Gooding, David: 8 - How to keep going in frustrating times

And so, to begin with, a very warm welcome to all of you who have braved the shining sun in order to come now to a serious Bible study. We are currently studying the first and second book of Kings from the Old Testament. This is now the eighth study, and there are but ten. So we have not aimed to discuss every detail in these extensive histories. We have rather arbitrarily selected one particular theme and tried to follow it throughout both books. We were led to this theme by observing how the first book of Kings begins. A great deal of notice is taken of David, that is King David, in his final days. We're told the dear old boy, he lay in bed, uh, all shivering, do you see? And they tried various methods to warm him up, but all in vain. He gat no heat, says the authorized version. And eventually, of course, he passed away. And that left a very big gap in the minds and hearts and histories of a good many in Israel. It was like when Queen Victoria died, not that I was personally affected thereby, but I've heard people say she had reigned so long that they couldn't imagine the world carrying on if Queen Victoria died. And so it was with David, surely. They vividly remembered how he went out to face the giant and conquered against all odds and became the darling of the heart of the people. He made his mistakes, of course, serious moral errors, suffered a rebellion by his own son Absalom, and yet taken as a whole, it was a magnificent life, wasn't it? And alongside the history, we put the many psalms that he wrote. And remember how he trained the Levites to sing in their chants at the temple. He desired to build a temple for God. It was not given to him. It was said that his son should build it. So we po- posed ourselves the question, if God could have raised up one David, why didn't he raise up a whole succession of Davids? In order to keep his people in their right condition. Of course, you could ask the same thing of the Christian apostles. If God could and did raise up Peter and James and John and Paul, why didn't he proceed to raise up a whole succession of Peter, James, and Johns and Pauls, but left it to the likes of us. So we have looked at first and second Kings to see if we could discern in its histories what God actually provided for his people, for their maintenance and, where necessary, their recovery. And from Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple, we perceived that God's provision for his nation was the building of the house of the Lord at Jerusalem. And Solomon, who was conscious of the ginormous condescension of God, that he should even visit the house that Solomon built with the cloud of his Shekinah glory, which got Solomon wondering, since God is beyond all dimension, fills and overfills heaven and earth, how could he possibly get in to this building that I have built? And yet, smart Solomon, on the basis of God's fulfilled promise, prayed that whatever should happen to Israel down the centuries, whether they were allured by success or disconsolate through failure, that if only they should look towards that house and pray towards that house, then hear thou in heaven, forgive and restore them where necessary and maintain them. So we have been following the provision that God made in the form of the house of God. Of course, we confess to being Christians. And as we have been thinking outwardly of the house of God that Solomon built in Jerusalem. Some of us have surreptitiously been thinking of another house of God, of which Paul the Apostle writes in one Timothy chapter three, saying to his fellow Christians, well, these things I write to you so that if I am a long time coming and get hindered, you will know how to behave. In the house of God, in the church of the living God, pillar and ground of the truth. And we have it, or at least I have it, tucked up in the way in my intentions and not publicly advertised too often. And before we have finished this series, we shall have to turn to that passage in one Timothy chapter three and inquire what exactly it means. Anyway, we have, I think, some representation of the house of God. It's one of the better reconstructions, though all of them, of course, are done partly by guesswork. There is the building itself. At the front of it, you see a porch, so-called. And then the building itself. It was like the tabernacle that Moses built in two parts. There was the first part, which is the holy place, and then after the second veil, the most holy place, in which stood the symbolic throne of God, covered with the mercy seat and the cherubim. At the side of the, um, building, you would have seen built out protrusions. These were the, um, side rooms built for the convenience of the priests and the Levites, that in them they might do the various tasks that were assigned to them. We should also notice that in front of the porch, freestanding, that is not part of the building itself, were two pillars. Large pillars. Their task to support intricate and ornate capitals on the top of them. They were meant to be symbolic, for in Hebrew they were given names, one of which means in it is strength, and in the other someone will, presumably God, will strengthen it. And we shall have to inquire, God willing, next week, what those pillars can talk to us. It is a New Testament metaphor, isn't it? When Paul says in the epistle to the Galatians that he went up to Jerusalem, not to be told what the gospel was, he had received the gospel directly from Christ, but he went to consult with the other apostles to scotch the rumor that was beginning to circulate that Paul preached a different gospel from the other apostles. That was nonsense, of course. So he went up, and that they made a joint statement. But in the course of examining, he says that he accosted those who seemed to be pillars. Pillars. I'm not sure about us here tonight. Have you in your church? People that give the appearance, at least, of being pillars. I don't mean they're straight beyond all