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God
Praying With The Prayers Of The Bible - The Prayer from the Depth of
Despair
SERMON NOTEBOOK - “People Like Us”: Sinful Woman
Can meditation be harmful?
Baptism – sacrament of change
Turn on some power in your life
Why go to church?
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: How big was the flood?
**
Praying With The Prayers Of The Bible - The Prayer from the Depth of
Despair
Read Jonah 2:2-9.
Twice in the Bible there is a record of prayers prayed in hell. In
Jesus' parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the former prayed for both
release from his torment and that a warning would be sent to his family
(Luke 16:24-31).
Here in the book of Jonah this chapter opens with the words, 'Then Jonah
prayed to the Lord his God' (v.1) The prophet prayed from what he
described as 'the belly of hell' (KJV), or 'from the depth of Sheol'
(v.2). The first chapter of the book tells how Jonah was commissioned by
God to go and preach in Ninevah, the capital city of the great Assyrian
Empire. Instead Jonah ran away from his home country, from (he thought)
the presence of God and from hearing God's command. The Assyrians had
long been the all-conquering enemies of Israel and Jonah was either
afraid to go to Ninevah, or he did not want them to hear God's word – or
both.
So he ran away and took ship for Tarshish (i.e. Spain). During a violent
storm he confessed to the sailors that he had disobeyed God and
reluctantly they threw him overboard (1:12-14). The Lord had 'appointed
a great fish' which swallowed the prophet and from deep inside its
belly, he prayed to the Lord. God heard Jonah's prayer, the fish spewed
him out and his life was spared (2:10).
Jonah's prayer, prayed when he was sure he was about to die, has much to
teach us about praying. First, even in our disobedience, God hears us
when we pray humbly and sincerely. Jonah's terrible calamity was
directly the result of his running away from God. It wasn't because of
circumstances, it wasn't inevitable, it wasn't fate or just 'one of
those things;' it was his disobedience brought about the disaster. How
gracious God is! Even in our running away from him, He still loves us
and hears our prayers.
Second, we can pray anywhere. If Jonah could cry to the Lord when, in
his own words, 'in the heart of the seas,' when 'all the waves and
billows' passed over him (v.3), how many places may we not find to come
before the Lord in prayer? There is the quiet time at the day's
beginning, a moment of reflection in a busy schedule, between meetings,
as we drive the car or travel in the bus, or plane or ship – so many
places where we can 'lift up our hearts' to the Lord.
Third, no situation is too difficult for God. The God who 'hurled a
great wind upon the sea' (1:4), who 'appointed a great fish to swallow
up Jonah' (1:17); who prepared 'a plant' and 'a worm' to bring about his
purposes (4:6,7), is the Sovereign Lord of earth and heaven. He can hear
us and help us in our deepest distress, in the hours when life seems to
be tumbling in all round us.
Fourth, the Lord can deliver! Jonah's prayer from the depth of hell ends
with the ringing assurance, 'Deliverance belongs to the Lord' (2:9). We
all need to hear that! Today, whatever our need, our pain, our
disappointment, our fear, our weakness, our besetting sin – with the
Lord there is deliverance.
Dr Herbert McGonigle is Senior Lecturer in Historical Theology & Church
History, Nazarene Theological College, Manchester
**
SERMON NOTEBOOK - “People Like Us”
Sinful Woman: Luke 7: 36-50
The story of Jesus at the house of Simon the Pharisee is full of
meaning. Despite the outrageous adoration of the unnamed woman and the
equally outrageous rudeness of his host, Jesus declares a gospel of
grace and forgiveness.
Simon's Reaction
As a Pharisee, Simon invited Jesus to dinner in order to find out more
about his guest. Although he ignored the woman, a well-know prostitute
in the town, her behaviour reinforced his question regarding Jesus'
identity as a prophet (39). He simply failed to see the way that Jesus'
message of forgiveness had completely changed her life.
In what ways can we misread peoples' motives?
