Bible

03
Dec
2023

The Sun of Righteousness is Rising

An Advent Promise—and Warning


The Sun of Righteousness is Rising

by David Sellnow

In 1969, John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) wrote a song called Bad Moon Rising. “I see the bad moon arising, I see trouble on the way”—that was the opening lyric. The song had a very end-times theme. One stanza said:

I hear hurricanes a-blowin’
I know the end is comin’ soon
I fear rivers overflowin’
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Fogerty himself said the song is about “the apocalypse that was going to be visited upon us”—but at the same time wrote it with “a happy-sounding tune.” I thought of that song as I was reading the prophecy from Malachi. The prophet spoke of a time that is like a bad moon rising for many people, but like a glorious sunrise for others. “The sun of righteousness shall rise,” Malachi wrote (4:1), bringing healing, light, and warmth for those who revere God’s name. At the same time, it will burn the arrogant and evildoers. 

If you had a Bible in your hand and opened it to find the book of Malachi, you’d get a good idea of what new horizon he had in mind. It is the New Testament—the coming of the day of Jesus Christ. The words of Malachi chapter 4 are the last words in the Old Testament. You flip the page and you’re in the New Testament. The first New Testament book, Matthew, begins with “an account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah” (Matthew 1:1) and then explains how “the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place” (Matthew 1:18).  That’s a 400-year flip as you flip that one page. Malachi’s writing was the last prophetic word from God for at least 400 years before Jesus Christ arrived on the scene. The next prophet from God would not come until immediately before Jesus. Then, an angel announced the birth of a child to be named John. Echoing the words of Malachi, the angel said, “He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah” he would “turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:13-17). That child would become the preacher known to us as John the Baptist.

In the new day as prophesied by Malachi, and introduced by John the Baptist, “the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings” for all who revere the name of the Lord (Malachi 4:2).  “Revere” is an attempt to translate the ancient Hebrew word יָרֵא (yah-ra), for which we have no one-word equivalent in English. It is to fear the name of the Lord, to stand in awe of him, to be amazed at him, respect him, trust him, rely on him, worship him. Those who revere God, who know his saving name and his saving deeds, anticipate his arrival with hope. When the Lord enters our world, his coming is an answer to prayers, a day of salvation. He brings righteousness as a gift, forgiving our sins and supplying us with goodness. The day of the Lord is like bright and warm sunshine, bringing a fresh new morning. Think of the warmth and joy we feel when we celebrate Christmas: Jesus came to be our righteousness, to bring us peace with God. This dawning of the new, bright sunshiny day in Christ is the kind of thing that makes you go out and leap like young calves released from the stall, as Malachi described it (4:2). You jump for joy. You bask in the sunlight. Your spirit rejoices in God your Savior (cf. Luke 1:47). Sin and death and all that opposes the way of grace and faith in Christ “will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 4:3). God promises that all the evil which troubles us is overcome by the coming of the Christ. Both when Jesus came to this world the first time, and when he comes again, the triumph of life that is in him is made evident.

Having said that, it also must be said that the day of the Lord does not make everyone happy. Many do not revere God‘s name and do not welcome him. Their hopes are in themselves, not in the Lord. Some think they are perfectly healthy without God and feel no need for spiritual healing. Some have usurped religious authority for themselves and imposed rules that “lock people out of the kingdom of heaven” because they get wrapped up in legalisms and neglect “justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:13,23). Those attitudes the Lord calls arrogance. There also are persons who do immoral deeds in darkness. They don’t want any sunlight exposing their shame. The things they do are things God calls evil. According to Malachi, for the arrogant and the evildoers, the shining of God‘s light is like scorching desert heat that burns. God’s announcement of a rising sun of righteousness is like a bad moon rising for them. The same righteousness of God that provides a refuge for those who trust in him is a burning scourge on those who trust their own righteousness or try to hide their own guilt. God’s blazing glory turns to dust everything that is not cleansed by forgiveness through faith. “All the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble,” Malachi warned (4:1).

