Signs and Confusions Ps 65:1-13; Ex 8:16-19; Rom 1:18-25; Matt 16:1-4
Background https://youtu.be/Bl15XfEcn9U
Following several general requests from congregational members about the End of all things, this is the first of a series on “signs”[1] in the Bible[2].
Introduction
Without the unified testimony of the Spirit and Word of Jesus the signs he sends from heaven are completely indecipherable[3]. This is clear from today’s corruption of biblical language. “Apocalypse” in common speech implies something bad happening on a huge scale[4]. So in his exposé of “apocalyptic environmentalism” a popular French philosopher speculated some years ago, “In six months some new concern will grip us: a pandemic, bird flu, the food supply, melting ice caps, mobile phone radiation.” (Pascal Bruckner)[5]. He sees that people in a post Christian Western world encountering large-scale crises can no longer turn to heaven for hope but must start blaming one another. Biblically however the Greek word “apocalypse” simply means an “unveiling”, so the final book of the Bible introduces itself as, “the apocalypse/revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1). This is a book full of signs of the End long beloved by the Church because it unveils the Beauty of her all-conquering Husband (Rev 19) and her own eternal splendour (Rev 21-22)[6]. Apocalyptic signs are meant to destabilise those who do not know Jesus (Isa 2:19; Rev 6:16)[7], the never-ending COVID news is a case in point, but those who know the Author of the signs rejoice confidently in a soon coming final blessedness (Rev 1:3; 22:7). Believe it or not, God has filled the world with signs witnessing to his presence and power.
A World Full of Signs
A string of psalms testifies of the dynamic action of God in forming and upholding the world (8; 19; 29; 33; 74; 95; 96; 100; 102; 104; 121; 135; 139). Today’s Psalm (65:9-13) sees God as a master Farmer irrigating the world so that its hills and valleys “shout and sing together for joy” before the Lord. The most foundational passage on this subject of God’s general revelation is Romans 1 where Paul teaches, “what can be known about God is plain to them [humanity], because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made” (Rom 1:20). The order, immensity and the beauty of the world witnesses to the power and existence of a Creator. “Stitched into the fabric of the human mind” (Schreiner) is a sense that the universe has a wondrous order, purpose and design from beyond itself. Cosmologists, mathematicians, biologists and other scientists can’t stop talking about a beauty and purpose in all things. However, very few of them pause and give glory to God by submitting their lives to him in worship[8]. Instead of ceaselessly “giving thanks” and “honour” to the Lord (Rom 1:21)[9] people worship idols (Rom 1:23-25)[10]. Which is why family events rather than Jesus have become central to the meaning of Christmas in Australia.
Thankfully there is always a godly prophetic remnant who testify that the existence of creation is an all-inclusive sign-act that speaks of the generosity of the Creator. The history of Christianity is punctuated with architecture, music and painting designed to give glory to God. John Calvin spoke freely of himself as being “ravished” by the beauty of the earth[11], whilst the Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins shows rare sensitivity in his poetry, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil” (God’s Grandeur)[12]. Spiritual people discern[13] God’s glorious signs in the world express his own beauty and call us to respond in a heavenwards direction[14] through creative prayer, praise, prophecy, poetry, painting, pottery, proclamation…..
Why Not Seen?
Those sensitive to the splendour of the Lord revealed in the signs of creation[15] are painfully aware that others do NOT respond like them. For sinful humanity, as Paul puts it, “suppress the truth in unrighteousness”[16]. In its desperation to deny God first place the corrupt human heart[17] works hard to fill every space with things limited to the earthly horizon[18]. I recall a Swiss tour guide who had taken us across the alps in an amazing “white out”[19] passing a comment that these days Swiss are too busy making money to be serious about religion. Australians don’t have that problem, do they?? If signs of God’s goodness in creation and providence[20] seem unfruitful in turning people to their Maker, perhaps God can get our attention through another sort of sign, judgment?