The Woman's Response
It was normal for dinner guests to eat outside in a courtyard, so
enabling outsiders like the woman to come and go. The way in which she
anointed Jesus' feet with perfume broke with convention, especially that
of men and women not touching in public. However, she was overcome with
the emotion of Jesus' acceptance of her, despite her past.
In what areas does our relationship with Jesus touch our emotions?
Jesus' Reassurance
Jesus' words to the woman were designed to reassure her, 'your sins
continue to be forgiven' (lit. v48). He accepted her action as evidence
of the work of healing and restoration in her life, which is the very
thing that Simon missed. Jesus' story of the two debtors was intended to
underline her love and devotion, 'for she loved much. But he who has
been forgiven little loves little' (47).
How should knowing God's forgiveness change our lives?
Like Gordon MacDonald, who describes being restored to the leadership of
his church following an adulterous affair, this woman had also found the
reality of the 'gospel of the second chance'!
**
Can meditation be harmful?
Many overstressed people today are increasingly turning to various forms
of Eastern meditations, especially yoga, in their search for inner
relaxation and spirituality. But underlying these meditative practices
is a worldview in conflict with biblical spirituality.
For example, where do you find 'salvation'? Many Eastern religions teach
that the source of salvation is found within, and that the fundamental
human problem is not sin against a holy God but ignorance of our true
condition. So these worldviews offer meditation and 'higher forms of
consciousness' as a way of discovering your secret inner divinity.
Have you ever wondered what yoga is really all about? It is deeply
rooted in Hinduism, and means essentially a way of being 'yoked' with
the divine. Yogic postures, breathing, and chanting were originally
designed not to bring better physical health and well-being (Western
marketing to the contrary), but a sense of oneness with the Brahman –
the Hindu word for the absolute being that pervades all things. This, of
course, is pantheism (all is divine), not Christianity.
The biblical worldview is completely at odds with the pantheistic
concepts driving Eastern meditation. We are not one with an impersonal
absolute being that is called 'God'. Rather, we are estranged from the
true personal God because of our 'true moral guilt,' as the Christian
writer Francis Schaeffer said.
No amount of chanting, breathing, visualising or physical contortions
will melt away the sin that separates us from the Lord of the cosmos –
however 'peaceful' these practices may feel. Moreover, Paul warns that
'Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light' (2 Cor 11:14).
'Pleasant' experiences may not be what they seem. Even yoga teachers
warn that yoga may open you up to spiritual and physical maladies.
The answer to our plight is not to be found by seeking some 'higher
level of consciousness'. It is to be found by placing our faith in what
Jesus Christi has done on our behalf. If it were possible to find
enlightenment within ourselves, God would not have sent 'his one and
only Son' (John 3:16) to die on the Cross for our sins in order to give
us new life and hope for eternity through Christ's resurrection. We
cannot raise ourselves from the dead.
In the Bible meditation is not a matter of inducing a trance through
repeating words endlessly. It is pondering God's revealed truth, and
reflecting on how it applies to our own lives. David in the Psalms
rejoices in the richness of God's law, and delights in meditating on it.
“I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your
decrees; I will not neglect your word.” (Psalm 119:15-16) Since all
Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim 3.16), all of it is profitable for
meditation in the biblical sense.
**
Baptism – sacrament of change
Last month we were thinking about change: how we cope with it, how we
celebrate it. Baptism is the sacrament of change. It is, as the Church
of England's Book of Common Prayer says, an outward and visible sign of
an inward and spiritual grace.
Baptism involves us, inextricably, in the life of Christ. We are
baptised into his life and death and rising again to new life; the
passing through the water of baptism is a symbol of this. But by doing
so, we take our fist step on the journey from time to eternity. The sign
of the Cross made on our forehead is the seal of eternal life for us,
the sign that we are Christ's, no matter what may happen.
Baptism is about coping with change, taking us through all the difficult
changes in life: moving house, children leaving home, redundancy, the
loss of a skill, the ending of a relationship, and above all,
bereavement and death. It is the sign that, as Paul wrote to the Romans,
nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. But it is
also about celebrating change. It helps us to celebrate a new birth, a
new relationship, achievements, the solving of problems, the healing of
disputes and pain.
