Back to sermon search

Full transcript

It is very gracious of you, gentlemen, to ask me if I would talk to you about the way I study scripture and about my personal experience of the Lord. I feel a little bit like as a man trying to treat his, teach his grandparents, talking to you this afternoon on such topics. I was born into a Christian family and had a father who felt his responsibility as best he could to teach, uh, us the basic facts of the Word of God. I was much blessed by God, uh, because when I was around fourteen, there came to our assembly men who taught the Word of God, and one in particular whom, uh, taught in a way that I had not been aware of before. Other men came, and when they taught Bible, they taught sermons based on the Bible. Some of them were very good. When he came, the Bible itself was the sermon. And though I was young, I sensed an authority in it that, uh, was sometimes lacking in other preaching. At the age of eighteen, I found myself working, uh, on the land by government requirement. And, uh, in those days, because in Britain petrol was scarce, older brethren could not get petrol to travel to small remote country villages to preach, and so younger men like myself were invited to go, who could get there by cycling. So I began to have to preach and found it eventually a little bit sickening to come to the Bible, to study it, to get sermons for other people. I decided that that wasn't good enough, really. That I ought to seek God and his word for God's own sake. I had heard my senior brethren talk of the wonderful times in the Word. I didn't find it so wonderful. I would come in and have a night to spare and think I would study the Word and turn to Ephesians and read it for half an hour or three quarters and get nothing out of it and decide that, well, perhaps I'd chosen the wrong place to read or something, and read somewhere else in Timothy or, and get nothing out of that either, go to bed disappointed. Having tried that kind of thing for several times, I decided in the end to put this whole thing to the test. Did God speak in his word? Was there a delight to be had through the study of God's word? I determined to take a book of the Bible that I didn't know much about. In the assembly where I was, they, uh, studied endlessly the epistles, very rarely the gospels. So I decided to study a gospel in my spare time, that is, after nine hours a day working on the farm, and uh, I chose the Gospel of Luke. Now I know a fair bit of English, so I can understand what the words said. But I found myself constantly saying, so what? Why do I need to say this? I could see what a paragraph was saying in a few fo- uh, a few short moments, but so what? I was beginning to learn the two basic secrets of studying scripture. First of all, determine what it says, but then ask why it says it. Why is it important? Does God think it's important that I should know this? Why, as well as what? So I determined to to make the experiment. I would read Luke, and if I got nothing out of it, I would stay with it because I might as well get nothing out of it as to go somewhere else and get nothing, if you see what I mean. I would read two or three chapters and then read on another day two or three chapters and read some more and come back to the first ones and read them again and read it again and again and again and again, and all the way through Luke and again and again and again. I could take you to the place in the little cottage on the farm when, as I would put it, God first spoke to me in that gospel. What I saw was, and you will smile at my utter simplicity when I tell you what it was. Now, for me, it was the very revelation of God. I saw that the first three stories in the gospel, uh, chapter five of Gos- uh, Luke's gospel were not just stories collected because Luke had found them and had space for them and put them each one here, but very carefully selected stories that had themes in common and yet developed those themes. The first one, as you remember, is Peter and the Lord in the fishing boat and the remac- the miraculous draft of fish that comes to its climax. When Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. I began to see the importance in the story of seeing where its climax is, and what the story itself says is the climax. And here, in a story that only Luke has, we have this effect of the miracle on Peter, I am a sinful man, O Lord. I then noticed, of course, that the next story is a story of a leper whom Christ healed, and I'd been brought up to think that leprosy is a picture of the defilement of sin. The third story was, of course, the healing of the paralytic, but before our Lord healed him, he said, man, thy sins are forgiven thee. And the simple fact dawned upon me that here are three stories, all involved in the matter of sin. But not just repetitious. The first one is about the exposure of sin. When Peter got into the boat, he was not aware that in that sense he was a sinful man. But what Christ did made Peter aware the sin within was exposed. I am a sinful man, O Lord. With a leper, his leprosy was apparent, that he didn't have to confess. He'd already long acknowledged it. Now the Lord, uh, uh, he said to the Lord, if thou wilt, thou can make me clean. And the Lord touched him. Straightway his leprosy departed. So there is the exposure of sin, and then uncleanness already evident, but being cleansed. And with the paralytic, the forgiveness of sins. And then I noticed the other fact they have in common, that each man, being helped by our Lord, became a testimony to others. Peter's experience in the boat that, uh, made him aware of his sinfulness was turned by our Lord, you will see. Jesus said unto Simon, fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men. The effect of it all on Peter, of our Lord's work, was that he should be made a fisherman of men. The leper not only cleansed, but sent as a testimony to the priest. And the forgiveness of the paralytic, a object lesson to the theologians, the doctors of the law that were sitting by. And many other things I eventually noticed about those three stories, but the seed was sown in my mind that the stories in the narrative sections of Bible are not just haphazard collections. They're not individual stories so that we can take them and make of them what we will. They are stories, carefully selected, coherent in their message, in that they have a common theme, and they develop that theme. So then one has to look not merely at their similarities, but their differences, because when you get a string of similarities, then the more important thing is where they differ. And that exposition of the word is not so much me thinking up something to say about this story. My job as an expositor is to point out what the Holy Spirit himself is saying in the