When Moses displayed “acts of judgement” (Ex 7:4) in the sight of Pharaoh his magicians immediately imitated the Lord’s power (Ex 7:11, 22; 8:7). Even when they were forced to recognise the “finger of God” (Ex 8:16-19) neither they nor Pharaoh gave glory to the one true Lord (cf. Ex 5:2). After the 9/11 disaster I the Lord directed my attention to Isaiah 26:9, “For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” What do you think? Since 9/11, has America repented of its idolatrous reliance on economic wealth and military power[21]? Since the Bali bombings of 2002, have we seen a turning away from naked hedonism in Australia? We are forced to conclude that both signs of blessing and of judgement are successfully resisted by the hardened human heart[22]. Can our reading from Matthew about the “signs of the times” help us to understand a better way (Matt 16:1-4)?
The Signs of the Times
Whereas the Gentile crowds give glory to the God of Israel as they witness Jesus’ miraculous healings (Matt 15:29-31), representatives of the two major religious groups in Palestine[23], the Pharisees and Sadducees ask the Lord for a sign after he has revealed himself so powerfully. They are not sincere seekers after truth but are putting God to the test in a sinful way just like their ancestors in the desert (Ex 17:7; Ps 78:18-20). In fact, their desire to “test” Jesus is one with how he had earlier been “tested” by Satan in the wilderness (Matt 4:1). They ask for a sign, not to strengthen their faith[24], but in the hope that Jesus will fail and confirm their unbelief in him. They ask for a sign “from heaven”[25] for they have already accused Jesus of doing miracles in the power of the devil (Matt 12:24). These were the people who once came to John the Baptist for baptism but showed no evidence they wanted change in their own personal lives[26]. Both John and Jesus called them a “brood of vipers, sentenced to hell” (Matt 3:7; 12:34; 23:33). Like their ancestors in the wilderness, they had already seen many acts of God but their hearts were corrupted so that any more signs would only increase their condemnation as “an evil and adulterous generation” who claimed to love God’s Law but lived lawless lives (Deut 32:5; Heb 3:10)[27]. They would never be able to read a sign from heaven even if it were given to them[28]. They can read the signs of the weather[29] but they cannot read the “signs of the times” which were in their midst*[30]. What are “the signs of the times”?
Every generation of humanity is grossly sinful (Phil 2:15), not primarily in rejecting the witness of God in nature, but in rejecting the Sign who has come and stood in the midst of humanity as the new reality of the kingdom of God[31], Jesus himself[32]. Whilst Jesus promises every generation from his time “the sign of Jonah.” [33] (Matt 16:4), he does not promise this sign will be either widely understood or accepted[34]. The acceptance and rejection of Jesus as the Sign of the times depends upon people’s response to a certain ambiguity in which he continues to reveal himself amongst fallen humanity[35].
Application and Conclusion
As it looks and listens at itself it is always difficult for the Church to believe that we are the embodiment of the Sign/signs of the times in the present world. Every political and religious system is doomed to pass away but the words and revelation of Jesus[36] upon which the Church is built alone is the bedrock which will never pass away (Matt 7:24-27; Matt 16:16-18). The people of God are the single community which will survive the shaking coming on the earth (Heb 12:28). In the midst of the ever-accelerating change of our times[37] our fear-less stability in the Lord (Isa 33:5-6)[38] can reveal to people that the Jesus who lives in us is the one holding all things together [forever] (Col 1:16-17). This is true to how the Bible speaks of us; but why don’t we, either here at St Marks, or beyond, live as if such great things are true! Why do we fail to accept from the Spirit the testimony[39] that we are integral to signs sent from heaven that others might turn to Jesus? The proclamation of the gospel is that Jesus is “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again”[40] – SOON[41]. Called and embedded in “the signs of the times” we have been created (cf. Eph 2:10) to essentially be a community of faith always living under a revelation the End of the world is coming[42].For we are those of whom Paul witnesses, “the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor 10:11 cf. 1 Cor 7:31; Heb 9:26), we are those, as Hebrews testifies, “who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,” (6:5).