possibility. These pillars, as I say, stood there to carry the beauty of the capitals. They combined the beauty of flowers and fruit, and so forth. We have no ground of complaint that God should make his house attractive and beautiful. Uh, anyway, that New Testament verse that I quoted earlier informs us how we are to behave in the house of God. Church of the living God, pillar and ground of Of the the truth. That's what pillars are for, actually. If only they knew it. Ah. Holding up the church is not the truth. The church is to uphold the truth. For all to see, and to uphold it in such a fashion as those that come to it can see its beauty and its potential for fruitfulness. Let me leave it there. There were also in the court a laver, this thing here. It's a basin with water in it, so big that they called it the sea, SEA sea. It stood on the backs of oxen. It was a great work of art in those days. Then there were ten subsidiary labours in frames and with wheels so that they could be wheeled round all the various courts of the temple, as would be necessary when there were many, many sacrifices with blood and inwards scattered all over the place. It is a thing that theologians like to debate. Why in First Kings chapters six and seven, mention is made of those pillars, mention is made of the sea and the lavers. No mention is made of the big altar with its sacrifice of animals and the outpouring of blood. And I submit it to all theologians now present. It's a question we shall have to face before we come to the end of the series, God willing, in two weeks time. Now, if we could have a, um, copy, oh, there's the c- the cutaway of what it was like inside. You will notice the attempt to represent it here, that the walls were covered with cedar, and then they were overlaid with gold. That is not a fairy story. Even the floor, we're told, was overlaid with gold. And Professor Millard, late of Liverpool, has pointed out how this was true to life. In the ancient world, gold was more plentiful than it is nowadays, and people used it lavishly, not only on the walls and on the floor, but even the pillars could very often be overlaid with gold. The... the, uh, picture language is of cherubim, palmets and rosettes. And the cherubim, of course, are otherwise known as the living creatures. So that if you had walked inside there, the impression you would get from the decor was indeed that this was the house of the living God. God isn't just a collection of doctrines. He is personal and living, the living God. And it was a favorite description that Elijah used about himself. Uh, a living God before whom I stand. Then, let's move on now to... Oh, that's a cutaway to, yeah, that's, yes, as you have it. Thank you very much. On the left, you will see a list, therefore, of the plans for the house of the Lord. The plans for the house of the Lord start with the question of the one house, its framework, and the side rooms. Then there comes a special plea for obedience. Then there comes the internal installation and record, uh, uh, uh, uh, and decoration. Where the chief installation was, of course, the Ark of the Covenant in the Most Holy Place, the very throne of God, with cherubim on the mercy seat, and two big olive wood cherubim standing with their wings outstretched in the most holy place. In the fourth place, we have plans for the king's house, and we still have to concentrate a little on that even tonight. We began to look at it last week. But you see, the temple was the superior building. It stood at the top. Somewhat down the slope was the official king's house. That is where the king lived. The big reception room for foreign diplomats, the, uh, place for the king to sit in law courts and law, uh, cases, to say the throne room, and so forth, plus also the women's quarters for the queen and all her handmaids. The king's house then. So there was a twin set of government. There was the Lord's house with his throne and his covenant. Then there was the king's house, whose responsibility it was to see that the people behaved as they should and kept, seriously kept the covenant of the Lord. Finally, in the fifth set, there was the sea and the lavers, such as we've looked at, and the two pillars. Our general thesis has been to study how Israel treated the plans of the Lord's house. You'll see on the left hand side, the architects allowed only for one house. Yet no sooner was the nation divided under Rehoboam's son, and Jeroboam took over. The first accusation almost that is made aga- against him, he set up other houses. He was eventually destroyed. God allowed him to be supplanted by a certain Baasha, who was there to s- to take the place of Jeroboam. Though he executed Jeroboam, he continued in the same disobedience. If you look at number three with the Ark of the Covenant, its first provision, thou shall have no other god but me. We're told of ahab of Israel that he not only built a separate house for Baal, the pagan god, but installed him as Israel's chief god. He came to a sticky end, did Ahab. Then we were thinking last time about the king's house, and we noticed that in English at least, we have two similar phrases, and we were careful to distinguish them. You can talk about the king's house as being the palace. Or Her Majesty, Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. She has a house where she can live. Well, she has two or three. The one she likes best of all, so I'm told, is Windsor Castle. It's the house where she lives. But then... there's a house in another sense. So when we read of the house of David in scripture, we're thinking not of the building in which he lived, we're thinking of the royal dynasty. So that Windsor Castle is one thing, but if I talk of the House of Windsor, then I think of the royal dynasty of which the Queen is the present representative. And we saw last week that there came a time when, in the king's house, in the very throne room, there sat a woman as queen who devised and then executed the murder of the whole of the house of David. She was the daughter