story. It's the Holy Spirit telling the story and expounding the story. That lesson has stayed with me through life. Later on, I went to the university in Cambridge. I'm not a theologian, as you have long since discovered. Also, never went to a Bible school in all my life. I do say, didn't learn the techniques, but studied classics. That is to say, the language, the language and literature and some philosophy of the two ancient languages, Greek and Latin, and learned a lot. How the Greeks, the Greek tragedians in particular, went about writing their tragedies, and learned a lot from the experts as how to go about expounding them. Learned a lot from old Aristotle and his comments on what makes good writing and bad writing. I found that too helpful in the study of Holy Scripture. From then on, I have studied works, uh, uh, the scripture very carefully. I want to take a simple example now, simple because you all know it, but uh, to to point out to you how extensive, uh, uh, this manner of writing is in the Gospels. And I refer to chapter seven and eight in the Gospel by Luke. You know them well, so make an easy exercise. One, if I say centurion plus widow of Nain. Why group the two? Because Luke himself groups them, tells you the story of the centurion and his servant, and says, and it came to pass soon afterwards, thus linking it to the widow of Nain. Two, uh, the, uh, uh, discussion. Read JB, John the Baptist. First of all, with the disciples of John, then with the crowd. Three. Three, the woman in Simon's house. Plus, soon afterwards, women from Galilee. And four parables of the kingdom. And five, storm Storm on on le- lake. Six, the demoniac. Seven. woman with hemorrhage. And And eight, a... Jairus's daughter. Now, one of the, uh, very well-known principles of Bible study is to follow up the usage of the same word, particularly if the word in question is a semi-technical or even a technical word. And throughout this part of Luke, there is a Greek word, sozo, that keeps recurring. And in some places, it is a compound word, diasozo, variously Variously translated. translated. Posoto means to save, but save in many different circumstances. You can save somebody, uh, from, uh, falling down a pit. You can s- uh, save somebody from dying of illness, which then the word tends to mean cure. Save somebody, as the Lord does, in the spiritual sense, uh, spiritual salvation, and so forth and so on. But the word occurs, and the English translations, because they're keen on being English, uh, translate using different connotations according to the context, which is very helpful, except it obscures the fact from the average English reader that it's the same Greek word that's being used. So the centurion asked that he would come and save servant, his servant. He said, the woman in Simon's house, thy faith has saved thee, bring forth fruit to salvation. Storm on the lake, it is not used, but it's an example of saving the boat from going down. In Luke, the bystanders who saw what had happened told the crowd that came out from the city how he was saved. The woman with hemorrhage was told, thy faith has saved thee. Jairus' daughter, our Lord said, only believe, and she shall be saved. A collection of stories about salvation. You won't find the word used very much in the chapter previous, nor will you find it used very much in the chapter that follows. Here are two chapters with this outcrop of words about salvation. And the immediate and obvious observation is this, that whatever the word salvation means, it has a salvation in different respects with the different people. Here it was with this woman, thy sins have been forgiven thee, go in peace, thy faith has saved thee. You'll see salvation in the form of forgiveness. That wasn't the salvation that was relevant to the demoniac, just to tell that poor man that his sins were forgiven, would not necessarily have helped very much. He needed salvation in another sense, of course, didn't he? Another aspect of salvation. That raises all sorts of questions. If they are different forms of salvation, how will you, uh, analyze them? And why those stories? And why that collection here? So I began to look at the detail. It is a fact that some excellent preachers take the story of the centurion and, uh, preach it. And his servant was, uh, uh, ill, and he asked the Lord to come, and he believed the Lord, and he was saved by faith, you'll see, and so forth and so on. That is very good. But if you look a bit more closely at the story, it has other details about salvation, doesn't it? For the Centurion sent Jews, and the Jews said to our Lord, uh, come here, this boy, his son, for the Centurion is deserted to Mo. He is worthy. He has built our nation a synagogue, and he loves our nation, full of good works, you see. Come and save him on those grounds. And, uh, the centurion, hearing it, sent to the Lord and said, don't listen to that nonsense. I'm not worthy, neither did I consider myself worthy. Uh, but you see, he said, um, I am a man under authority. All I need do is to tell a soldier to go, and he goes. I perceive you are a man under authority too. All you need to do, you don't even need to come to my house, speak the word, and my servant shall be healed. Our Lord then turns and comments to the crowd, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. So we begin to put together the details that the story actually itself tells. It's not me preaching a sermon about it. It's me collecting the details that it says. He's asking for salvation. People say it it's on the ground of his merit. He denies it. It's not of merit, not of worth. The Lord says, I don't find so great faith, so it is by faith. Yes? Ah. And we turn to the story that immediately followed, and that was, of course, the widow of Nain. And the boy, her only son, he was the only son of his mother, and he was now dead, left desolate as a widow, carried out to the grave. Our Lord went and he stopped the beer, stopped that ugly procession, raised him from the dead. I picture it in my childish imagination, you see. Uh, he said, young man get up, and he that was dead sat up. You shouldn't miss the details because I suspect he was never stopped talking about it after, you know, he said, I was dead. And and suddenly I I I I got new life. I woke up and found myself sitting beside Christ. That wasn't bad. And, uh, our Lord, it is said, gave him to his mother. And Luke has bracketed the two stories together. Salvation, not by works, not by merit, explicitly said in the text. It is by faith, that's said in the text. Mm. And now, with the widow of man and her son, salvation was a gift. I think you've read it elsewhere in the epistles, maybe somewhere or other, that salvation is not a work. It is by grace. It is through faith. It is a gift. Tell me, gentlemen, what