Let me tell you what happens when the nearness of Christ’s Return ceases being a part of common Christian consciousness. A spiritual confusion descends of such a magnitude that a discipleship crisis breaks out amongst the people of God across a whole nation. To illustrate from an opposite angle: every time, like yesterday, I talk to my friend in Myanmar he mentions seasons of prayer-and -fasting. Today I have Christians asking me if fasting is still normal!! After so many years I continue to be shocked by the biblical ignorance of so-called pastors and teachers in the Church. Since the crucified and risen Lord lives in us in his glory[43] the vital and expectant “living hope” (Acts 23:6; 24:15; 1 Pet 1:3) of resurrection life applied to all created things lives in us (Acts 3:16-21). Every Christian everywhere and in every time in history[44] is called to be a personal sign of the time to those around them. Its time a bewildered Church saw the present pandemic as a sign sent from heaven to sow confusion on a lawless and evil world but to quicken/enliven our insight into the sovereign control of the crucified and resurrected Lamb of God (Rev 5:6). Let us as people move on from the limits of “earthly things” and as bearers of “the testimony of Jesus” (Rev 1:2, 9; 12:17; 19:10; 20:4) point the lost and broken to the “heavenly things” of Jesus (John 3:12) as the one Person who can and will return the entire universe to how God always intended things to be. You my sister my brother have a call of God on your life, a call to be an apocalyptic sign[45]. It is time to pray.
Common Prayer
- Confess our dullness and blindness to the signs of the times.
- Humbly accept that the Lord has given us insight into circumstances that others have not been given to see. Let’s pray for the enlightenment of others who are blind, ignorant or confused by the things happening in our world[46].
[1] Whilst there may be narrower and broader definitions of “signs”, “Special acts of God done at special times for the special purpose of judgement upon God’s opponents and the liberation of his elect people.” (Bingham), is a serviceable one.
[2] Both the Testaments encourage us to believe that the Lord will grant us discernment of what he is doing in the world. “Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chron 12:32); that is, discernment of God’s practical will for their own day. Then, “the spiritual person discerns all things” (1 Cor 2:15).
[3] They are “bare signs” upon which people project their own meaning.
[4] The film, Apocalypse Now , for example, is about the descent into psychological breakdown during the horrors of the Vietnam War.
[5] His book, The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse Save the Earth, Punish Human Beings.
[6] Which is why believers in Christ are those who “have longed for his appearing” at the End (2 Tim 4:8).
[7] Late in 2011 I had a highly suggestive experience of the reality of apocalyptic through the natural world during a thunderstorm in the countryside. As the tempest approached the blue sky darkened, lightning began to flash across the heavens and the sound of thunder became such a roar that it seemed like the sky itself was splitting apart. Arching over the whole scene a glorious rainbow appeared which in time formed a double bridge. Finally a wind started to blow across the landscape, rain began to fall and in the radiance of the sunlight the raindrops themselves became luminous. Everything fell into a beautiful silence and a wonderful tangible stillness filled the atmosphere. Cf. “Behold the storm of the Lord! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked. 24 The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intentions of his mind. In the latter days you will understand this.” (Jer 30:23-24); “And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a thin silence.” (1 Kings 19:11-12)
[8] “my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols!” (Jer 2:11). Of course idols include science itself; or more accurately, what is called “scientism”.
[9] Human beings are “doxologically challenged” (Bird). Not to give thanks to God is a denial of the very reason why we were made.
[10] The more wonderful something God has made the more likely it will be given priority over its Creator.
[11] On this theme both Jonathan Edwards and Karl Barth also stand out.
[12] “He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.” (Pied Beauty)
[13] Thinking also of men like Pro Hart and Ken Duncan in the visual arts who listened to the Spirit.
[14] A point made about Jonathan Edwards distinction between true and false signs.
[15] Which of course include humanity itself.
[16] Hence Calvinism’s doctrine of “total depravity” and “total inability”. Hopkins goes on in God’s Grandeur, to ask, “Why do men then now not reck his rod?” (Hopkins). That is why do people not reckon with the discipline of God in the world.