For baptism is not an insurance policy to protect us from every kind of
change. Instead it is the sacrament, the outward sign of change; not
least, change in ourselves. We are, above all, to live the baptismal
life. We are to live as people who have been baptised into the life,
death and risen life of Christ; to become more Christ-like.
For as the poet Tennyson put it: 'God fulfils himself in many ways, lest
one good custom should corrupt the world.' Baptism is the outward sign
of that grace.
**
Turn on some power in your life
One of the most powerful ways we have in the Church of overcoming Satan
is by prayer. It is high time that we as believers came to recognise
that prayer, as someone once said, “is not overcoming God's reluctance,
but laying hold on his greatest willingness.”
It is not simply breathing out words into thin air, but implementing on
earth the decisions which Christ makes in heaven. If this is indeed the
truth, then prayer is the most important activity in which we as God's
people can be engaged. Selwyn Hughes (Reflections)
**
Why go to church?
A church-goer wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper and
complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. “I've
gone for 30 years now,” he wrote, “and in that time I have heard
something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a
single one of them. So I think I am wasting my time and the pastors are
wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.”
This started a real controversy in the 'Letters to the Editor' column,
much to the delight of the Editor. It went on for weeks until someone
wrote this clincher:
“I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked
some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me I can't recall the entire menu
for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: they all nourished
me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not
given me those meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I
had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead
today!”
Author unknown
**
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: How big was the flood?
A Mesopotamian disaster, or a world catastrophe? The Flood continues
to fuel speculation worldwide.
That is the precise point – we don't even have to explain which flood
we're talking about; Noah's Flood is firmly embedded in the human memory
on every continent.
There is a Hindu tradition about a great flood, and a ship of safety
finally landing on a northern mountain. In China, Fa-he, the reputed
founder of Chinese civilisation, is represented as escaping from the
waters of a deluge – and reappears as the first man in a new world,
accompanied by his wife, three sons and three daughters; eight people in
all. There is the famous Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh with its detailed
myth-legend of a great flood. The Fiji islanders have accounts of a
flood, in which a family of eight was saved. In South America paintings
have been discovered, representing a flood, a man and his wife on a
raft, with a mountain featuring in the story, as well as a dove. The
Cherokee Indians have a similar story. Only Africa seems to be without a
traditional flood story.
I believe that the book of Genesis gives us the original, inspired and
definitive account of this mega event. It could have been Shem, one of
Noah's sons, who later told his children of this great epic of his life,
and as the human race fanned outwards from Mesopotamia, so the story
travelled outwards as well – inevitably becoming garbled in the process,
and mixed up with legend and folklore.
How big was the Flood, then? The right answer is that it was of
all-time, universal dimension and significance. Certainly we can make
out a strong case for a literal worldwide flood – with the release of
the great waters both from below and above (Genesis 7:11,12) But we may
also observe that the phrase of Genesis 7:19 – that 'all the high
mountains under the entire heavens were covered' can be paralleled by
Acts 2:5, where – on the Day of Pentecost – those who were present were
'from every nation under heaven'. Those nations are then listed out in
detail, and they are all from the then known world of Luke the writer –
around the Mediterranean basin. So the Flood itself need not have
extended across the entire world.
Can we respect the differing views among reverent students of Scripture?
If we cannot, we are in deep trouble. Once we get into lengthy and
heated debates as to whether the flood covered every dot of land-space
on the world, we are in serious danger of exhausting ourselves and
diverting people from hearing the real message of the Flood. What is it?
First, it widens the problem – from a garden to the whole world. The
Flood conveys a universal warning. Second, it produces a model – for our
entire understanding of judgment and grace, for ultimately the safety of
the ark is found in Christ. Third, it sets the stage – for the drama of
salvation that is to be unfolded from Genesis 12 onwards.
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