aspect of salvation is the epistle talking about when it uses those terms? Scratch your head box or the memory. Life. By grace, pardon? Life. Life, my good man, you have it exactly. New life. You were dead in trespasses and in sins. Watch how exactly Luke, by selecting his s- simple incidents, is giving you examples in life of that spiritual principle. It is no accident that the need here was for new life. One man was dying and the other was dead. It is over that that the thing is taught. It's not by merit, explicitly said in the text. It is by faith. It is by grace, of course. It is the gift of God, not a works lest any man should boast. But that's why I'm teaching you this. I merely point it out for the sake of argument. Let's forget about this. Let's come to number three. The woman in Simon's house. It was not new life she got, was it? What was it? Forgiveness. Forgiveness, yes. That's another aspect of salvation. We got forgiveness. Uh, free and for nothing, of course. Ah, but our job is to expand the story. And the story has got something more to say. Our Lord was invited home to dinner by Simon the Pharisee. He went. And then there came this woman, and she, uh, collapsed behind him, like a reclining matilla, of course, and she collapsed behind him, began to wash his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head and kiss his feet and the lo- and Simon came to an immediate conclusion. This man will not, is not a prophet. If he were a prophet, he would learn who and what sort of woman this is that touches him. She's positively immoral, and he wouldn't allow a woman like that to touch him. So far so good. When our Lord interrupted his thoughts, remember the story? I have something to say to you, Simon. He said, carry on. He said, there was a certain creditor that had two debtors. The one owed a large sum, the other a little. And when they were stony broke and couldn't pay anything, the creditor fa- frankly forgave them both. Got that, Simon? Yeah. Tell me, Simon, he said, out of your great experience, um, which of those debtors would love the creditor the more? Simon found it simple. The one who'd been forgiven more, he said, of course. Sure of that, Simon? Because this is a very care- uh, uh, important point in the argument, and a good many translations have got it wrong, wrong for centuries. The parable underlines the fact that forgiveness leads to love. It's not love earns repentance, er, earns forgiveness, is it? The debtors didn't go around and whenever they saw their creditors there, they went up and said, we do love you, mister. They didn't. So out of the way, until he forgave them, and it was the forgave bid forgiveness that led them to love. Yes, that's all right, but what's the next step? When Simon gave that conclusion, our Lord turned on him and said, well, Simon, you see this woman? Well, of course he'd see the woman. I'm telling you that her sins, her many sins, have all been forgiven because she loved much. Have a watch the logic then. Some translations for years and some churches, not- notably the Catholic Church, taught for years that if you want to get forgiven, you love. She's loved, she's forgiven because she loved. But that is to misread the Greek completely and the argument of the context. The two debtors weren't forgiven because they loved. They loved because they had been forgiven. Watch the logic of our Lord's argument? You say this woman is a sinner. I'm telling you, Simon, that her many sins have been forgiven. How do I know that? And how can I say that? It's no good our Lord saying, Simon, I'm the son of God, and you better expect, you better accept what I say. He didn't say that. He had the right to say it, that's what he didn't say. He said, Simon, on your own analogy, where somebody's been forgiven, they love. I'm telling you, this woman has been forgiven. She must have, doesn't she? The reason I'm telling you that, the reason I claim that is, look at her love, because she loves much. And on your own admission, love comes from having been forgiven. Our Lord is citing, therefore, is the evidence that justifies him in saying that the woman has been forgiven. Of course, it had an implication for Simon that wasn't too pleasant. Came into your house, Simon. You didn't greet me with a kiss, did you, Simon, by chance? You didn't get your servant to wash my feet, did you? Let alone anoint them with ointments. You didn't even anoint my head with ointments, which were the common courtesies of the day. The implication being, Simon, any evidence that you've ever been forgiven? Ah, but now, I was beginning to learn, you see these two stories. How do they relate? Yes, Josie. This is saying salvation not by merit, not by works, it is by faith, it is the gift. This one is saying, yes, but if you have been forgiven, there will be evidence, won't there? It follows on with the women from Galilee. They weren't women off the street. Some of them were well placed. One was the wife of Her- of Herod's chancellor of the Exchequer. They had been saved too. And at discreet distance, they followed our Lord and his disciples all the way down from Galilee to Jerusalem. And minister to his and his apostles need. The evidence is not always in gushing tears and things. It's in jolly hard work. But they began to teach me what you have long since known, of course, that stories are not isolated units in the gospel. They are carefully planned, and whether you know it or not, if you are grasping the message of each one fully, as you should do, you will get a balanced diet. One story will tell you salvation by grace, new life through faith, gift. The other story will say, yes, forgiveness is a gift, it certainly is. You couldn't buy it or earn it. Forgiveness is a gift, but when you've been forgiven, it will lead to love and good life for the Savior. Simple that, isn't it? But I'm telling you simply what I learned years and years and years and years and years ago. Oh, as a young man, you'll see, and began a way of looking at scripture that has influenced me ever since. So before I depart from this, let me ask you an easy question. The last story in this series. It's about salvation. What aspect of salvation, gentlemen? Salvation from death. Pardon? Salvation from death. That's right. When the Lord eventually comes. Uh, Jairus came to ask the Lord Jesus to save his daughter, come and lay his hands on her because she was appointed death. Our Lord began to go. Much to Jo- Jairus' annoyance, this woman came up with a hemorrhage, oh bother the woman. And she said, oh yes, but why couldn't she wait another day? His daughter was desperately ill. Keep. And then she came, and our Lord stopped. And our Lord turned around and said, who touched me? A- and nobody would admit it, and he still stood there, yes, somebody touched. B- b- b- b- bother