[17] Hear God’s grief, “my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jer 2:13).
[18] To exclude genuine transcendence.
[19] A snow fall of sufficient intensity that all you see is white.
[20] Paul says to the idol worshipping pagans in Lystra “Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”” (Acts 14:17). His appeal was ineffective.
[21] The World Trade Centre symbolising the former and the Pentagon the latter.
[22] Indicating that if humanity is to be saved at all it will have to be saved from the inside, by God becoming one of us in Christ and making the response we could or would never make.
[23] These two groups were usually opposed to each other, but here they appear united by their hostility against Jesus.
[24] Gen 15:6-8; Judges 6:17, 36-39; 2 Ki 20:8; Isa 7:11-14
[25] In Matthew the “wise men” have already seen a heavenly sign (2:1-12) leading them to worship Jesus as a King.
[26] The prophetic “sign acts” of the Old Testament were intelligible to the degree they called Israel back to faithfulness (1 Ki 11:29-32; 22:11; 2 Ki 13:14-19; Isa 7:3; 8:1-4; 20:1-6; 2:19-21; Jer 13:1-11; 1666:1-9; 19:1-13, 27-28; 32:1-44; 3:1-19; 43:8-13; 51:59-64; Ezek 3; 4; 12; 21; 24; Hos 1:2-9; 3:1-5; Zech 6:9-15).
[27] What sort of acts of power would Jesus have had to do so that Judas repented of his sin? The question is a foolish one, because external witnesses alone cannot change the heart (Jer 17:9). Recall that Judas himself was a miracle worker (Matt 10:1-4).
[28] Like the generation that perished in the wilderness they were, “loathed”/ “detested” by God (Ps 9:7-11).
[29] I can recall as a child the words of my father, who grew up in the country, “A rainbow in the morning, is the shepherd’s warning; a rainbow at night is the shepherd’s delight”.
[30] Today (2/1/22) everyone knows about the delta and Omicron variants, but who knows what the Spirit is saying to the churches (Rev 2:7 etc)?
[31] Which is what Jesus himself said elsewhere to the Pharisees “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21).
[32] ““Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”” (Luke 2:34-35).
[33] A subject I will preach on in a few weeks. He is pointing forward to his own death and resurrection which will usher in the time of the winding up of God’s plan (Dan 12:2; Matt 12:39-40).
[34] The useless speculation about “the signs of the times”, which has been going on since almost the beginning of the Church (2 Tim 2:18) tears away the words of Jesus from the events of his own day and all times between then and now. Vatican II had a lot to say about such things, Gaudium et Spes (art.4), and the Signs of the Times is a popular Seventh day Adventist magazine (https://signsofthetimes.org.au/ ). All particular interpretations of the “signs”, such as these, whatever their intent, must be sectarian.
[35] As the “Word became flesh” (John 1:14), Jesus was to the senses an ordinary human (John 8:57 etc.).
[36] Indeed everything in its present from is temporary “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matt 24:35)
[37] Implied (?) in Daniel “Many shall hurry to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”” (12:4).
[38] As we live in “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” we radiate the reality of the kingdom of God (Rom 14:17).
[39] Without a “seeing in the Spirit” (Ezek 37:1; Rev 1:10; 4:1) such things are empty notions.
[40] This is a memorial acclamation familiar to all Anglicans, and others.
[41] “He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20). This will occupy subsequent sermons.
[42] The signs signifying to the Christian conscience the unlimited extent and power of the love of God in Christ, as a sort of sacred canopy giving a sense of protection, stability and meaning to all of life. since the “last days” began with the first coming of Christ (Acts 2:17; Heb 1:2), signs of the End are always occurring.
[43] “God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:27)
[44] Since the advent of the new creation on earth in the death and resurrection of Jesus (Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17).
[45] In Jesus we can see with heavenly illumination (Eph 2:6; Col 3:1-4) seeing as God sees (Eph 1:18).
[46] As Jesus commanded Saul on his journey from blindness to sight, “I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, 17 delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” (Acts 26: 16-18).