of Ahab, who we've already met. Many of her family had been destroyed by Jehu. Her own very son had been killed by Jehu. And now, for reasons best known to her, she set about eliminating the whole of the house of Judah. And last week, we thought about that to some extent. What would that matter to us? Let me put it to you. If some historian succeeded, from time to time they have a go, succeeded in proving to you that King David was not a real historical figure at all, just a figure of legend. Would you as a Christian protest? Yes. He would, you see? We'll have to ask him, ask him after, after over our coffee and buns, why he would object. We went through a lot of verses in the New Testament that tell us that our Christianity, our Christian salvation, is based on someone who was the son of David. It rings through the whole of the New Testament. And when Athaliah rose up and destroyed, did her best to destroy the house of David, the royal dynasty of David. If she had succeeded in doing it, it would have been a spiritual as well as a moral disaster. The very first verse of the New Testament tells us, as the early verses of our epistle to the Romans tell us, that our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, according to the flesh, is of the seed of David, and declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. It is an integral part of our Christian faith that Jesus Christ is the descendant of David. When she did that, as we saw last week, she didn't quite succeed because the young child, Joash, was a little boy, and his aunt got him and smuggled him out of the palace and took him to the high priest, who hid him in one of the many chambers in the house of the Lord until the boy was grown up at least until he was about seven or eight years old. Meanwhile, Athaliah lived as though she were the sole monarch. Then eventually the day came when the high priest showed the king, the young king, to the leaders of the army and to the leading politicians. They were, of course, surprised and delighted. And how they, uh, they made him king, and Athalar was executed. You see. I wish I could do the same for you. Not the execution bit, I don't mean that bit. But our Lord was done to death, wasn't he? There were many who thought that that was the end of him. He's now gone into heaven. Hid from our eyes, if you like. But he's really there. I wish I had the eloquence and the inspiration of an Apostle Paul, at least, to write another letter to the Colossians and point out the reality, the living Christ, seated on the throne of the Father, Creator, the one through whom the whole ages were created, who maintains all, is the firstborn of all creation. And we have been translated from the sh- uh, power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear and beloved Son. Oh, I wish I could show you. Well, some Christian apostles had the, the privilege, didn't they? John saw him. And he who leaned on the bosom of Christ at the Last Supper, seeing Christ in all his glory, fell to the ground as if dead. He's real. And he comes to reign. You say, what happened, therefore? When, um... the little boy sat on the throne. How did he get on? Well, we have the advantage that there happened to live at that time, around about that time, a prophet by the name of Isaiah. He tells us in chapter six of his prophecy. He says, you know, in the king, in the year that King Azariah died. I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. In the year, says Isaiah, that King Azariah died. So let's think about that year. You may have a little difficulty in looking up Azar, because sometimes he's called Azariah. So his name varies, you see. It's like William and Billy, you know. You can't help that. Uh, and his name differs in different places. But it was the year that King Azariah died, says Isaiah, that I had this vision. Do you know, in that year, it was quite a while since any king of his Judah had died in his bed. There was, uh, Joash, the little boy who was hidden in the... and then he came to the throne, and he did quite well at the beginning, but when the, uh, the high priest died, Jehoiada, he started to go astray, did Joash. And Jehoiada's son, who I this time was a prophet, came and stood in the temple and denounced their changes and called on them to repent. And Joash had him executed, executing the son of the very prophet that had saved Joash's life by hiding him in the temple. Had him executed for telling Joash what had become unpopular doctrine to him. Oh dear. Yeah. His servants eventually ala- assassinated him. His son Amazar, you know, was a good king, really. Well, he did many good things. But then he got a little swell-headed and went to attack the much more powerful ten tribes of Israel, plus Syria, if you please, or Aramia. They got hold of Amaziah, and they took him back to Jerusalem. And they took him to the north side, what we should now call the Damascus Gate and the, the wall of Jerusalem, do you see, that faced the northern kingdom, and they bashed it down. And there was nothing that, that Amaziah could do about it. Just to remind him that he had some very powerful neighbors and better not start attacking them. So poor old boy, he was a lame duck kind of a thing. For the rest of his life. He fled, but his servants got hold of him too, assassinated him as well. Oh dear. House of David isn't doing very well, is it? Well, then there came this aforesaid Azar. He was a very capable man. He lived for about, he reigned for about fifty nine years and developed agriculture and invented war machines. Must have had some German blood in him, and uh, you'll see, uh, uh, and uh, did very well on the whole. He did so very well, he got a little bit, uh, beyond his own stature and went into the temple to offer incense, and the priests came flocking round and said, no, no, no, no, no, your majesty, you mustn't do that, it's not given to you. But he brushed them aside. Not only going to be king and inventor and agriculturist and everything else, he was going to be the offerer of incense