what about that? My daughter is ill, is you bet, dead soon. You understand his impatience, couldn't you? Say the Lord could have stood there and spoken a word at a distance and stopped her. But he didn't. Why not? And now some messengers came to Jairus and they said, don't trouble him anymore because your daughter is already dead. And our Lord replied, only believe, and she shall be saved. And when he got to the house and they were making hullabaloo, he said, do be quiet, the girlie is sleeping. Yes. Why is it the last in the series? Why is it that Last in the series? Because the last thing, our at last enemy will be saved from his death. You see. It- it's the last, of course it is last. How else could it be last if you're doing a series? But now it began to dawn on me this thing is very, very carefully planned. And then, pun? I have a question. You have. What, why, why would you, how would I come to the conclusion that the Jairus's daughter is the last in the section? What would tell me to break into a new section? Oh, well, because when you come to the end of chapter eight, if you notice, the last in those series of t- of, um, uh, stories. Then the writer begins another topic altogether. And he called the twelve uh, uh, uh, together and gave them power and authority over demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them forth to preach the kingdom of God. The missionary journey of the twelve apostles during our life, our Lord's lifetime, uh, would be as a different s- uh, subject, you see. That is now going to occupy the next chapter or so. Yes? It is not another story in that sense, like these are a succession of stories. That, of course, raised all sorts of questions in my mind. Uh, yeah. Demoniac, salvation from? Yes, the power of the devil, yes. Ah, the woman with her hemorrhage? Well, let's put a question mark on that. You'll tell me after supper, won't you? Disease. From disease maybe, yeah? But then they had several of these folks with disease. flesh. Um? Pardon? They Relate with to the the flesh. Well, relate to the flesh, yes, it could be, couldn't it? Yes. What you might tell me also is... In this story here. Something that separated her from society. What, how do you come to that idea? Because having a flow of blood, she would have been considered unclean. Unclean by Jewish ritual laws. Yeah. Old Testament laws. Yes. No wonder the Lord made her confess it publicly, and then she was healed. Otherwise, the rabbis who knew about it would have said that Jesus himself had been defiled and was careless over the hygiene laws. But there's a very curious thing. Here, when the woman came in and flopped down at Christ's feet, Simon said to himself, that is, hmm, this woman, this man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what woman this is that touches him. He doesn't know, does he? And, uh, she's a moral woman, and if he didn't know what woman she is, he he he wouldn't have allowed her to touch him. Yeah? Uh, anybody know how this story goes? The woman with the hemorrhage? She touches him. Pardon? She touches him. Yes, and what happened then? She's cured. Yeah, she was cured, yes, but what happened when she touched him? He asked who touched him. Yes. The Lord stopped the whole crowd and said, who touched me? Somebody touched me. And then Peter said, Lord, be reasonable. I do because I'm in the crowd pressing you all around, and you come and ask you to touch me. Well, Lord, all the crowd are around you. No, he said, I perceive that her power went forth from me. Somebody touched me. Do you touch me? What do you normally say about that, gentlemen, when you preach it. Yes. Huh? Well, I don't necessarily preach it in the same connection you preach. Oh, I see. And uh, uh. I, I, but for whatever, I, I, with some semblance of connection, Yeah. I try, in trying to do what you do, and God help us all learn to do it more, but I tr- I use seven, the, the women needing to be saved from hemorrhage, causing the delay the Lord's coming for Jairus' daughter. Why the Lord delays his coming. Yes. His coming, and it might mean that many of us will face that because he wills that none should perish, but that all should be saved. That's right, uh, that's right, Henry, my sir. That's a very good lesson. Why did our Lord not heal at a distance? Because he wanted this to be an example, a picture of his second coming, Amen. when some of the believers will have fallen asleep, as he says. Only believe and she shall be saved, he said to Jairus. And you know how one Thessalonians four begins its story, don't you? If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. But the two women, and they both came behind, and they both touched, and this time thought, uh, Simon thought our Lord didn't realize, and this time everybody thought it was ridiculous for him to ask, but he asked nonetheless. And a woman touched him, and he knew that she. Is it there just to tell us that our Lord knew in any case, or is there some difference? What's the difference between the two? Yes, if you like. The two situations. Or are they exactly the same? One said if I only touch his garment, I- I'll be healed, and the other, the other was doing it because he's already healed. Yes. But, uh, and was showing Good. Good. Is it, uh, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us? That's the first woman. And then the second, and to cleanse us from all our money. Is that the second one? Well, if you like, yes, could be, couldn't it? I have a suggestion. Yes, very good, very good. It's worth thinking, sir. Oh, Paolo, you have a suggestion? There's a difference between the women. Ah. That one of them apparently was a known sinner. Yes. The other woman was still unclean, but not because she was a moral sinner. Ah. Yes, now elaborate that, embroider that a bit. Well, both would have been in the past. Yes. For different reasons. But for different reasons. Uh, the first woman, as you say, it was a case of immorality. Right. Needed to be forgiven. Uh, this was not a case of immorality. It was something else. Yes, ceremony. Ceremonial. Consequence. Consequence. In, well. Mm-hmm. Of course. Mm. If you were studying the Epistle to the Romans, you would know the terms of new life, wouldn't you? And you get told that s- uh, the business of forgiveness. Does Romans anywhere discuss deliverance from the power of the devil? Where? It certainly dis- discusses this, the Lord's coming. Yes. Yes, the power of the old master broken. Yes. And the coming of the Lord. What's in between? Yeah, what's in between? Yes, if you like, in weakness, nature disturbed. Yes? Yes. Well, marvelous gentlemen, thank you. Uh, this is utter simplicity, isn't it? This was what I was beginning to learn when I was about eighteen. you'll see. And, uh, yes, if Luke has written that part