So we see that the day of the Lord is a great joy for those who put their trust in the Lord by faith. It is a dreadful day for those who do not, whose hearts fight against God. We might well bear in mind that either of those descriptions may describe each of us at times. We are not always faithful. We have the same human tendencies as all human beings, wanting the opposite of what the Lord wants for us, thinking we know better than him. Malachi spoke to our consciences. “Remember the teaching of my servant Moses,” he said (Malachi 4:4). No one who keeps in mind God‘s laws to Moses can pretend they are righteous on their own or hide the fact that they sin. What does the law of Moses say? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5)  “Walk in all his ways” (Deuteronomy 10:12). “Have no other gods” (Exodus 20:3)—nothing that comes ahead of the Lord in your life.  Be holy. Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another. Do not pervert justice. Judge your neighbor fairly. Do not go about spreading slander. Do not hate your brother in your heart. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge. Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus, chapter 19). Just listening to those laws is painful, because we know we fall far short of godly ideals. We are not righteous. We are sinful. Malachi’s warning keeps us from getting too puffed up about ourselves.

So did the warnings of the prophet who came after Malachi, a voice like that of Elijah of old. John the Baptist was like a second Elijah, speaking for God. He declared: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2). John the Baptist scolded those who were proud of themselves and their heritage, but were arrogant and lacked the humility of faith. “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’” John told them. “For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Luke 3:8). Being descendants of a religious forefather was not a ticket into heaven for them. Without faith in the Messiah themselves, they were destined to be cut down and thrown into the fire (Luke 3:9). That was John’s message to the arrogant and evildoers.

Strong prophetic warnings always aimed at shaking people out of their self-righteousness and sinfulness and turning their hearts back to the Lord. While the ministry of God’s prophets shouted out warnings, they also soothed with promises. Malachi told of healing sunshine, rays of hope for people who trusted in God. And John “proclaimed the good news to the people” (Luke 3:18). He pointed to Jesus and said, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). John’s ministry turned the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, keeping individuals and families focused on faith and hope and love (cf. Malachi 4:6). The curse of the law would be removed by the Messiah, Jesus (cf. Galatians 3:13-14). The sunshine of God’s love, the gift of his goodness, have come to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

We are living in the Day of the Lord, my friends. His presence never departs from us. It is AD 2023. We refer to our years as AD: Anno Domini—in the year of the Lord. The ancients who set up our calendar declared every year from the time of Christ’s arrival to be “The year of our Lord.”  The Lord has come. The Lord will come again. Blessed be the name of the Lord, and blessed are all those who continue to put their trust in him. Let us continue to put our trust in him, and so be ready for the day he comes again.

Christmas gift idea:  Sermons on Selected Psalms, available at Amazon.com:

Sermons on Selected Psalms: Sellnow, David: 9798402872462: Amazon.com: Books

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
01
Jan
2023

Resolution

A brief study at the start of a new year

Prepare to read. Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

Several years ago, I was asked to work with writers and edit a series of Bible studies for youth ministry.  The following brief study came from that project. It seems appropriate to share at New Year’s time, on the subject of making resolutions.

This is formatted as a leader’s guide for a group study. If you are reading this on your own, feel free to use it for your own meditation on the selected Scriptures. I’d welcome comments from any readers who come across this post.  As a change from the blog’s usual devotional format, do you find a study outline format like this useful?  

Resolution

Preliminary questions to consider

How many of you have ever made a New Year’s Resolution?  So many New Year’s resolutions fail. Why do you think that is?

  • We may set goals that are so lofty it is all but impossible to keep them. Sometimes we just aren’t all that determined to keep them. Our resolve is weak.  Other times we fail because our sinful nature is the problem.  We try to overcome our sinful nature on our own.

This study isn’t only about New Year’s resolutions. Let’s  think about our resolve in general—our determination to do what we know we should do.  What specific goals have you made for yourself?

  • Answers will vary. Think of some goals you have set in your life, not just New Year’s resolutions.

Consider the goals, resolutions, or promises you have made. Why is it worth putting a lot of effort into them?

  • Answers will vary. Hopefully, our goals are beneficial ones that will result in better health, helping others, and better stewardship of God’s blessings. One good goal always is to devote ourselves to contact with God’s Word and sacraments so that faith will be strengthened.

Sometimes the motivation behind our goals and promises is faulty. What possible faulty motivation could be behind the goals and promises we make?

  • We may be trying to feed our egos. We may be trying to make ourselves look better than others. We may have selfish goals.