in the house of the Lord. And as he stood there beginning to do it, a spot arose in his skin. It's called in our ancient translations leprosy. It probably wasn't leprosy. It was a skin disease, but a very serious skin disease. He was bustled out of the temple and himself hastily gone out. He couldn't any longer exercise kingship. Had to live in a separate compartment. Where exactly, we don't know. And his son, who's a very decent chap, Jotham, a very capable man, had to carry on until his father died. He reigned fifty nine years, however. How would you have felt if you had lived in those days? Of course, you don't live in any day, and I mean to say, do you? Anything like them. Mm-hmm. There are some churches of which our Lord complains that they have a name that they live, but are dead, actually. But that- that's another point completely. How would you feel? If all your efforts had been to establishing and helping the nation to find solidity and prosperity, and And... the the king kings had behaved like this. I think I would have felt like saying, there's no use, you may spare your breath, Gooding. Well, you're part of the trouble anyway. What is the use of preaching to start with? And trying reform. Of course you wouldn't, you wouldn't know, you would know, know, you would persevere. But you should know what other folks sometimes are tempted to feel. In the year that King Isaiah died. Says Isaiah. And we look to see what inspired him to carry on. Are you not glad he carried on? Have you ever been helped by what Isaiah has written and felt it lift your soul? After all these centuries? He gives us here his secret. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. And the one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, and the whole earth is full of his glory. Then said I, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the king. The Lord of hosts. It is the mere prayer of my heart, I suspect of yours, that God will give me a vision amidst all the passing squalor of this world and the mistakes my own and those of the church, to look beyond it and to catch a vision of the king. You will notice that when that happened to Isaiah, Isaiah. he He forthwith felt unqualified to speak. Who is me, he said, I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the king. So there then flew, you see, one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from off the altar, and he touched my mouth with it and said, Lo, this has touched thy lips, thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for me? Then said, I, here I am, send me. Only to be told. But you just listen to it. And he said, go and tell this people, hear ye indeed, but understand not, and see you indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart, and turn again and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, until cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land become utterly waste. The Lord have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You imagine being told to preach and being told in advance, you will find the people coming to listen to your preaching less and less and less and less and less until the place is empty. Would you carry on? How How did did I Isaiah sire? find the grace and the puff to carry on? I'm glad he did. For the man who wrote Isaiah, the book. Yeah, I know, his congregations dwindled. How many do you suppose have been converted through Isaiah chapter fifty three? Thousands? Oh, I am so glad Isaiah carried on, for I personally confess my gratitude to him. I have found him in times of difficulty, more than a human help. He saw the king. Amidst the decline of the kings of Judah, let alone the opposition of the kings of Israel. In the Gospel of John, chapter twelve, John is moved to cite this passage from Isaiah chapter six as to what happened when our blessed Lord was here on earth, and he preached, and great crowds came. Well, at the beginning they did. And then? Great crowds came to cry, let him be crucified. And for all the miracles he'd done, says John, they didn't believe on him. And then John adds a serious note, neither could they. For God had said, shut their eyes. If we carry on rejecting truth and shutting our eyes to what we see is plain straightforward truth, God's truth. There will come a time when God will say, you don't like my truth? Righto, don't see it then. There is a judgment of God that in the end gives men what they prefer. Tell me, if that's John's comment on the ministry of Christ, why did he carry on? I mean, Christ. You're inclined to say because... he loved me. Because Because he he ex- accepted the role that God had given him to do, to be the savior of the world, and said, though it cost him sweat like blood in the garden, not my will, but thine. Be done. Is it worth our carrying on in our modern day? Will God give you to see ten thousand folks converted? May God do it and do it fast. If you never saw anybody converted, would you carry on? This is the challenge that Isaiah brings us from this ancient story of the kings. God help us to see its relevance to our modern situation. Shall we pray? Lord, now we bring to thee thy word. We thank thee, Lord, that through thy servant Isaiah, our eyes have been summoned to look not on the decrepit failure of the best of our service, but on thy dear Son and the triumph of his cross and resurrection, and the certainty of his coming again. For every blessing we have received from his gracious hand. For the glory of the knowledge of salvation and forgiveness of sins. For the honor and privilege of being mouthpieces for God in our day and generation. Help us, Lord, in our more difficult modern times, to stand firm, and with grace and tact, and more than human wisdom, to maintain thy message in the world, as we patiently wait for the coming again of thy dear Son, for his glorification and his endless reign. Bless us, therefore, and bless, uh, us as we partake of these refreshments, for which we thank thee gratefully, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.