of his gospel like it, reasonable to suppose he's written the whole of it like it, wouldn't it? I say that the first lady, the first woman was, the first woman was saved of what Jesus had done. Yeah. The second one was saved of what she had heard. Yes. It comes by hearing and by the very word of God. That's right, and by the personal touch. Right. And he wasn't going to have his garment treated as a magical thing, like superstition would regard it. Uh, he made her face him personally. It was personal relationship with a person, not with touching some empowered bit of drapery or something. Yeah, lots of things could be said. Gentlemen, I don't want to carry on talking about it, merely give it as an example of a very simple thing. Uh. Yes, carry on, carry on. Pardon? You're saying carry on. Because of its implications. Pardon? I got it. You would do that, wouldn't you? Marvelous man. But the, the story doesn't actually mention her, uh, the ceremonial uncleanness. Well, no, but could it tells you he had, uh, a hemorrhage, you see, flow of blood. For the Jews who, who knew our Lord, they would be, uh, uh, uh, knowledgeable about that. Luke's Gentile readers mightn't, but his Jewish readers would know at once what that implied, you see. And the crowd around, being in Palestine, would know. And all the money she spent on doctors would, would, uh, speak of the inability of man. Oh, that's right. Yes, that's right. That's right. Yes. And that it was weak through the flesh is a thing from Romans eight, isn't it? I, I saw something that I've ne- never seen before. What? As far as the connection, the reason why they bring up John the Baptist. Yes. The conclusion, because they're arguing about if John the Baptist was from God, and uh, the interesting thing is, is, is his last statements about John the Baptist, that the Son of Man has come eating and John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say he has a demon. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, you say, look, a blessing of wine there is, friend of tax collectors and sinners, but wis- wisdom is justified by all her children. Mm-hmm. The fact that he uses justification here in the sense of justification by works, Mm-hmm. like James. Mm, that's right, yes. That proves Yes. and the story of the sinful woman forgiven illustrates It does indeed, yes. that her love proves Yes. her justification. Yes. Just as Mm-hmm. the wisdom of John the Baptist and the Son of Man proves that they are of God. Yes. And then followed by the parable of the sower, the only lot of, of seed that's any good. You skipped that section of eight four through twenty one. Why did you leave that out? What, Eight four to 21? Yes. The sower and the seed. The sower and the seed, yes. Well, I put it the mysteries of the kingdom, the teaching of the kingdom. You'll see, to you it is given, yes. Eh, you'll see. But it is relevant, isn't it, because the only kind of seed that's any good is that which, being s- put into, uh, uh, good ground, brings forth fruit with endurance. That is true of plant life, isn't it? It's got to endure in all kinds of climates and things, uh, you'll see, to, um, uh, bring forth its fruit. All I'm saying here is that these are collection of stories that I, I said enough to show they're interconnected. They are a series, and, uh, they each contribute something in place to the whole message. Yes? Good, let me take just one other very simple illustration of, uh, uh, of, uh, things in narrative, and then we'll come to some, uh, bigger op- uh, uh, bigger lessons. Well, uh, when it's half past five, isn't it? Well, can be. Yeah, well, half past five, yeah, sure. The refugees have returned. Have they really? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We all are f- quite ad- uh, uh, uh, uh, knowledgeable, you see, we know the signs in John's gospel, yes? Just let me put them down. Water to wine. Nobleman's son. Uh... man at, is it Bethesda? Walk. Walking on water. Flying van. Lazarus. And And eight. eight, catch a fish. Now, it is commonly said that the first seven of them form one series, because they are followed in the text by an explanation of their purpose. These signs are written, that is, these twel- these seven signs are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing have life in his name. And therefore it is suggested that the, the last one, the catch of fish number eight, is, uh... You missed the, uh, feed. Pardon? For whatever sport. Something's gone on. You skipped the feed. Oh, sorry. That's all right. At least we could say you said one, did one thing wrong while you were here. Yeah, yeah, yes, that's right. Have I got the lot? The Water to Wine, chapter two. Noble and Son, chapter four. Man at Bethesda, chapter five. Walking on the Sea. Ah. Let's, uh, go again. Thank you, Henry. For Man at Bethesda, uh, feeding of five thousand, Uh, five walking on water. 6, uh, uh, uh, blind man. seven, Lazarus. eight, fish. And as I say, people say that eight is just one extra. Some people say that that chapter was added later to John. I don't agree with that exactly a- actually, but they say it's not really one of the series. Well, the reason being is that that miracle was not done to convince the disciples that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that they should believe that and have life in his name. They'd already long since believed that he was Son of God and had life in his name. The miracle was for some other purpose, but it's one of the signs. I want to ask you about their relationship. They have a common theme, but are they just arbitrary signs, or do they form a progressive series? What if you had to preach them, gentlemen? Would you say, well, last night we had the wonderful experience of the Lord, how he turned the water into wine, and, uh, you should believe that, and he can turn your life into joy if you trust him and give you eternal life. Now, tonight, um, uh, we have to consider the feeding of the five thousand. and he fed the multitude and gave them great satisfaction, and if you trust Christ tonight, he'll give you great satisfaction, you'll see. And, uh, would you say the same thing every night, or would you say something different? They all have in common their diff- their, their miracles. But when you get a series and they all are in, have something in common, that is, that makes them a series, then it's the differences that are important, are they not? And if we say, are they a series, well, there's some curious phenomena, aren't they, that come out from them. Uh, take for instance this one here. Pool? No. The man had been waiting for thirty eight years to get into this pool from time to time, so that when our Lord came and asked him, would you be made whole, the man couldn't get the pool out of his head, also, and said, but