Exposition by Max A Forsythe
The
Reformer's Fire
Exposition by Max A Forsythe
For those who came early to Bible Study this week the main title for today's message may seem more than just providential. You see our trustees were considering a challenge to again look into a possible building project. At least once a year for the last three years our trustees have given some time to consider opportunities of investing our monthly rent in a place of our own. So far, those opportunities have come to naught. However, we will endeavor again to discover the divine paradigm for accomplishing what we know to be an essential task.
Now some of you may have perked up your ears at a word that may be unfamiliar. That word was paradigm. It comes from the French and it has the meaning of showing things side by side. The best example of this comes from sewing where the seamstress must carefully pin a paper pattern to the material she is going to cut. In the theological sense today, I would urge us to copy the pattern set before us in Scripture.
That divine model, pattern or paradigm is what I believe we should seek always as we endeavor to live our lives in the leading of the Spirit. Well, you may easily say, since our God is a died in the wool "Presbyterian" and works through His elect to accomplish His ends, let's just do whatever pleases us. Obviously, if we take our own "meology" to that extent we might easily expect our Father in heaven to bless our work.
The first meeting at school this year dealt with the subject of paradigms. However, like most public presentations, a specific humanistic spin was put on the term. I think the school program even spelled the word with a "y"? At least the video tape encouraged everyone to be prepared for change because change is good. The predictable part was the worldly emphasis that we as humans must be responsible to take the bull by the horns and push desirable changes. Also, it was evident that the hard work must be done by those who have the least time to accomplish it. And any "paradygmic" change must be programmed by the appropriate administrative specialists.
As we all wrestled with what the video program was pushing I figured out a way to explain what was meant. In a secondary meeting that afternoon, as we were discussing the topic, I pulled out two dimes and gave them to a friend with the explanation that "para-dimes" was all about change. I wanted to go further and suggest that such "para-dimes" might be considered exactly what they were: an inflated value for someone else's two cents worth of expensive advice.
This is not the paradigm that we have in mind today. Our purpose is to discover the Lord's pattern that will allow us to eventually move into our own building. Since we began we have already proposed five or six solutions to our building needs and the Lord has thus far disposed of them all! Thankfully we have not, like one church in Lancaster, had to move thirteen times in one decade!
On the north side of town, Grace OPC was finally able to move into their own property about eight years after beginning. Since that move the Lord has blessed them with a third more people. Certainly, we realize that just as the worldly in Palestine viewed the completed Temple as a testimony to God's blessing of the Jewish remnant, so too, today a permanent building indicates to visitors and passers-by that a Church is going to be around for a while.
Well, one might suggest, if a building is where its at, why don't we just join with a group that has a building? We had one such invitation already this year. A declining congregation encouraged us to join and be received so that we could help them repair their old building. Never mind, that there was much more wrong than merely a run down edifice. Their denomination and national leadership is pushing hand carts down the expressway to the infernal regions as fast as they possibly can! Two fifteen minute conversations ended that proposal because we would have compromised everything in which we believed if we had put a building before everything else.
There is a real reason for our distinctive separation from the older Main line denominations. And that reason is the difference between the audiences addressed by Jeremiah and Haggai. Leaf quickly through your Bible and compare the length of Jeremiah with that of Haggai. Notice any difference? Jeremiah is over eighty pages long compared to the two pages of Haggai! Why the difference you may ask. It boils down to this: the people ignored Jeremiah throughout his long years of preaching and the people listened to Haggai who preached a short five months in the fall of 520 BC!
This phenomenon is much like the story of a young pastor who on moving into his first pastorate preached the same sermon the first three weeks he was there. Finally the board gathered and asked him why they had to put up with the same message week after week. He answered: "Well, you haven't done what I've encouraged you to do yet, when you begin doing that, I'll preach another sermon."
We should also consider that the generation that heard and ignored Jeremiah was gone, in their place was the elect remnant recently returned from exile. In the same way, we ought to view the younger churches of our own time. The Lord has once again raised up His elect people to serve His divine purpose.
We realize that Jeremiah's ministry was not in vain. His intense labor was focused in building a spiritual foundation for the new church to be reborn under the guidance of the restoration prophets Haggai and Zechariah. We have to realize that there were really those who took to heart the preaching of Jeremiah. This week I ran across the theme verse from Jeremiah printed in your bulletin. "Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." Now, remember the history of the exile period and the service of Daniel, his three friends and the service of Ruth on behalf of the pagan rulers of the Mid-Eastern provinces.
Why would such pagan emperors like Darius and Cyrus provide for the restoration of God's elect? Because of God's providential ordering and also, the effective witness of His Saints who took to heart our theme verse for today. Well might we consider that verse in our day as well. What family in this congregation has not affected by the peculiarities of the labor market in the last few years. Yes, I know there are problems and stresses that are beyond our control because I share in those secular experiences. Let us all be challenged by verses five and six. Let us also learn to prove ourselves workmen worthy of the Lord's election so that our worldly supervisors may learn to be thankful for our presence!
This is a hard lesson, and I have struggled for ten years learning it, I hope your struggles to learn and prove it are not as long. Be content first, with what the Lord gives you. If you will all do that, then you can put the time you have set aside for worries to considering the Lord's words and your witness for Him. Let me see, I may have just made this fall series on the Restoration prophets very easy! I'll bet I could preach this same sermon until Christmas and still hear that some of us were not yet content?
But, I don't think we have the luxury of such regular continual admonishments. 1992, like 520 BC may well be a year of crisis. When my students ask me who I'm going to vote for this fall I simply tell them that in the desperate mood for change I am afraid that whoever wins will cost me several close friends. "What friends could you possibly lose Mr Forsythe?", they ask. "Washington, Lincoln, Hamilton and Jackson"! Mr Grant disappeared from close association a long time ago.
As long as we have leaders who believe they are "paradymic" agents of change we will continue to have problems. Let us take to heart the message of Haggai to God's people and follow Him as He provides for us paradigms to lay our lives beside. If we can do that then we will be able to realize the changes that the Lord has planned for us in our day and time. And our purpose is to follow His lead as He uses us for His providential witness.
How is His will accomplished you may ask? May I suggest an example from the Pacific Coast beaches. It is difficult for those of us born in the Mid-West to appreciate the necessary skill for surfing. That skill is not in directing the full course of the board, but in following the natural flow of the roaring tides. Whoever would go their own way are quickly doused in the brine. Whoever is willing to follow the tidal energy remains standing and finds his way home dry to the golden beach. May our following of the Lord's calling be in this Spirit, so that He may carry us through to His desired end.
Resources Used:
Baldwin, Joyce G. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Haggai...
Boice, James M. The Minor Prophets: An Expositional Commentary.
Palafoutas, John. "Big Government, Big Problem", Tabletalk, (Sep 92)
Places Preached:
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America)
Box 13926 -- Columbus, OH 43213
Hag01a 05 September 92
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