Redeemer of all the earth.  And woe to us if we ignore it whatever changed in our world, and yes, whatever changed when Old Testament became new and Jewish ceremonies could be set aside, the very GOSPEL OF JESUS HAS NOT CHANGED ONE BIT: The Same Spirit of Christ was speaking THEN who ― secondly ― speaks through, and UNITES US WITH the Missionaries of the New Testament.

Men had not been walking on the moon when Paul stood on the ancient hill of Athens.  But it is the Same Spirit of Christ poured out from heaven, who made HIM say: "God calls all men everywhere TO BE CONVERTED and believe in Jesus“― who would say the same thing now!  Then to a distressed jailer of Philippi's prison it was said as he asked: 'What must I do to be saved?" what still is said ― SHOULD BE SAID ― today: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved ― with your house!

Still today that is, then, the main call of missionaries carrying the gospel into a dark world!  The Jesus people begin to discover it... that there is ONLY ONE WAY!  And the missionaries that preach THIS message are still blessed in their task.

Remember: when the Holy Spirit was poured out fifty days after Jesus arose, He sent out the mere handful of Jesus' followers into a place where their message was NOT POPULAR.  The Jews didn't WANT a Messiah nailed to a cross.  And a man called Saul of Tarsus thought he was doing a mighty good job when trying to stamp out this crazy Christian religion.

Just like some communist ruler today may really thinks he is defending progress when putting Christians in prison.  And the cultured Greeks laughed just as mockingly then ― as science teachers and teenagers do now when you dare say you REALLY believe God made man and raised Jesus ― bodily! ― from the grave.  But that ― and nothing else ― is the good news!  That God has come and done something about our sin-sick life and about our polluted and paralysed world!  And that He did it HIS way: a bloodstained cross and an open grave.  The Spirit has not changed His message NOR His method!  We may now have modern churches and coloured shirts, we may drive cars and programme computers, BUT if we do not believe in Jesus as our only Saviour, if we do not see how we have grieved God by ignoring His holy law, and seek healing and COMPLETE CHANGE of life... we are in trouble.

If we don't have as radical a change as that which changed Jesus' body when He came out of the grave on that Sunday morning after the Crucifixion ― if we do not repent, without holding back ONE bit of our self-styled life before God, seeking our life in Jesus alone ― then it is still true what WAS true when the self-same Holy Spirit drove apostles and prophets to write the Bible.  And we shall go to hell, never mind that we are on the roll of church.  For outward forms may change, as the outward form of worship changed between Old and New Testament, no more sheep slaughtering in the temple now and no more incense burning or circumcision.  Outward forms may change after Jesus gave His Blood and the curtain in the Temple was rent, but the message with which the Missionaries went into the world in the book of Acts, is still the message by which alone YOU can be saved.  Just as those Missionaries could quote the old prophets and know that was THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST talking, so we can quote BOTH PROPHETS AND APOSTLES and know that this is the Word of God hammering away at OUR life too!

And the command "Love the Lord ABOVE ALL” has NOT changed one bit.  Sixteen centuries of church protection by the State and of proud established religion, have made us a bit sleepy at times.  As long as we belong we'll be right, somehow.  As long as we put in an appearance Sunday mornings we'll be o.k....!  But be not deceived: if you do not repent of your sins (no never mind the other fellow now,) ― YOUR sins!  like unnecessary work, or easy going worship on God's Day, or lying on your tax form, or looking at someone else's wife with sinful desire, or allowing your children to use God's Name in vain or drinking more than is good for you or being a slave to smoking and you know it is a killer, that way.  All these sins of ours or criticizing a brother for the mote in his eye but bitterly carrying your own beam, our bitter sin of lack of love.  Our false sins by which we hurt God and distrust Him like making an idol of money as we regard overtime more important than our children's spiritual upbringing, or as we unnecessarily keep our family small because we want our luxuries.

God knows what's going on ― when nurses are cruel to patients, or when husbands and wives are cruel to each other, as if God did not call people to be holy making them in His image!

He knows when lazy kids lounge about instead of doing the work He gave them gifts for.  He knows when selfish parents could not be bothered to help their youngsters find the way.

He knows when a church is slipping down because it does not love Jesus any more with the fierce love of the bride for the bridegroom, and the Spirit has not changed ONE BIT since Mt. Sinai and Mt. Carmel.

He has not changed ONE BIT since Pentecost Day, when Peter said, inspired by THAT Spirit: "It's YOU who nailed the VERY SON OF GOD to the cross!" The rebellion that's in "the little red schoolbook" is it not in your heart?  Then what are you shouting about? says the Holy Spirit!

The dirty desires for the other woman, the other man, that you find in bad books and pornographic magazines, is it not in your heart?  Then don't think you can fool me, says a holy God who is still the same!  The signs of Joel 2 are happening right now!  God shakes at the foundations of the earth as old Malachi said He would!  And in all this THE HOLY SPIRIT OF CHRIST calls out: "REPENT BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!"

For IF you do and STOP defending yourself, and STOP comparing yourself to the sinner worse than you, if you do STOP hiding behind the preacher's faults or the partner's shortcomings and cry to the Lord of glory as the 3000 did on Pentecost day, then in 1975 ― yes even today ― I promise you in the Name of God that YOU by the power of that self-same SPIRIT may be united in living communication with Jesus Christ the Lord of Glory Himself, and have part in His offering then also for you on the cross!

Then you may discover how YOUR SINS will be taken away and how you may rise up to newness of life, a life in which the Lord Jesus is not just a religious wall-painting to be looked at from time to time, but the very heart and centre of your new life.  Then it will happen to you what even God's angels do NOT know by experience!  Then it will happen to you what even the Powers who run God's universe are looking at you with jealousy!  Then that Spirit who has never changed will change you and your life maybe your lukewarm ― half-pie-religious life — into a NEW life that SEEKS God and begins to really LOVE Him.

Then things that mattered much before,
            like clothing in church...
            or new forms...
            or old translations...
               will become very small things indeed.
But things you maybe never worried about ― like living a Christlike life at home and being a living letter from Jesus at your work ― begin to get more and more important.  Then there will be no lack of workers for the Kingdom of God ― and there will be no lack of money for the work of Jesus in the world...!

Then there can be a revival, a waking up and getting alive.  Even in the Reformed Church of .............. for the Spirit that added 3,000 that first day and adds the thousands in Africa now can listen to the prayers of His people here as well.

I wonder, have you asked Him that?  Or had you already given up hope, looking around for a better place?  Yes ― plenty changes in the world.

I too, know how frightening it all can be.  I know of the tiredness that can creep into our Christian life, of the dimness of my soul.  But may I on this Pentecost Sunday close this sermon with a promise given long, long ago in 1Chronicles 7:14?

The Spirit of Christ inspired this prayer too as Solomon was made into a prophet right then!  The Spirit of Christ guarantees answer to this promise because it was paid with blood.

It says:
            "If my people
             who are called by My Name,
              humble themselves, and pray and seek My face,
               and TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS,
                then I will hear from heaven,
                 and will forgive their sin, and heal their land."

Heal their land!  You hear that?

Amen.