sir, I've no one to put me into the pool. And if I may paraphrase Christ's reply, he said, pool, man, I don't need a pool. Just spoke the word. And the man was healed instantaneously without the pool. As you see, this man too. Wait a minute, pool? Yes. Well, how odd. How do you explain the difference, gentlemen, when you're preaching of these things. Is it just a little incidental? Or is it an integral part of the message? And while you're thinking of that, let me point out this story. Our Lord showed he could heal at a... Oh, this thing is getting me out. Go back to the blue. He could heal at a distance. Heal at a distance. Which, uh, put the man at the, at the beginning in a little difficulty. He said, Lord, come down and heal my boy, you see. Our Lord replied, the trouble with you people around here is that except you see signs and wonders, you won't believe. And the man said, look here, if you don't mind, stop talking theology. My boy's desperately ill. We can talk theology later. Come and come and heal him. And our Lord said, but my good man, your boy's already healed. Healed? What do you mean? Well, you asked me to. I healed him. Ha, trouble was the man couldn't see he was healed. Now what was he going to do? Discovered, of course, that Jesus Christ is the Lord of space and time. Is he not? And the man had to go in blind faith on the word of Christ. He wouldn't see the boy healed until he got home the next day, of course. So all the journey home, he had to be willing to go on the naked word of Christ, that he was healed, the boy was healed. I merely mention it to say, point out, that it caused the man a little difficulty coming to believe on those terms. Heal at a distance. Our Lord was some distance from Bethany when Lazarus grew sick, and Martha and Mary sent him a note, he whom thou lovest is sick. And when the Lord heard that, he stayed in the same place where he was. And we say, yes, well, yes, that's okay, because you see, um, we've now learned, haven't we? We learned it in chapter four. he could deal at a distance. So in a moment now, he will, um, speak the word, and Lazarus will be healed. Simple, isn't it? There too later he said to the apostles, Lazarus fallen asleep. They thought he'd gone physically to sleep. Our Lord had to explain, no, I mean he's dead. And he added, and I'm glad I wasn't there. What does he mean? Difference did it make whether he was there or not, if he could heal at a distance? I think so. Oh, you say, well, he could have healed at a distance, he didn't, but he can speak the word now, and Lazarus will rise from the tomb. No, he didn't do that either. He made them all walk down to Bethany. By the time he got there, Lazarus had been dead, uh, in the grave four days. And in case you should miss the point, you are told that when he got to Bethany, Martha came out. You listen to the pathos in her voice. Lord, if you had been here, Lord. We sent you a note, didn't we? You knew. You didn't come. You'd have been here. My brother hadn't died. And then, after some conversation with our Lord, Martha went and called Mary. Mary was no theologian like Martha, but when she came, she dropped at his feet, and all she could blurt out was, Lord, if you had been here. Tell me, gentlemen, when you're expounding the thing, how do you account for that? Because you haven't completely expounded those two stories unless you can account for that. And what is true of those is true of the rest, of course. All I'm trying to illustrate now is that you do get, we wouldn't, at least I wouldn't call this the structure of John's gospel, the structure lies elsewhere, but this is a pattern of events, the pattern created by the fact that they were all miraculous signs and are a complete record of the signs John, uh, records in his narrative. They form a series, therefore. They are not equally distributed through the book. Some of them are bunched, do you see? Uh, uh, others are at some distance from each other, but they form a series, a very clear series. We haven't expounded them all fully. Thank God we can expound them, if only we know a little bit about them, we can expound some, can't we? There's a lot of people, you know, have preached John um three sixteen, and folks have got saved, and they couldn't have told you clearly what John um three seventeen said. But that doesn't matter. John three sixteen is the word of God, preach it, whether you know what the rest of the chapter is about or not. But to be full expositors of the scripture, we should need to understand those interrelationships of that series, shouldn't we? So let's take a more difficult thing. Paul, thank us very much. Let's take the book of Chronicles for a minute from the Old Testament. One and two Chronicles are very long. They are the last books in the Hebrew canon. Not in our English Bibles, of course, but in the Hebrew canon, which doesn't follow the same order, uh, uh, all the way through as ours do. Ours differ from the Hebrew canon, but in the Hebrew canon, First and Second Chronicles are, are the last books. In that sense, they sum up the history so far of the Old Testament. The first word of First Chronicles is Is Adam. Adam. It was, of course, man. That is the creature man. The last chapter of First Chronicles has the following statement. This is one Chronicles twenty nine verse twenty three. Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord. Now you may well argue that that phrase by the Hebrew historian, Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord, must be taken simply to mean that Solomon sat, um, on a throne that perhaps the Lord had ordained or something. Could be that, couldn't it? Of course it would. Solomon sat on a throne that the Lord himself had ordained. It set up David as king, promised to David that his line would never, uh, be destroyed, and that when he had a son, God would be to him a father, and he would be to God a son. And this was the throne that the Lord had, uh, created, and Solomon sat on it. And yes, I suppose that's what it means. But I think most of you are Christians, aren't you? All of you, I believe, are Christians. I wonder, could you resist the temptation? If you were looking back over history like Chronicles is, and it starts with the first man, man. What philosophy of history has it got to tell us? Or has it got any philosophy? Is it just a ramble of stories that happen to be lying about? Because, gentlemen, now as we stand here, you as Christians believe, do you not, that as you sit here this afternoon, there is a man, truly human, sitting on the throne of the Lord, literally so. You believe that? Well, fancy that. Man sitting on the throne of the Lord. Hmm. Pardon? Until his enemies be made his footstool, yes. But the Lord says in the revelation, to him that overcometh, I will give to, uh, him