Getting into the Word

Verse #1
1 Corinthians 2:2 …  “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

The apostle Paul’s resolve was focused on Christ crucified.  Look at the context of this verse (verses 1-5). What might the people have thought was the motivation behind Paul’s preaching?

  • They might have thought he was trying to make a name for himself by his oratorical skills. Or at least that he was trusting in his own wisdom and eloquence to convert others.

Why was Paul resolved to focus only on Christ?

  • He understood that faith was the working of God’s power through the message about Jesus’ death and resurrection. Finally, the most important thing was for people to believe in Christ as their Savior.

What do these words tell us about the focus of our resolutions, goals, and promises?

  • Our most important goals are those that will have eternal benefits. That’s not to say that we can’t have other goals, and we can make promises related to our day-to-day lives. But it is important to remember spiritual priorities.

In what way can keeping promises to others, as well as faithfully pursuing “non-spiritual” goals, reflect on the cross or have spiritual implications?

  • By our diligence and faithfulness, we are honoring Christ, whose name we bear. As others witness our faithfulness, they may be inclined to listen to the hope we have in Christ.


Verse #2
Luke 9:51 … “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”

What was the context of this statement? Why are these words from Scripture so comforting?

  • As the time came for Jesus to accomplish his work and return to heaven, he set out, determined to go to Jerusalem and suffer the consequences of our sins. He was resolute in carrying out his mission to redeem us.

Evaluate this statement: Jesus kept his eyes focused not just on Jerusalem, but on the necessity of his death.

  • Jesus knew the cross that awaited him. But he knew that our eternal well-being depended upon him. So he was determined to take the cross upon himself.

 How did we benefit as a result of Jesus’ resolve?

  • The result of Jesus’ resolve is our eternal welfare. We have life now and forever because of his resolve on our behalf.

 How does Jesus’ work influence our goals and promises?

  • Nothing is more important than the hope and peace that is ours through Christ.


Closing Prayer

  • Dear Jesus, our Savior, please help us to keep our resolutions, especially those that have spiritual implications. We live gratefully in you, for you carried out your resolution for us by dying on the cross. You did not shrink back from the most difficult task of all, because you were determined to bring benefit to us all. Instead of running away from our own good goals, help us to trust in you and overcome our fears of failure. In your name, our resurrected Lord, we pray. Amen.

_____________________

Quoted verses from: Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
26
Dec
2022

Truths to ponder in our hearts — and tell to the world

Thoughts in reflection on the Christmas gospel

Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them (Luke 2:19-20).

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A traditional storyteller beginning In the Arab world goes, “This happened or maybe it did not. The time is long past and much is forgot” (The Paris Review, 2018). When a story starts in such a way, like, “Once upon a time,” you know right away that it’s a fable.

When the account of Christmas starts out, “And it came to pass in those days” (Luke 2:1 KJV), I suppose some might think it one of those fanciful sorts of stories. But if you listen closer, that’s not what the Gospel writer intended us to think:

  • “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered” (Luke 2:1-3). 

Luke strove to recount history as it had actually happened. Luke was a studious man, a physician by training. He investigated everything carefully, in order to relate events “just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses.” His goal was “to write an orderly account,” wanting us to “know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed” (Luke 1:1-4).

I will admit, you’ll find all sorts of debates as to whether Luke got the historical details right. Was his timing off as to when Quirinius governed the province of Syria and when Caesar Augustus put orders in motion for registering the populace in that part of the Roman world? I’d not worry yourself over whether Luke’s historical record aligns exactly with other ancient historical records. It is good simply to take in and understand that what Luke reports to us is a historical record. This isn’t a story of “there was (or maybe there was not) a child born in Bethlehem.”  This isn’t “once upon a time.”  This is the account of how God came into our world in an astonishing way, in the birth of the Christ child. It is an account that shows how God has accomplished great wonders in and through the lives of ordinary people.  It is an inspiration to us today, as we continue to live under God’s grace, knowing that God came to be with us, among us, in person, in Jesus Christ. It is a truth that moves us to live in service to others and with confidence in our eternal future.