to sit with me on my throne, as I also have overcome and am sat down on my Father's throne. So the Lord, uh, the man, a man is sitting on the throne of the Lord. So if this Old Testament book starts with a man, the very first man, and ends up in its sense here, as Christians, we should be thinking, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but that Old Testament was a preparation for the coming of Christ. A prototype, if you will use, allow that, the use of that word. And the Old Testament bears witness to him. Simple observation, therefore, leads to the question, how in First Chronicles and by what stages do you get from the first man to man sitting on the throne of the Lord? How would you go about that, answering that question? By what major things, by what, uh, um, uh, events, by what stages. And there would would be important to notice how the chronicler himself has arranged his material. He starts off with endless genealogies, as you may think. They are important in their own right. But then you come to chapter ten, at the end of the genealogies, about the Philistines fighting against Israel, you'll see. And, uh, the story is briefly told about Saul and about Saul's death. Verse thirteen fourteen of chapter ten. So Saul died for his trespass, which he committed against the Lord, because of the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also that he asked counsel of one that had a familiar spirit to inquire thereby, inquired not of the Lord, therefore he slew him and turned the kingdom unto the son of David. First king, therefore, deposed, dead. Because of his disobedience. Then all Israel gathered themselves together to David to Hebron. Now you meet a new stage in the development of the program. All the tribes coming to David to Hebron. You'll see, and they made him king over all the ten tribes. And the first thing he did, when he became king of all the ten tribes, and you're told why they felt loyalty to him, was to go with them, verse four, to Jebus, and take Jebus as an exercise of the combined forces now of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and then also of the, uh, Ephraimites, the Israelites, the ten tribes. As a united effort, they take Jebus and establish it as Jerusalem, a capital city for the whole of the ten tribes. Ten, uh, twelve tribes. That was a brilliant work of strategy, wasn't it? The second stage towards man sitting on the throne of the Lord was the taking of Jerusalem and the founding of Jerusalem. Merely as a physical thing, sirs, that Jerusalem is still there. That Jerusalem is still the center of much worldwide interest politically. David did an enormous thing when, as the first move in his united kingdom, he took the whole army so they all joined in, captured this Jebus, turned it into Jerusalem, which was the, a capital city for every tribe. He didn't make the northerners come to his little capital in Hebron. No, no, he should establish somewhere absolutely new. It was on the border between two tribes so that everybody could feel it was their capital city, and it united the nation, of course. That was an exceedingly important move. And the historian goes on to describe it and the various things that thereafter happened in that section. Notice now, when you come to chapter fourteen, m It begins with a list. Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messengers to David and cedar trees and masons and carpenters to build him an house. And David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel, for his kingdom was exalted on high for his people Israel's sake. And David took more wives and begat sons, you'll see, and daughters. That was the habit of kings in those days. Coming to the throne, they then took many wives to build up a royal house in the sense of the princes and the princesses. And David perceived that the Lord had established him. We've come to a marker in the road and the building of his house, his royal house, in the sense of members thereof. We go on to talk about other things in the next stage, but that next stage comes to its end with a similar list. Eighteen fourteen. And David reigned over all Israel, and he executed judgment and justice unto all his people. Now here comes the list, but this time not a list of his wives and sons and daughters, but a list of the officers in the royal establishment. David executed judgment and justice unto all his people. And Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the host, and Joshua the son of Ahilud was recorder, and Zadok the son of Ahitub, and Abimelech the son of Abiathar were priests, and Shaphsa was scribe, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Perothites, and the sons of David were chief about the king. Another section comes to its end, and all I'm doing now is just calling your attention to the fact that the chronicler himself divides the narrative at its various stages, so that we can clearly see what were the stages in his mind. And that being done, where is the end of the next stage? Look at chapter twenty three and it will tell you the new state of affairs now. Now David was old and full of days, and he made Solomon his son king over Israel. Solomon was king then. We've come to another stage in the development of David's kingdom. That's what it means then when in the final, uh, uh, chapter of the book, as we read. This is twenty nine twenty two, and they made Solomon the son of David king the second time. The first time was there in chapter twenty three. What was happening was that at that stage in life, David was, uh, elevating Solomon to be, uh, co-regent with the king, so that Solomon could begin to get used to the administrative ruling of the kingdom, while David, in the meantime, gave himself to what his heart was set on as he retired from actual politics in that sense. He wanted to give himself to the preparations for the temple of God. And that last section tell you, tells you what he did and how he did it, and all the wealth he got together in preparation for the building of the temple. God had told him that he himself wouldn't be allowed to build it. Solomon, his son, would build it. While Solomon now became viceroy and gained experience that way round, David spent his retirement preparing the material for the building of the house of the Lord at Jerusalem as a permanent temple. I don't know what, gentlemen, what you would do if you retired. What would you do? Well, you don't have to answer me. What would be the goal in life you'd like to achieve when you retired? The thing you've always wanted to do. A fishing trip in the Antarctic or somewhere? Or whatever. All I'm doing now is to pointing out to you that the ancient historians themselves organized the structure of their work. I talked to you about pattern and cited as an example of pattern, the, um, uh, signs in the Gospel of John. They're pattern, they're not structure. The structure of John lies elsewhere. Now I'm pointing to an ancient historian and asking you to notice the devices by which he structures his work. But of course, he structures his work around this theme. How do you get from the first man, Adam, to the beginning of that age of peace, prosperity, and glory that was the golden age in Israel? How do you get from here to there? Do you believe in progress in history? Is your philosophy of history, do you have a philosophy of history? Marx did. I don't know if you have one. Do you believe in progress in history? Do you believe that history is going somewhere? Where is it going, if anywhere? I don't believe in evolution as normally told, that is Darwinian evolution. But I've got in my head another kind of development, and it goes like this. Man as a creature of God. Mm. Man rising in the universe to become a child of God. That's a different thing, isn't it? Create a creature created by God, a child begotten by God. I believe that a man born in this world of a woman, a real man, is now seated on the very throne of the Lord. I believe history is moving towards the time when he will come again. There will be an age of glory and peace and plenty. Do you believe that? What if that same notion, similar notion, inspired the historian to write that bit of history that, for those that have eyes to see it, is a prototype of the bigger history that God has always had in mind. This is a first stage. From man, his fall, God's redemption, and the first big stage in history to a man sitting on the throne of the Lord in the limited sense of Solomon. That all came to nothing. That all disappeared. Second Chronicles will tell you why it disappeared. And Second Chronicles will tell us what has to happen if the age of peace and glory, real age of peace and glory, is ever going to be established and achieved, as it analyzes why this went downhill and went wrong. I'm suggesting to you that First Chronicles is worth studying from that point of view that the writer himself has arranged it from Adam to man sitting on the throne of the glory, the various stages that his history maps out, and what is happening in those stages that leads you from here to there. Does that make any sense, gentlemen? At least you see what I'm going on about. Yeah? Good. Well, you can delete it, yes, because I'm nearly done now, you see, for the moment, lest I weary you beyond all endurance. What I've talked about, to sum up so far, is my own discovery, simple as it was as a teenager, that in Luke's gospel, the stories recorded are not just isolated stories. They are very carefully arranged. They have common themes. They show progression. And from that on to an example of one whole section of Luke's gospel, chapter seven and eight, that deal with the central theme of salvation, but from many points of view, and are a coherent whole. It starts, if you listen to the actual language, with a man and a woman. The man's servant was on the point of death, the widow's son was dead, and he was the only son of his mother. When you come to the end story that was Jairus and his daughter, you are told that she was the only daughter of her father. You say, but that's not significant. Oh, I see. It's artistically significant. This is beautiful writing. The thing coheres. It has a balance. And it has interrelationships in between, not merely a succession going along, but interrelationships. And we discussed the simple relationship between the story of the centurion and his servant and the widow of Nain and the terms upon which they were given new life. We then saw how the woman in Simon's house puts the other side of the story. New life is a gift simply through faith and not of works. Forgiveness is a gift. Ah, but when it happens, it leads to evidence. It leads to love and evidence. And then we noticed that the whole salvation is a whole array of things. Our Lord's demonstration that he is in control of the physical forces of the universe in the storm on the lake. He demonstrates his control of the demonic forces as he liberates the demoniac. He shows himself master of the human body and the weakness of the flesh. He shows himself able to save from death itself the last enemy, which he will do at his coming and not before. In other words, briefly told, those stories not only hang together, they are interrelated in their themes, and one theme balances another so that you get finally a presentation, a coherent presentation of the fullness of salvation. Yes? And that's the Holy Spirit's sermon. Not bad, is it? And the Holy Spirit doesn't mind if you copy it, gentlemen. If you preach his sermons, he doesn't mind. You don't necessarily have to make up a sermon about the thing. You just preach it. Hello? Yes, sir. You gave us the signs in John's gospel. Yes. An example of pattern. Then a pattern, yes. You gave us 1st Chronicles. Yes. To give us structure. The structure, you've got it. Yes, that's right. In Luke, is that pattern, what you gave us the 8 stories, you call that pattern, or is there a, a something of thought over there that you want to grab? Well, there, those stories hang together as one section. To describe the structure of Luke, you would have to describe the whole thing and how that particular part of it fits in with the rest of the book. You'll see, even immediately through the mists, uh, you'll see chapter where we began in Luke five and six. If you look at them closely, they repeat the t- the word sin. Chapters five and six ah are Christ in relation to sin and sinners, and his moral teaching about sin and sinners. You'll see. In a beautifully logical way, the next two chapters, seven and eight, deal with salvation. You could see the logic of the procedure, couldn't you, within the structure, yes? My point is simply, if those, uh, chapters like that are written like that in Luke, it's likely the whole is. But if Luke writes that way, what about all the other long books of narrative? Are they carefully structured? I mean, to take an example of what I mean, gospel preachers below galore have preached the story of Naaman the Syrian, yeah? God be praised, a very good story to preach. I've heard it preached very successfully in, um, in many gospel meetings. How Naaman, uh, was saved and cleansed of the leprosy. Delightful story. The preachers normally end before they get onto the Gehazi bit. Who accepted money from uh, uh Naaman and caught the leprosy. But what has that story of Naaman anyway got to do with its context. Does it relate to its context? Is it coherent with its context? You'll see. That is a question to be exam- We have done, I tried to do this afternoon. Sorry, I must have given you much pain sitting here all this long while, and I promise now to cease.