When we hear miracle stories from the Bible, we may come away with the impression that supernatural things were being seen and heard all the time in those days. But bear in mind, the record of the Bible tells of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of human history. There were miraculous happenings at key times in that history, and those events etch themselves in our memories. But mostly, for God’s people long ago, just like for us today, most days things would appear more ordinary. In the book of Samuel, we are told,  “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread” (1 Samuel 3:1).  When God began speaking to Samuel as a prophet, that was highly extraordinary. Samuel’s mentor, Eli, had to help him understand what was happening, as it was so totally unexpected (1 Samuel 3:2-18). We’re typically not looking for the interventions of God in our lives. We often don’t recognize God’s interventions when they happen in the course of ordinary events. And even when God has acted in special, miraculous ways, it intersects with the actions of ordinary people in the regular course of their lives.

Think, for instance, of what transpired for Mary and Joseph leading up to the birth of Jesus. Mary received a miraculous visit from an angel, informing her that she, an ordinary young woman, had been chosen to be the birth mother of God incarnate. A child conceived by the Spirit of God himself would grow in her womb (Luke 1:26-38). Understandably, Joseph had a hard time believing that story about his fiancee–until an angel convinced him also that the supernatural really was happening (Matthew 1:18-25).  But then, things went back to normalcy.  Joseph and Mary began everyday life together in the northern town of Nazareth. And during the first months of their marriage, a very this-world sort of event interrupted their plans. The government imposed a registration. We find it inconvenient when the government imposes an annual tax filing deadline on us. When a census is done every ten years, we may find that inconvenient too. Imagine if the federal government required not just a mailed or online filing of forms. Imagine if you had to travel to wherever your family’s ancestry was first established in this country and register in person.  That was the way Rome did things back in the empire days. Registrations were a sort of census-taking, for various purposes (cf. Bible Archaeology Report, 2019).  Rome did several official “lustrums” (as they called them) during Augustus’ reign to register people for the purposes of taxation. It seems most likely, though, by the timing, that the registration that made Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem was a special registration for a different reason. Rome was commemorating the 750th anniversary of its founding and the 25th anniversary of Augustus’ reign as caesar. The Roman Senate had given Augustus the title, “Father of the Fatherland” (Pater Patriae), and Augustus called for all persons across the empire to sign their allegiance to him and to Rome (An Unusual Census Decree, 2018, also Christianity.com, 2010).  So, Joseph had to go with Mary, who carried the very Son of God in her womb, on a trip of 90 miles, to comply with an earthly government requirement.  

In the midst of what seemed the standard course of human events, God was intervening in a way few were aware of. While the powerful in this world were taking a headcount to reassert their power and control over people’s lives, God was carrying out his own plans to bring grace and hope to people’s lives–through the coming of the Prince of Peace.

God would show the blessing and strength of his plans during the course of Jesus’ life and in what transpired afterward. Jesus brought good news to the poor (Matthew 11:5). Jesus showed himself to be the way, the truth, and life (John 14:6).  Under the weight of the Roman Empire and its power, Jesus was put to death–crucified–though he had committed no sin.  But God raised him up again, “because it was impossible for him to be held in death’s power” (Acts 2:24). And because of what they had witnessed in Christ and in his resurrection, those who knew him as their Savior began  “turning the world upside down,” because they knew there was “another king named Jesus” (Acts 17:6,7)–more important and more worthy of our allegiance than any caesar or earthly ruler.

Christ’s first followers testified, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16).  The gospel of Jesus was no fantasy story or hoax. The miracle of Christ’s birth and of his life on this earth and his death and resurrection–these earth-changing events were the best of good news. Convinced of the truth of Christ’s story, we today will continue spreading the good news of great joy that was first heard from angels on Christmas eve. Peace and good will from God, in Jesus, for all people on earth!

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Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
30
Apr
2022

Springtime book promotion

Free ebooks May 1 thru May 12

I had a dozen days available to use for Amazon Kindle ebook giveaways.  So, I’ve scheduled ebooks to be available for free download starting May 1, according to the schedule shown below.  If you don’t have a Kindle tablet for ebooks, the Kindle Cloud Reader is available, or you can install the Kindle app on your computer.   You also can get the Kindle app for iOS and Android to use on your phone.

If you take advantage of one or more of the free book offers, I’d appreciate reviews posted on Amazon’s site. All reviews are welcome, whether you like the book you read or not. Even bad reviews are better than no reviews!

Here’s the schedule of free download dates for books:

If you happen to miss the free download dates for any books, they are also available for sale in both Kindle and paperback formats.

Happy springtime, and happy reading!

Posted by David Sellnow